Trump’s FEMA Pick Aimed to ‘Radically’ Shrink Disaster Agency

May 12, 2026, 2:22 PM UTC

President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency wrote a memo last spring laying out how to kill the disaster agency.

At the time, Cameron Hamilton was FEMA’s interim chief — a role that didn’t last long. When called before Congress, he endorsed keeping the agency, not ending it as outlined in his own memo, titled “Abolishing FEMA.” That publicly put him at odds with his two bosses, Trump and Kristi Noem, then Homeland Security secretary. Hamilton, a former Navy SEAL, was pushed out of the administration within a day.

Now, Hamilton is on the ...

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