President Donald Trump’s second term has brought sustained turmoil to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, driven by his stated desire to eliminate the agency and push responsibility for disaster response onto individual states. The administration is now offering a clearer look at what that shift would demand.

FEMA Administrator Cameron Hamilton told state officials Tuesday that they need larger financial reserves and stronger emergency capabilities so they can manage most disasters without federal assistance. His remarks described a model that would leave states carrying responsibilities the federal government has traditionally handled.

Hamilton delivered the comments during a conference in Little Rock, Arkansas. Politico reported that he offered unprecedented detail about the Trump administration’s long planned transfer of disaster responsibilities from the federal government to state governments.

“Every state must have the appropriate financial reserves” and other abilities “to ensure that recovery efforts can start immediately and not necessarily be held up simply because of the federal [disaster] declaration process,” Hamilton said, according to a recording obtained by Politico.

Hamilton also laid out the administration’s desired destination. “A future that I hope we would shoot for is one where we wouldn’t require as many disasters because the capability of states is so high and so substantial,” he said, referring to presidential authorizations for federal disaster assistance.

That vision tracks closely with Trump’s stated position that FEMA should be destroyed and states should be left to manage catastrophes themselves. Yet state and local governments do not possess the financial resources, personnel and equipment necessary to respond effectively to major disasters.

The federal government can organize responses before and after a crisis in ways that state and local governments cannot. Simply shifting responsibility does not create the money, staffing or equipment needed to make the administration’s preferred model function.

Hamilton’s history with the administration makes his latest remarks especially striking. In May 2025, when he was serving as acting FEMA chief, he testified before Congress that keeping FEMA in existence would serve the public interest.

Hamilton was fired the following day because that position conflicted with Trump’s stated desire to destroy the agency. After several acting FEMA administrators came and went, Trump brought Hamilton back roughly a year later for a second stint, and the Senate confirmed him soon afterward.

His current position is considerably more aligned with the White House. Rather than defending FEMA’s continued role, Hamilton is now telling states to prepare for a future in which federal disaster declarations and assistance could become less common.

Eric Holdeman, a longtime emergency management official, challenged the practicality of that agenda in a LinkedIn post responding to Hamilton’s memo. He pointed directly to the limited budgets and capabilities many states would bring to such a sweeping transfer of responsibility.

“There are many states with [minuscule] emergency management offices and budgets. There are states with slim rainy-day funds and no capacity to make up for a lack of federal disaster recovery funds — without RAISING TAXES!” Holdeman wrote.

Holdeman also argued that presidential politics would collide with any attempt to reduce federal disaster declarations. “Reducing the number of federal disaster declarations will be difficult and its implementation will be impossible! All Presidents, not just the one we have today, will ignore such a policy when it becomes politically expedient to do so.”

Despite those warnings, Hamilton indicated that the administration does not view this as a distant proposal. In leaked audio of his comments, he said changes should begin in earnest “in the next six months.”

The plan therefore presents states with a blunt message: Build reserves, expand emergency operations and prepare to carry far more of the burden when disaster strikes. What it does not provide is evidence that every state can assemble those resources or replace federal disaster recovery funding.

A Democratic Congress next year could produce meaningful resistance before the administration fully implements the plan. Until then, Trump’s effort to weaken FEMA is moving from presidential rhetoric toward a concrete policy that expects states to face major disasters with far less federal help.