Congress
FEMA officials worry Trump will divert disaster aid to the border
In 2019, then-President Donald Trump took $155 million from the federal government’s main disaster fund and used it to build immigration facilities near the U.S.-Mexico border.
Now senior officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency are expressing concern that Trump could again redirect disaster resources after he takes office, but on a much larger scale. That could limit FEMA’s ability to help people and communities after major disasters, they say.
“But I am concerned that could happen, or that FEMA is given tasks to do things that are in support of immigration programs, whether it’s deportation or other aspects of immigration,” the agency’s chief of staff, Michael Coen, said in a rare interview.
“It could divert DRF funding from what members of Congress and the American people believe is its intended purpose,” Coen said, referring to FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund, which helps households and communities survive and rebuild.
“It would be demoralizing to the staff, who believe they’re there to support disaster survivors and mitigate against natural disasters,” he added.
Coen, who was appointed to his post in 2021 by President Joe Biden, spoke as he prepares to leave the agency, where he has worked under every Democratic president since Bill Clinton.
Other Biden appointees told Blue Light News’s E&E News they fear that Trump will use FEMA’s disaster money and staff to fulfill his vows to deport millions of undocumented migrants. Although FEMA aid is supposed to be spent on natural disasters such as floods, wildfires and storms, previous presidents have used some of the money to help the nation recover from terrorist attacks.
President Jimmy Carter gave disaster aid to four South Florida counties in 1980 after a mass emigration of Cubans to the U.S. known as the Mariel boatlift.
FEMA has faced budget shortfalls for two years, forcing the agency to restrict disaster spending and to seek additional funding from a reluctant Congress. The agency was financially sound when Trump diverted FEMA funds for building the border facility. It had $26 billion in disaster reserves at the time.
Coen said his concerns are “general” and based on how the Trump administration had sought to use money from FEMA and other agencies for border activities.
“I don’t have anything specific. I haven’t heard anything,” Coen said.
Trump has not named a future FEMA administrator or said anything publicly about diverting disaster funds for immigration and border security. As a candidate this year, Trump inaccurately accused FEMA of diverting disaster funds to help secure the Southwest border.
He selected South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, to be secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA and immigration agencies such as Customs and Border Protection. Noem gained national attention in 2021 for sending South Dakota National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.
As part of Homeland Security, FEMA has handled a growing range of events unrelated to natural disasters. Biden put FEMA in charge of setting up coronavirus vaccination clinics nationwide. Congress directed FEMA to help set up shelters along the Southwest border with a special allotment of $650 million.
“I’m always concerned about mission creep and FEMA being given more problems to solve than what I think the American people think FEMA really should be doing,” Coen said. “The average person believes FEMA is there to help the country on its worst day and help disaster victims when they’re having their worst day.”
“But because FEMA is a problem-solver, FEMA was given the task at the beginning of this administration to set up the mass-vaccination clinics across the country, which vaccinated millions of people,” Coen said.
FEMA could ease its growing workload by responding to fewer routine natural disasters, Coen said.
“States probably need to take on more of the share of the response,” he said, noting that he supports increasing the cost threshold that FEMA uses to determine if an event has caused enough damage to merit disaster aid.
“Something needs to change, because it’s not sustainable the way it is,” Coen said.
Two prominent Senate Republicans are asking the Supreme Court to review the disbarment of John Eastman for helping orchestrate the plot to overturn the 2020 election for President Donald Trump.
It’s the latest effort from Senate Judiciary Committee members to mitigate the fallout from the election subversion effort that ended in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, who is poised to be the top Republican on the panel next Congress, and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, wrote in a brief filed with the Supreme Court on Wednesday that the decision to Eastman’s license to practice law in California was a result of political activists weaponizing the bar disciplinary process against attorneys on “the disfavored side of public controversies.”
“An unpopular or even losing legal argument does not equal professional unfitness,” Lee and Cruz wrote.
The senators also argued that a state’s disagreement with an attorney’s reasonable judgment can’t be grounds for punishment and could have a chilling effect: “Zealous advocacy will disappear if professional survival depends on whether bar regulators later agree with an attorney’s legal analysis.”
Eastman, a former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, was identified by Biden-era special counsel Jack Smith as a co-conspirator in Trump’s alleged criminal plot to hang onto power in 2020. The attorney was criminally charged in Georgia and Arizona for his role in the scheme, and in April he was disbarred.
Lee, in correspondence uncovered by the now-disbanded House committee to investigate the attacks on Jan. 6, told Trump lawyer Cleta Mitchell that “Jan. 6 is a dangerous idea … Not just for the republic itself, but also for the president.” The senator was outlining that no court or state legislature had backed Trump’s effort to prove he had, in fact, won the election contest against Joe Biden and didn’t see Congress as a fitting backstop.
Smith testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September, where Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) called for Smith to also be disbarred.
Kyle Cheney contributed to this report.
Michael Whatley’s campaign has temporarily gone dark in North Carolina.
The Republican Senate nominee does not currently have future linear TV ad reservations booked in the race, a highly unusual move less than three weeks before Election Day in a state that was once considered a top GOP priority.
Whatley’s last broadcast TV ad aired one week ago, according to tracking firm AdImpact. The pause comes as Republicans and major outside GOP groups, including Senate Leadership Fund, disinvest from the state in an acknowledgement of the difficulty of beating Democratic nominee Roy Cooper in November.
“It’s a temporary pause and we’ll be back on the air shortly with our closing message that may or may not ask voters why does our elderly opponent refuse to answer basic questions about his health and ability to serve in the U.S. Senate,” Whatley spokesperson DJ Griffin said in a statement. “We are confident we have the resources needed to win the only poll that matters — Election Day in November.”
Former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s campaign, by contrast, has $7.4 million in future TV ad reservations, in addition to $11.2 million from outside groups. Republican outside groups have just $4.7 million reserved, giving Democrats a nearly 4 to 1 advantage in future TV ad spending, according to an analysis of AdImpact data.
The move by Whatley’s campaign is rare this close to the election, a period when candidates typically ramp up their advertising as voters begin casting ballots.
“It was always going to be a tough seat for Rs to hold,” said Doug Heye, a longtime GOP strategist who is from North Carolina. “Trump’s numbers are in the tank and Cooper is a good candidate who has won statewide. This is what was always going to happen.”
Cooper, who has repeatedly led Whatley in public polling and candidate fundraising, enters the final stretch of the campaign as the clear frontrunner over Whatley, a former chair of the Republican National Committee and the handpicked candidate of President Donald Trump.
A spokesperson for Cooper sharply refuted the Whatley campaign’s characterizations about the Democrat’s health: “These are more desperate lies from a desperate candidate,” Kate Smart said in a statement. “Roy Cooper has held over 350 events over the course of this campaign, is in excellent health and will obviously serve his full term.”
Major outside groups on both sides have already begun retreating from North Carolina. The GOP-aligned Senate Leadership Fund paused its spending in the state earlier this month, while other Republican groups, including Old North Action, have also pulled back.
Democrats are increasingly bullish on Cooper’s chances of flipping the seat — one of four pickups the party needs to win back the Senate, assuming it defends all of its current seats. The Democratic-aligned Senate Majority PAC has also started pausing its spending in North Carolina, increasingly turning their attention to fund other, competitive Senate races.
Top Republican officials are increasingly accepting the House may already be lost as they shift to trying to limit the damage and salvage a Senate majority.
After waiting for weeks to see if the party’s deluge of money could help a raft of GOP incumbents who appeared to be in terrible shape in internal polling, more recent internal Republican polling still shows deep erosion in Trump country.
Now, Trump officials and Republican operatives say more candidates may have their funding from GOP campaign groups cut off in the coming days, before it’s too late to spend the money elsewhere to shore up other shaky races.
“I speak to a lot of people. There is no one who has privately stated that they believe Republicans can hold the House — not in recent weeks, anyway,” said former Rep. Carlos Curbelo, who lost in the last big House Democratic wave in 2018 after representing a South Florida swing district.
Five senior House Republicans, granted anonymity to candidly discuss their party’s precarious position, told Blue Light News the House has all but slipped from their grasp.
One of those Republicans compared the situation to Democrats’ 2006 flip of the House — specifically noting that potential Senate seat flips in North Carolina and Ohio could have downballot effects, while House candidates in redrawn red states like Florida and Texas are “hanging on with their fingernails.”
President Donald Trump’s political operation and the top House GOP super PAC have been cutting off ad spending across the map in races they feel are no longer winnable or worth the money, including for Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Tom Kean Jr.
And some national operatives are already starting to point fingers over who’s to blame, arguing that surprisingly-competitive Senate races are sucking away donor attention — therefore forcing House operatives into tough spending decisions.
White House officials insist they’re not giving up on the House, and that moves by the president and his team to shift the allocation of resources shouldn’t be seen as them prioritizing one chamber over another.
“The cutting of resources should not dictate what the philosophy is or what the outlook is for the overall race at large,” a senior White House official said. “It’s not doom and gloom around here. Everyone’s very positive, upbeat.”
But on the ground, Republicans seem to be giving up hope for any saving grace from the president in the final stretch.
“President Trump has made this election all about himself,” a second senior House Republican said in an interview. “Now we have to survive that political storm.”
What else we’re watching:
— WATERS, CASTEN FACE OFF ROILS DEMS: House Democrats are poised to face a polarizing choice on the other side of the midterm elections: Shove aside one of the most prominent Black progressives in their party in favor of a middle-aged White guy with similar policy views, or hand one of the most powerful gavels in Congress back to a nearly 90-year-old as their base clamors for generational change. That fight between Rep. Sean Casten, 54, and Maxine Waters, 88, to be Financial Services’ top Democrat also threatens to derail the party’s unity as members race to take back control of the chamber.
— GOP’S TAX CUT DATA DELAYED: The Trump administration is delaying the release of detailed data showing how Republicans’ 2025 tax cuts affected millions of Americans’ taxes, even as it tries to tout the law ahead of the midterms. The data — which is expected to provide the first detailed look at taxpayers taking advantage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, including new deductions for overtime wages and tipped income — was scheduled to be released in July and updated in September. But the IRS said it’s awaiting approval to publish the figures. The delay has already irked some who complain it is part of a pattern of the administration withholding otherwise routine releases of tax data.
Meredith Lee Hill, Andrew Howard, Mia McCarthy, Jasper Goodman, Katherine Hapgood, Riley Rogerson and Brian Faler contributed to this report.
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