Trump FEMA news took a sharp reversal Thursday when CNN reported the president plans to nominate Cameron Hamilton as FEMA administrator, less than a year after Hamilton was fired in May 2025 for testifying before Congress that the agency should not be eliminated, directly contradicting statements Trump and then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had made.
Summary
- Hamilton, a former Navy SEAL who served four tours in Afghanistan, visited the White House Wednesday alongside new DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin for a meeting with Trump; DHS said it has “no personnel announcements to make at this time.”
- If confirmed, Hamilton would become the first permanent FEMA administrator of Trump’s second term, ending 15 months of acting leadership through three different officials.
- The nomination reflects the administration’s pullback from Noem’s aggressive FEMA overhaul, which cut 30% of the agency’s workforce, cratered morale, and created a multibillion-dollar backlog in disaster funding that drew bipartisan backlash.
Trump FEMA news confirmed a significant policy reversal as CNN reported Thursday that President Trump plans to nominate Cameron Hamilton to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency, roughly eleven months after Hamilton was removed from the acting administrator role following testimony that defended the agency’s existence against the administration’s own stated plans to dismantle it.
Hamilton was fired on May 8, 2025, a day after telling a House committee: “I do not believe it is in the best interests of the American people to eliminate FEMA.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt later said Hamilton “testified saying something that was contrary to what the president believes.” Multiple sources subsequently told CNN the decision to fire him had been in the works for weeks.
The agency Hamilton would return to is different from the one he left. Noem’s overhaul hollowed out its senior leadership, cut roughly 30% of the workforce, cratered morale across the organization, and produced what state and local officials nationwide called a multibillion-dollar backlog in approved but unpaid disaster assistance. Republican governors, Republican lawmakers, and emergency management professionals pushed back loudly. Trump fired Noem in March.
New DHS Secretary Mullin has been rolling back Noem-era directives, starting with a rule that required Mullin’s personal approval for any department spending over $100,000. Mullin has traveled to disaster-affected regions and praised FEMA’s capabilities publicly, striking a sharply different tone than his predecessor.
Hamilton in April wrote on X thanking Trump for his original opportunity to lead FEMA. “I wish my tenure had been longer, as there is still much more work to do for reform,” he wrote. “I am confident that under Mullin’s leadership, good things will come.”
Who Hamilton Is
Hamilton served four tours in Afghanistan as a Navy SEAL before supporting crisis response teams and the Bureau of Counterterrorism at the State Department. He then oversaw DHS’s emergency first responder division before being tapped to lead FEMA at the start of Trump’s second term.
His original tenure was defined by drama: a lie detector test ordered by DHS leadership, a leaked policy meeting discussing FEMA’s potential dissolution, and being accidentally tipped off to his own firing when FEMA security received a notification that his access would be terminated.
While Hamilton defended FEMA’s purpose in his 2025 testimony, he also argued the agency had “evolved into an overextended federal bureaucracy attempting to manage every type of emergency, no matter how minor,” a position that aligns with reform without abolition. That framing is more politically durable heading into a hurricane season that begins June 1 and runs until November, the same month as the midterm elections that the administration is preparing every major policy decision around.
The administration’s retreat on FEMA mirrors the same pattern seen on CLARITY Act negotiations and RFK Jr.’s vaccine messaging: positions that proved too aggressive for the electoral environment are being walked back before they become campaign liabilities.
