President Donald Trump has nominated Cameron Hamilton to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), a year after he was fired as the agency’s acting administrator.
Hamilton previously served in that role from January to May of last year, before being removed shortly after he testified to Congress that FEMA should not be dismantled—something that Trump and then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem had proposed.
“As the senior advisor to the President on disasters and emergency management, and to the Secretary of Homeland Security, I do not believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency,” Hamilton said during a House Appropriations Committee hearing on May 7, 2025.
The remarks followed testimony the previous day from Noem, in which she stated that “President Trump has been very clear since the beginning that he believes that FEMA and its response in many, many circumstances has failed the American people, and that FEMA, as it exists today, should be eliminated in empowering states to respond to disasters with federal government support.”
Hamilton was fired a day after testifying before the committee.
Read more: Who Has Trump Fired? The High-Ranking Officials Replaced in the President’s Second Term
Months later, he publicly pushed back on the Trump Administration’s handling of the agency in an apparent response to a FEMA spokesperson defending the Administration’s moves by saying it had previously been “bogged down by red tape, inefficiency, and outdated processes that failed to get disaster dollars into survivors’ hands.”
“Stating that @fema is operating more efficiently, and cutting red tape is either: uninformed about managing disasters; misled by public officials; or lying to the American the public to prop up talking points,” Hamilton wrote on social media in August. “FEMA is saving money which is good due to the astronomical U.S. Debt from Congress. Despite this, FEMA staff are responding to entirely new forms of bureaucracy now that is lengthening wait times for claim recipients, and delaying the deployment of time sensitive resources.”
The Administration has appeared to back away from its push to abolish FEMA entirely since Hamilton’s removal, though it is seeking to shake up the agency and shift responsibility for disaster preparedness and response significantly toward state and local governments.
Hamilton would be FEMA’s first permanent administrator since Trump returned to the White House, if he is confirmed by the Senate.
Prior to his tenure as the agency’s acting leader last year, Hamilton briefly served as the Associate Administrator of the Office of Response and Recovery at FEMA following an unsuccessful run for Congress in Virginia in 2024.
He previously worked at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as the Director of the Emergency Medical Services Division, where he oversaw the operations of thousands of EMTs, first responders, and medical programs working out of the department, after serving on crisis response teams at the Bureau of Counterterrorism within the State Department, according to a biography shared by Congress in connection with his testimony last year.
Hamilton was also a Navy SEAL operator for over a decade before his work in the federal government.
While he defended FEMA before Congress last year when asked about whether he supported abolishing it, Hamilton had criticized the agency prior to being tapped to serve as its acting administrator. And while he was in that role, FEMA made several moves that raised concern from current or former agency staffers at the time, including moving to eliminate a popular grant program intended to help communities protect against natural disasters, stopping door-to-door canvassing to speak with survivors after disasters, and initiating a review of disaster relief programs that provide aid to migrants.
Hamilton would be returning to lead a smaller agency than when he previously served as its acting administrator. FEMA has seen mass reductions to its workforce amid the broader cuts to the federal government during Trump’s second term.
However, the agency is now moving to rehire disaster response staffers who were previously fired as it works to “stabilize our workforce and strengthen readiness,” in the words of a FEMA spokesperson.
“Under new leadership, FEMA is addressing outstanding personnel actions to ensure workforce stability and a strong, deployable surge force for upcoming national events and potential disasters,” Victoria Barton, FEMA’s associate administrator of the Office of External Affairs, told news outlets last month.
On Thursday, a Trump-appointed FEMA task force released a set of proposals in which it defined goals for the agency moving forward.
The President’s Council to Assess the Federal Emergency Management Agency recommended transferring much of the onus for disaster relief to states and localities, while reserving the deployment of federal assistance for “truly significant events.”But it also stopped short of calling for the agency’s elimination, instead advising that it be “transformed.”
“It is time to close the chapter on FEMA,” the task force wrote. “‘FEMA’ as a brand and as an agency was irreparably damaged by the previous Administration’s proclivity to mission creep and endemic program failures. A transformed agency should be established that retains the core missions of FEMA, while highlighting the renewed emphasis on locally executed, state or tribally managed, and federally supported emergency management.”
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