A Federal Emergency Management Agency worker has been fired after advising their disaster relief team to skip the homes with yard signs supporting president-elect Donald Trump, according to the agency's administrator.
“This is a clear violation of FEMA’s core values and principles to help people regardless of their political affiliation,” FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said in a post on X on Saturday. “This was reprehensible.”
“I want to be clear to all of my employees and the American people, this type of behavior and action will not be tolerated at FEMA and we will hold people accountable if they violate these standards of conduct,” the agency leader added.
FEMA has been providing aid to southeastern states after Hurricanes Helene and Milton devastated the region.
The employee was not identified and Criswell did not specify where or when the incident occurred.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, whose home state was rampaged by Milton last month, suggested the incident occurred in Florida.
He directed the Division of Emergency Management to launch a probe into the federal government’s “targeted discrimination of Floridians who support Donald Trump,” the Republican governor wrote on X on Friday after the Daily Wire first reported the incident.
“New leadership is on the way in DC, and I’m optimistic that these partisan bureaucrats will be fired,” DeSantis continued.
Criswell vowed to hold employees accountable: “I will continue to do everything I can to make sure this never happens again.”
The FEMA administrator was called to testify at a House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing on November 19, the committee chair James Comer wrote in a letter Saturday.
“This hearing will address FEMA's response to recent major natural disasters, including Hurricanes Helene and Milton, and permit members to investigate recent reports that a FEMA official instructed relief workers to bypass hurricane-impacted homes displaying campaign signs for President Trump,” the letter stated. “In the wake of the recent major disasters that impacted Americans of all political persuasions, it is critical that FEMA adheres to its disaster relief mission.”
The incident comes a month after Donald Trump and his allies spread falsehoods about FEMA’s response to the disasters, including claims that the federal government was only providing $750 to disaster survivors. At the time, the White House clarified that survivors could get an initial $750 after applying for Serious Needs Assistance — just one of many federal relief programs— to help cover essential items like food, water, baby formula, and medication.
Also last month, Trump threatened to withhold federal fire-fighting aid from California.
He told California rallygoers: “We’re going to take care of your water situation and we’ll force it down [Gavin Newsom’s] throat and we’ll say, ‘Gavin if you don’t do it we’re not giving you any of that fire money that we send you all the time for all the forest fires that you have’,” Trump said at a rally in Coachella, California.
