To cap off one of the most extraordinary first weeks of any administration in American history, President Donald Trump traveled to disaster zones in North Carolina and California on Friday to receive an update from officials on the ground – and demand that more be done to help victims.
The fact that Trump visited two states on opposite sides of the country in one day is a breath of fresh air following four years in which Biden rarely strayed from the White House or his Delaware home. Americans will no doubt remember that it took Biden more than a year to visit the site of the toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, and weeks to travel to Hawaii when wildfires ripped through the historic town of Lahaina.
When Hurricane Helene devastated the Southeast last September, it was also then-candidate Donald Trump, not President Joe Biden, who was first on the scene. The contrast in leadership could not have been starker – as Trump was comforting flood victims, Biden was sequestered in the White House while Kamala Harris was attending a swanky fundraiser in San Francisco.
During that visit four months ago, Trump pledged that he would not forget the people affected by Helene, many of whom are still without permanent housing. Even before he arrived in North Carolina on Friday, he was already making good on that promise, with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announcing a two-month extension of temporary housing for displaced residents.
Trump also said on Friday that he plans to overhaul FEMA, which has drawn criticism for its handling of the Helene response. “We’re going to fix it, and we’re going to fix it as fast as we can,” Trump stated. “It’s a massive amount of damage. FEMA has really let us down. Let the country down. And I don’t know if that’s Biden’s fault or whose fault it is, but we’re going to take over. We’re going to do a good job.”
To start that overhaul, Trump tapped Cameron Hamilton as interim director of FEMA. Hamilton, a former Navy SEAL who has been a vocal critic of FEMA’s response in North Carolina, has already pledged to investigate the agency’s failures.
But for Trump, it’s not just about ensuring a better response to future disasters – it’s also about giving a voice to those who felt forgotten and abandoned under the Biden administration. In a moment that perfectly encapsulated his compassion for these everyday Americans, Trump handed over his press conference to victims on Friday, allowing them to tell their stories on national television. In one case, Trump even encouraged a father holding his young daughter, both of them bundled up against the January cold, to name the insurance company that had refused him a payout.
A few hours later, in Los Angeles, Trump again displayed empathy and compassion for victims of the wildfires that have devastated America’s second-largest city – while also not hesitating to criticize city and state officials for their failures.
During a roundtable discussion on the response to the blazes which have displaced more than 150,000 people in Southern California, Trump demanded that L.A. Mayor Karen Bass – who was sitting just feet away from him – use her emergency powers to allow residents to return to their homes.
“I just think you have to allow the people to go on their site and start the process tonight,” Trump told Bass, to which she responded, “We want people to be safe” and suggested that residents may be able to return to their burned homes in about a week.
“I watched hundreds of people standing in front of their lots, and they’re not allowed to go in,” Trump retorted. “It’s all burned. It’s gone, it’s done. Nothing’s going to happen… You have emergency powers, just like I do, and I’m exercising my emergency powers. You have to exercise them also.”
In reprimanding Bass, Trump echoed outraged residents looking on at the exchange and shouting protests. “We can’t even see our homes right now!” one local woman complained. As one user put it on X, “Trump is literally arguing with the mayor of LA for the betterment of the people of California, on live TV. How can anyone side with her? Trump is truly a man of the people. Thank God we have him.”
Trump also announced that he would waive federal permits to expedite rebuilding while pressuring Bass and California Governor Gavin Newsom to do the same. Permitting, in particular, has become a top concern as reconstruction efforts begin, as the Golden State has some of the nation’s most strict and complicated building codes.
The fact that Trump chose two disaster zones for the first official trip of his second term is, in many ways, a fitting symbol of the mission that voters elected him to accomplish. The last four years have left the country in tatters, from the wide-open border to the faltering economy and chaos abroad. However, as Trump has shown in North Carolina and California, he is determined to face any problem head-on, and he’s not afraid to call out anyone who stands between him and serving the American people.
Andrew Shirley is a veteran speechwriter and AMAC Newsline columnist. His commentary can be found on X at @AA_Shirley.
Excellent article. When I saw the victims of hurricane Helene tell their story instead of the president talking. My thoughts immediately were. President Trump puts the people first. It brought tears to my eyes. These people were forgotten and all had a need to tell their story. And president Trump understood that. Nobody else had done that. They talked amongst themselves about it. But here was the president of the United States and he let them tell their story. More impactful than if he told their stories. And that is the difference between dems and reps between Biden and Trump. It’s a difference between the people of America first and not the migrants breaking the immigration laws and FEMA money going to pay for their living expenses and ignoring the people in North Carolina. Compassion over hatred. Caring over indifference. Action over ignoring the problem because Biden and Harris needed the money for the Ukraine. Common sense and love has returned to America.
President Trump has done above and beyond what a lot of presidents have done.
The American people truly don’t care about government sponsored woke ideology, but they do care about their way of life. Unfortunately, everything has to be undone in order to get back to serving the American people. The left had gambled that spending tax payers money on things that don’t matter, won’t affect the things that do. It took a major catastrophic event to show citizens what their election choices have brought about. No one cares about social issues if you don’t have a place to live.
GOOD FOR TRUMP!!!!!!!………ARREST BIDEN & HARRIS AS ACCOMPLICES FOR THE MURDERS THAT ILLEGALS CAUSED OF OUR U.S. CITIZENS!!!!!
Biden really was the worst president, never to have been elected! His entire life, he was nothing but a criminal. He stole classified documents and probably sold them to the CCP then him and his criminal democrats stole and hurried to certify the 2020 election, before it could be contested. After that, the crooks he put in place into government agencies, made all evidence of his and his criminal son’s crimes go away! Even at the end of his horrible presidency, he pre-pardoned anyone that had participated in his crimes along the way and pardoned every one of his family members because they all had recieved illegal laundered money from their crimes! He pardoned criminals in prison for horrible crimes too! 8000plus pardons! What a crook and he got away with it all mostly because of other criminal democrats within our government!
God has answered prayers to put a good leader back in the WH. We are blessed, and seeing the beginnings of a great reset.
Thank God for President Trump. Pray for him and our country. If he wasn’t the leader that God chose for America then either one of those assassination attempts would have worked, or he would have lost the election. They threw all of the evil and corruption they could imagine at him but, I believe, God prevailed. There is hope for America after all.
Its a banner day in California: Newsome claims he’ll “roll back regulations” his party is responsible for implementing in the first place (got a start date on that?) plus its the 20-year anniversary of Democrats 5-year plan to end homelessness in California.
I feel very sorry about what happened in CA, BUT, not one dime should go to a state that releases illegal aliens right before ICE shows up to capture them. Orange County let 500 CRIMINALS out of jail, all with ICE detainers right before agents showed up to get them. They caught a few, after those idiots decided to go commit yet another crime right after being released. And Orange County is a mostly red county!! People MUST stand up to Newsom, especially those in LA. NO MONEY TO CA UNTIL THEY END SANCTUARY laws that are harming the rest of America. Sorry, people who just lost their homes, but this has to end!
Trump is the man.
EVER UPWARD, EVER ONWARD!
But FEMA is only one of many, the only difference is that it’s failure is evident right away, others after a while, no one ever suggested to shut them down ,open the books, see how the money is spent and examine the results of their existence, many for decades . Undisturbed, unchallenged, just pay up and don’t ask stupid questions. There is a need for a shake up the size of an earthquake right across the whole cozy set up. Get rid of the comfy couch, nothing wrong with a good solid sturdy wooden chair.
One helluva strong contrast from the previous administration!!!!
How did America ever let that happen?
When you hate someone or something you will work hard at doing and saying whatever you can to hurt that someone or something. Joe Biden hates America and Americans. Hopefully this simplifies what seems to be so confusing for so many.
For our friends, relatives and neighbors who say that they are not political, may their eyes become opened to the reality that no American should feel it a right to sit back, allow fraud, corruption and abuse to occur all the while not taking any role to save our great homeland and its people. I suggest that all of us present as gifts a subscription to this excellent magazine to each and everyone of them. And, a very sincere Thank You to all of you (especially our loyal and faithful rally goers) who have given of your talents, concern and vote to return our county to greatness under the leadership of God’s chosen President Trump.
Amen.
It’s so refreshing to have someone who actually uses common sense , and wisdom.
Victory
To most “Democrat” politicians, their elected position is much more about status and privilege than doing the hard work… such as advocating for support of people whose homes and communities have been, or could be, devastated by natural conditions that require careful management, or, advocating for control of illegal immigration, as this has been the cause of many needless murders, street crimes, rapes and robberies… that have harmed many neighborhoods and brought tragedy to many American families. Our “Democrat” leaders are to blame for bringing these troubling circumstances into existence, though, they want people to honor them for doing nothing but making things for our country worse… as they luxuriate in support by foreign donors.
That was the NC Farm Bureau who would not help that man in NC.
while i agree investigating the failure and punishing those who caused it are important putting the state back together is more important to those voters affected.
Thank God above that there is someone who has the American people in their sights as worthy of consideration. After four years of illegal aliens being more worth effort than American citizens, it’s a breath of fresh air. Lahaina, Helene, Los Angeles—we can afford to house illegals in $350/night hotels but not give our own even a trailer to stay in while they fix their homes? It’s a disaster on top of a disaster.
Trump is a breathe of fresh air compared to that old totalitarian fool. He truly cares about people and will send help quicker than Biden can take off his diaper.
Everyone stand with Trump! God has anointed him to reverse things in our country and help fix our country and we need to get back with our savior Jesus Christ.
Not a single troll comment. So far.
Now we have the REAL PRESIDENT OF AMERICA and he is the man in charge.
It’s amazing to see what a businessperson can accomplish. People who run businesses need action TODAY…not next month, not after a panel discusses it, not waiting for a dozen committees to have been selected to oversee the “progress”. These people in NC and CA are desperate!
For the mayor of LA to sit that close to President Trump and smile while saying “maybe in a week…for safety…”–and then Trump said a week is an eternity, and that they must have access to their property NOW. Loved that. This proves that political elites have no empathy…not until it happens to them.
Trump is doing great things for this country, and everyone is hearing about it. Where would biden be right now? Sitting on the beach licking his ice cream cone? These 2 men are worlds apart.
How anybody can still want to vote Democrat, after the disastrous last 4 years is beyond my comprehension.
It is refreshing to have a President who takes seriously the plight of the American people and does something about it.
FEMA, Federal Extreme Malfeasance Agency. Get them out of the road and let Qualified people in there to WORK.
A lesson one should learn–It doesn’t take long to burn something down, but it does take time to rebuild. Whether in real-life LA or in any other situation, the DIMMs are destroyers! Stupid Brad Sherman tried to equate pro-life policies in Louisiana with CA’s destructive forestry and water-use policies! I don’t think that pro-life policies cause hurricane destruction but I’m quite sure that DIMMs’ policies cause fire destruction!
I’m glad I voted for President Trump! He has shown the kind if action we have needed for the last four yeas, but did not get from the Democrats.
It’s amazing how many things the MSM does not cover. Trump is truly the best president to happen to America in history. I wonder how long it will take for history to show that. The liberal communist anti American DemoncRAT mainstream media is disgusting.