Good evening! The Senate is set to vote tonight - on a Friday night! - on the nomination of former Fox News host Pete Hegseth to be secretary of defense. It's expected to be a close vote. Two GOP senators, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, voted against advancing Hegseth's nomination and will oppose his confirmation, but it's not clear if any other Republicans will join them. Hegseth can afford to lose just one more Republican. "If he is confirmed, it is likely to be by the smallest margin for that post in modern times," The New York Times notes.
Trump Proposes 'Getting Rid of FEMA' and Threatens to Withhold Disaster Aid for California
Traveling to North Carolina Friday to survey damage caused by last September's Hurricane Helene, President Donald Trump called for the overhaul of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and suggested that he might seek to eliminate the agency entirely.
While no final decision has been made on the fate of the agency, founded in 1978 to help coordinate the increasingly complex federal responses to natural disasters, Trump told reporters that he would sign an executive order "to begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA, or maybe getting rid of them." Later, he added that, "We're going to recommend that FEMA go away."
Speaking to the press before departing Washington, Trump complained about the conditions in North Carolina, where he said that destruction from the hurricane in the western part of the state has been allowed to "fester."
"North Carolina has been treated very badly," he said.
Once in the state, Trump questioned the way FEMA operates. In the future, Trump said he'd like to see "probably less FEMA, because FEMA just hasn't done the job." He added that "we're looking at the whole concept of FEMA," and suggested that disaster responses should be driven by individual states rather than the federal government. "I like, frankly, the concept: When North Carolina gets hit, the governor takes care of it. When Florida gets hit, the governor takes care of it, meaning the state takes care of it."
Trump claimed that local responses would be more efficient and cost considerably less. "Let the state take care of the tornadoes and the hurricanes and all of the other things that happen," he said. "And I think you're going to find it a lot less expensive. You'll do it for less than half, and you're going to get a lot quicker response."
In response to a reporter's question, Trump said that he wants any federal aid provided by Congress for disaster relief to flow through "us," presumably meaning the White House, rather than through FEMA. "I think maybe this is a good place to start, because - and in all fairness to the governor, in all fairness to everybody else, FEMA was not on the ball, and we're going to turn it all around."
Threats to California disaster aid: After his North Carolina visit the president headed west to survey the devastation caused by the recent fires in Los Angeles. Trump has clashed with political leaders in California in the past and has sharply criticized the state's response to the fires that have destroyed thousands of homes and businesses.
On Friday, Trump confirmed earlier indications that Republicans want to put requirements on disaster aid for California. "I want to see two things in Los Angeles. Voter ID, so that the people have a chance to vote, and I want to see the water be released and come down into Los Angeles and throughout the state," he told reporters. "Those are the two things. After that, I will be the greatest president that California has ever seen."
Trump has repeatedly claimed that California is holding back a significant supply of water, though it's not clear what he's referring to. "Think of a sink, but multiply it many thousands of times and you turn it back toward Los Angeles," he said earlier this week, referring to the mysterious water source. "The size of it, it's massive. Why aren't they doing it? They either have a death wish, they're stupid, or there's something else going on that we don't understand."
Gov. Gavin Newsom, the California Democrat who Trump accused this week of being part of the "radical left," rejected the idea that there is a great untapped water source that would have helped extinguish the fires. He said Trump was expressing "wild-eyed fantasies ... that somehow there's a magical spigot in Northern California that just can be turned on and all of a sudden there will be rain or water flowing everywhere."
As The Wall Street Journal's Jim Carlton reported, "Trump's talk of a spigot-which he calls a faucet or valve-has stumped observers for a while." Noting that Los Angeles gets much of its water from the Sierra Nevada mountains and not the Pacific Northwest or Canada, as Trump has suggested, Carlton was unable to dig up any further details on the secret spigot.
As for the other condition for getting aid, there appears to be no connection between Voter ID and disaster aid, but it does indicate that Trump is willing to use federal resources as leverage for political purposes. Unlike North Carolina - which Trump notably did not place any conditions on in exchange for federal aid - California voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, even as Trump mused that he might win that state.
California Sen. Alex Padilla pushed back against Trump's heavy-handed approach. "Trump says he'll only approve aid for fire victims if the state implements voter ID?" he said Friday. "This is nothing but pure political payback for a state that refused to support him in his last three presidential campaigns."
Poll of the Day: Americans See Problems in Government, but Have Doubts About Musk
Most Americans believe that corruption, inefficiency and bureaucratic red tape are major problems in the federal government, according to a new Associated Press-NORC poll, but many are also skeptical about President Donald Trump's creation of a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and most have an unfavorable view of the effort's leader, billionaire Elon Musk.
The poll, conducted from January 9 to 13, finds that 70% of U.S. adults call corruption a "major problem" for the federal government, while 65% say the same about inefficiency and 59% say regulations and bureaucracy are big challenges. Those percentages include sizeable majorities of Republicans and independents - and even Democrats, except for the "red tape" question.
At the same time, most Americans say that the United States is spending too little on programs including Social Security (67% say the government isn't spending enough); education (65%); help for the poor (62%); Medicare (61%) and Medicaid (55%). A slim majority of 51% says more should be spent on the border, while just 34% say the government is spending too little on the military.
The poll also finds that, even as most Americans see major problems with the government, only about three in 10 adults approve of the creation of DOGE, while 39% disapprove. Republicans are far more likely to favor the program, with 58% backing it compared to just 11% of Democrats. More than half of those polled (52%) have an unfavorable opinion of Musk, while 36% have a favorable view of him. And about six in 10 see the president's reliance on billionaires or family members for policy advice as a bad thing.
The poll of 1,147 adults has an overall margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.
Quote of the Day
"For all of Trump's rhetoric and political theatrics, it's important not to lose sight of the fact that he does not have as much power to deliver on his key pledges to boost US fossil fuel production and exports and reduce energy prices as he might suggest. ... More generally, given that tariffs on Canadian and Mexican oil imports could end up boosting US gasoline prices, this serves to highlight some of the inconsistencies between parts of the new policy agenda."
– Economists at Capital Economics in a note to clients Thursday looking at President Trump's declaration of a national energy emergency. The economists write that Trump's "scrapping of domestic energy regulations is unlikely to deliver on his near-term goal of reducing energy prices." They also forecast that "progress in reducing emissions in the US could slow or even halt during Trump's second term."
The New York Times notes that Trump's energy emergency doesn't really exist. "The United States is already the world's largest producer of oil and natural gas," The Times's Alan Rappeport and Colby Smith write. "The price of oil, about $76 per barrel, is in line with its average cost over the last two decades." They add that economists generally "remain skeptical of Mr. Trump's ability to influence energy costs - which are predominantly determined by global markets - and engineer an inflation cure-all."
Fiscal News Roundup
- Trump Suggests Eliminating FEMA During North Carolina Visit as He Attacks Disaster Response – CNN
- Trump Cites Voter ID, Water Flow as Conditions for LA Wildfire Aid – The Hill
- Trump LA Disaster Aid Salvo Riles California's Delegation – Politico
- Trump Keeps Urging California to Turn on Its Giant 'Faucet' – Wall Street Journal
- State Department Freezes New Funding for Nearly All US Aid Programs Worldwide – Associated Press
- Trump Pauses Disbursements to Program Supplying H.I.V. Treatment Worldwide – New York Times
- Republicans Plan Slew of Reconciliation Meetings at Their Florida Retreat – Politico
- 'Good Luck With That': Democrats Dubious of Working With Trump on Taxes – The Hill
- Chip Roy and Donald Trump Are on a Collision Course – Politico
- Swaths of U.S. Government Grind to a Halt After Trump Shock Therapy – Wall Street Journal
- Trump's Budget Pick, Russ Vought, Is Starting to Upend Washington – Washington Post
- Elon Musk's DOGE Has a New Target for Cutting Federal Spending: The U.S. Penny – CBS News
- US Economic Losses From Natural Disasters Soared in 2024, Even as They Eased Globally – Associated Press
- Trump Ends Fauci's Security Detail and Says He'd Feel No Responsibility if Harm Befell Him – Associated Press
- Trump Leaves Democrats Dazed and on the Defensive – New York Times
- UnitedHealthcare Taps Company Veteran Tim Noel as New CEO Following Brian Thompson Killing – CNBC
Views and Analysis
- 5 Economic Forces That Could Shape the First Year of Trump's Presidency – Josh Boak, Associated Press
- Trump's Inflation Fix Centers on Energy Emergency That Doesn't Exist – Alan Rappeport and Colby Smith, New York Times
- Egg Prices Are High. They Will Likely Go Higher – Julie Creswell, New York Times
- Trump Says He Will 'Demand' That Interest Rates Come Down, but It Won't Be That Simple – Christopher Rugaber, Associated Press
- Trump Is Imposing MAGA Rule on the Government Hour-by-Hour – Stephen Collinson, CNN
- How Trump Is Waging War on the So-Called Deep State – Ruth Marcus, Washington Post
- Trump and the Perils of Ungoverning – Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, Foreign Affairs
- Seizing the Panama Canal Would Be Both Dumb and Difficult – James Stavridis, Bloomberg
- Trump Returns - and So Does His Astounding Ignorance – Dana Milbank, Washington Post
- Americans Asked for It, and They're Going to Get It – Kathleen Marker, Washington Post
- 'Destabilize, Destabilize, Destabilize': What Trump Is Really Up To – Patrick Healy and David Wallace-Wells, New York Times
- American Society Was Built for Populism, Not Elitism – Karl Zinsmeister, Wall Street Journal
- What Trump and DOGE Can Learn From Reagan's Successes and Failures – Tracy C. Miller, The Hill
- Trump's Greatest Resistance Could Come From Wall Street – Peter Coy, New York Times
- Trump Needs to Do Better on Infrastructure This Time Around – Algernon Austin, The Hill