Surviving Trump: Your Essential Guide to His Second Term

Episode 45: FEMA Under Trump: How America's Disaster Response System Is Being Dismantled

• Bella Goode • Episode 45

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When catastrophic floods hit Texas in July 2025, FEMA should have been the nation’s lifeline. Instead, survivors were met with unanswered calls, delayed rescues, and a gutted response system. In this episode, Bella Goode uncovers how Trump’s FEMA failed during one of the deadliest floods in state history and why the crisis revealed something far bigger: a federal disaster system being hollowed out, politicized, and possibly dismantled altogether. What happens when the agency Americans depend on is no longer built to function?



Key Takeaways To Listen For

  • The 2025 Texas Hill Country flood: over 100 dead, thousands stranded, and FEMA missing in action
  • Why FEMA’s call center collapsed—40,000 survivor calls went unanswered due to DHS red tape
  • How Trump’s FEMA slashed staffing by 30% and reassigned disaster workers to ICE
  • Dismantling of resilience programs like BRIC and Risk MAP—and what that means for communities
  • Evidence of aid politicization: which states get help fast, and which are left waiting
  • Trump’s stated plan to “wean off FEMA” and revert disaster response to the states
  • Why a fractured, state-by-state disaster system leaves millions of Americans more vulnerable


Resources Mentioned In This Episode



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Host: Bella Goode

Bella is a former Republican turned democracy advocate raised by middle class parents in Pennsylvania. She is a graduate of Syracuse University and the University of Pennsylvania with a masters of business administration from Wharton and a Masters Degree in Positive Psychology.

Career wise, Bella spent 20 years with American Express in New York and 20 years as an entrepreneur. She started and sold a fitness business that grew to 180 locations worldwide.

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