As the Atlantic hurricane season gets underway, storms are swirling again around the Federal Emergency Management Agency, tasked with helping communities recover from natural disasters.

The latest erupted June 2 after reports surfaced that the agency's acting chief, David Richardson, said in a meeting with staff ‒ later explaining that it was a joke ‒ that he didn't know hurricane season had begun.

Hurricane season starts June 1 and runs until Nov. 30 every year. This is expected to be an active season, and follows at least two dozen landfalling hurricanes in the mainland U.S. since 2016.

News of Richardson's remark prompted outrage from former FEMA officials, Democrats in Congress and others concerned about the agency's ability to respond to disasters this year after more than a third of its staff was decimated by Trump administration and its Department of Government Efficiency cuts.

Asked if Richardson would like to respond, FEMA sent USA TODAY a statement attributed to an unnamed DHS official.

Under the leadership of Kristi Noem, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and the efforts of Richardson, FEMA is "fully activated in preparation for Hurricane Season," the statement read. “Despite meanspirited attempts to falsely frame a joke as policy, there is no uncertainty about what FEMA will be doing this Hurricane Season. FEMA is laser focused on disaster response, and protecting the American people."

FEMA in the crosshairs

In a statement to Reuters, Representative Bennie Thompson, the ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, said "disaster response is no joke."

"If you don’t know what or when hurricane season is, you’re not qualified to run FEMA," he stated. "Get someone knowledgeable in there."

FEMA's future has been uncertain for months and the apparent joke in Monday's meeting is just the latest incident. President Donald Trump criticized the agency on the campaign trail last year and has called for it to "go away." The president told victims of the Hurricane Helene-related disaster in North Carolina after his January inauguration that residents needed "a good state government" rather than FEMA.

Former acting administrator Cameron Hamilton was fired by Noem in early May after telling a House committee that it would not be his recommendation to abolish FEMA. After being appointed to replace Hamilton, Richardson told staff in his first meeting that he would "run right over" anyone who resisted change.

In its response to criticism of Richardson, the adminstration again complained about FEMA: "It’s not a secret that under Secretary Noem and Acting Administrator Richardson, FEMA is shifting from bloated, DC-centric dead weight to a lean, deployable disaster force that empowers state actors to provide relief for their citizens," the statement read. "The old processes are being replaced because they failed Americans in real emergencies for decades."

Joking or not, cuts are real

One former FEMA official told USA TODAY on June 3 that even if Richardson was joking in the meeting, it's worrisome the staff couldn't tell.

"People were immediately confused," said Jeremy Edwards, a former FEMA deputy director of public affairs and now a communications advisor at the Century Foundation.

The staff has voiced concerns about whether the agency is prepared for what may come this year and "we've seen internal memos that indicated the same," he said. "They've fired or laid off 2,000 of 6,000 (full-time) employees, and they've created a culture of fear and toxicity where they've administered lie detector tests to employees."

The current environment has prompted other senior employees to leave, he said. "How could they be prepared when they have top-level people leaving en masse? You're losing tons of expertise and knowledge based on the direction they're taking."

Also on June 2, Richardson told staff they were going to scrap a draft strategic plan that had been expected to be released in May and revert back to the strategic plan used last year, Edwards said.

The budget request put forward by the White House during the last week of May proposed cutting FEMA's budget by almost half from a year earlier.

Carrie Speranza, a disaster executive who serves as president of the USA Council of the International Association of Emergency Managers, said she's hopeful state and local officials can successfully make their case to Congress about the need to restore FEMA's funding.

"As the shock of grant reductions takes hold, remember this is a budget request. It is NOT the FY 2026 budget," Speranza said in a June 2 post on LinkedIn. "Think of it as the President’s initial negotiation with Congress."

The cuts pose a "tremendous risk, degrading public safety and national resilience," she said. "My key takeaway? We're still in the fight, and it's Congress's turn to up the ante."

The administration's take on the agency's future

Trump's 2025 budget does include $26.5 billion in disaster relief, the largest request ever, Speranza noted.

During a June 3 briefing, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said FEMA is taking hurricane season seriously.

"Contrary to some of the reporting we have seen based on jokes that were made and leaks from meetings, Secretary Kristi Noem and the FEMA leadership are all over this," Leavitt said. "They are committed to ensuring that federal resources and tax dollars are there for Americans in need."

However, she added: "The president has made it clear we're not going to enable states to make bad decisions with federal tax dollars and then have the federal government later have to bail these states out."

Dinah Voyles Pulver, a national correspondent for USA TODAY, writes about hurricanes, violent weather and other environmental issues. Reach her at dpulver@usatoday.com or @dinahvp on Bluesky or X or dinahvp.77 on Signal.

Reuters contributed to this report.

This story has been updated to add new information.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Joke or no joke, FEMA staff confused, concerned about budget cuts

Reporting by Dinah Voyles Pulver, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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