WILMINGTON — One of the focus points of vice presidential candidate JD Vance’s Wilmington rally Wednesday evening was Helene recovery response. Meanwhile, former officials seeking to influence a second Trump administration want to eliminate the National Weather Service and FEMA disaster grants.
READ MORE: Endowment commits $1M to recent storm recovery efforts
Vance, currently a Republican senator from Ohio, held a rally at the Aero Center earlier this week. After a 30-minute speech touching on immigration, inflation, and Hurricane Helene, Vance took questions from media, including from WWAY reporter Keelin Berrian.
The journalist asked Vance what the federal government could do to assist state and local governments to prepare and recover from major flooding. Berrian alluded to the impact of Potential Tropical Cyclone 8, which inundated parts of New Hanover and Brunswick counties with over 20 inches of rain in a 24-hour period last month.
“We’ve got to have competence back in government,” Vance responded. “When these crises happen you just need somebody who’s actually paying attention, who’s focusing, who makes sure the resources go to the people who need it.”
Vance said he believes federal disaster response needs to cut bureaucracy and allow local responders to act more efficiently. He noted rising insurance rates as another major issue for flood-prone southeastern states.
“Insurance is getting way too expensive for a lot of our homeowners,” Vance said at the rally.
Former congressman Joe Walsh (R-Illinois), former Republican staffer Ian Appling, and Democratic Wilmington council member Salette Andrews held a press conference ahead of Vance’s rally. The panel criticized Trump’s false Hurricane Helene claims, affiliations with the controversial Project 2025 agenda, and urged voters to support Kamala Harris.
Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation and leader of the Project 2025 initiative, told Politico in March that Vance is “absolutely going to be one of the leaders — if not the leader — of our movement.”
Trump and Vance maintain they have no involvement with Project 2025, but former Trump administration officials wrote 25 of the 30 chapters in the 900-page Project 2025 policy plan for a second Trump term.
“They’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what we’re going to do,” Trump said in an April 2022 keynote speech at a Heritage Foundation event. The initiative began the same month. Trump praised Project 2025 leader Kevin Roberts, who introduced him at the 2022 event, but in July said he knew nothing about Project 2025 or who was behind it.
Former deputy secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli wrote the section on FEMA. He advocated eliminating disaster preparation grants and phasing out the national flood insurance program, which provides flood coverage for five million property owners; private-sector firms are generally reluctant to insure flood-prone properties.
Vance did not detail specifics of his plan to lower home or car insurance rates at the rally; PCD reached out to ask his campaign about the issue and Project 2025’s policy recommendation but did not receive a response by press.
“One of the ways people really struggle is if they don’t have the right home insurance policy,” Vance said Wednesday. “We’ve got to make smarter policy choices so people get the insurance they need.”
Craig Fugate — the former FEMA administrator of the Obama administration — told Port City Daily Project 2025 policies could increase vulnerability, weaken early warning systems, reduce recovery funding, and accelerate environmental degradation and climate impacts.
Former chief financial officer of the Department of Commerce Thomas Gilman wrote a chapter in Project 2025 advocating the elimination of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which includes the National Weather Service.
“The National Weather Service plays a critical role in forecasting severe weather and providing life-saving alerts,” Fugate said. “Cuts to NWS funding or capacity could reduce the accuracy and timelines of warnings, putting lives and property at greater risk.”
Project 2025 includes a broad range of rollbacks on climate policy. For example, former deputy director of the Bureau of Land Management William Pendley penned a section calling to increase offshore oil and reverse federal conservation protections. The North Credit Rate Bureau cited climate change as a driving cause for its 99% rate increase request in April.
Vance described the Heritage Foundation as the “most influential engine of ideas” for Donald Trump in the forward he wrote for Roberts’ upcoming book. The book was originally scheduled to be published in September but pushed back amid controversy until after the election.
The Heritage Foundation’s criticisms of the Biden administration’s Helene response mirror claims Trump and Vance have made. The candidates and the think tank argue FEMA was unable to address Helene because it diverted funds to immigration through its Shelter and Services Program, which provides short-term services to asylum seekers released from DHS custody. Congress authorized $364 million for the program in fiscal year 2023 and $650 million in fiscal year 2024. The program’s resources were not taken from FEMA’s disaster relief fund, which was allocated over $40 billion in 2024.
WECT reporter Delaney Tarpley asked Vance if he had any comment on recent threats against Helene emergency workers; Jacob Parsons, a North Carolina man arrested after calling for citizens to “overtake” a FEMA site and carrying a firearm onto FEMA’s Lake Lure site last week.
Vance said he condemns acts of violence but believes the true scandal was shortcomings in the government response to Helene.
“There’s a lot of crazy stuff out there on the internet,” Vance said at Wilmington’s rally. “I actually don’t think that it was some malicious intent that made FEMA as unresponsive and delayed the critical deployment of the 82nd airborne. I think it’s just because people are incompetent.”
Vance raised the same arguments about the Biden administration’s Helene response in an Oct. 8 Wall Street Journal op-ed. He contended FEMA was distracted by initiatives to help immigrants and favorably compared past presidents’ disaster responses to Helene.
“I’m going to do something that’s going to really surprise you,” Vance said at the rally. “I’m going to say something nice about Barack Obama.”
Vance contrasted Obama’s deployment of the 82nd airborne to Haiti in 2010 within two days versus the six days it took for the Biden administration to approve active-military aid after Helene made landfall Sept. 26.
Fugate — head of Obama’s Federal Emergency Management Agency from 2009-2016 — dismissed the argument.
“Answering questions about politicians’ stupid questions is a waste of time,” he told Port City Daily. “Makes for good sound bites, nothing else.”
The former FEMA administrator noted governors lead states’ disaster response and must request active-duty military deployment. Gov. Roy Cooper requested on Sept. 30 that the White House make all federal resources available for Helene response; the Biden administration approved military assistance to North Carolina Oct. 2.
“FEMA is at the direction of the president and coordinates the federal response at the request of the governor,” Fugate said. “So are they criticizing the state’s response? Has the NC Governor complained about lack of federal support?”
Governor Cooper’s deputy communications director Jordan Monaghan praised the federal response in a statement to Port City Daily. He said active-duty units including helicopters and pilots deployed almost immediately on October 2 and 3. He added thousands of personnel from the military, national guard, FEMA, and state and local responders are working in close coordination in western North Carolina.
“A significant hurdle in this response has been a relentless campaign of disinformation both online and from prominent politicians including Donald Trump,” Monaghan said. “We encourage those politicians to stick to the facts and refuse to turn a blind eye to all those who are trying to spread confusion and slow this recovery. National Guard was here before, during and after the storm and we believe this was the fastest and largest integration of active military soldiers working with the National Guard in North Carolina history.”
Port City Daily reached out to the North Carolina National Guard and the U.S. Northern Command to ask about Vance’s criticisms but did not receive a response by press.
The NC National Guard had 358 guardsmen activated Sept. 27 and more than 1,500 deployed by Oct. 5. At an Oct. 10 press conference, a reporter asked Air Force Major General Pat Ryder about North Carolina’s discrepancy with Florida, which had 3,900 guardsmen activated by Sept. 27.
“It’s not like you’re going to have forces just sitting in locations without knowing the track of the storm where they’re most needed,” Ryder responded. “You need to do this in a way that’s synchronized and integrated with the broader effort in order not to create additional problems in the midst of a crisis and an emergency.”
Ryder was questioned about Vance’s op-ed but said it would be inappropriate to wade into a political campaign.
“We have forces on the ground actively supporting our fellow Americans in their time of need, and we’re going to continue to do that,” he said.
Wilmington council member Salette Andrews, an air force veteran, disputed Trump and Vance’s claim that the Biden administration botched the storm response. She emphasized the dangers Trump’s misleading claims about FEMA caused to emergency responders.
“It’s really a slap in the face to the people who are working there as hard as they are,” Andrews told Port City Daily.
Dan Stoneking — a former FEMA external affairs director who served in the Army and National Guard — wrote a response letter to the Wall Street Journal criticizing Vance’s op-ed for not mentioning National Guard soldiers and equipment responding to Helene before active-duty military aid was approved. Asheville-based emergency-room physician Josh Short argued aspects of the Helene response could have been better, but he saw similar leadership issues during disasters in the past administration.
The Trump administration faced multiple disaster response controversies during his time in office. A 2018 internal FEMA review of the Trump administration’s 2017 storm response found the agency was unprepared for major storms and urged impacted communities to rely on its aid less heavily in the future.
A 2021 Department of Housing and Urban Development Inspector General report found the former president’s administration delayed approximately $20 billion in aid to Puerto Rico for two years after Hurricane Maria and Irma. A Harvard public health study attributed thousands of excess deaths to the slow recovery effort.
The Trump administration received criticism from Texas state officials in 2019 for a year-long delay administering $16 billion in disaster mitigation funding.
The Trump administration’s budget requests included cuts to FEMA every year since 2017 and transferred $155 million from its Disaster Relief Fund to ICE in 2019. Congress directed the FEMA to put aside $41 million of its annual budget to cover costs of providing security at the former president’s properties.
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