Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem whined over a The New York Times report finding thousands of victims couldn’t get through to FEMA as catastrophic flooding engulfed Central Texas.
A Times report found the Federal Emergency Management Agency failed to answer “nearly two-thirds” of all distress calls from victims of the catastrophe, which has claimed the lives of at least 129 victims, with 160 still missing.
“It’s just false,” Noem said on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday. “It’s discouraging that during this time, when we have such a loss of life and so many people’s lives have turned upside down, that people are playing politics with this because the response time was immediate.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Noem has earned the nickname “ICE Barbie” for her love of dolling up for the cameras on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids and inviting reporters to photograph her in front of detainees, among other unsavory publicity stunts.
FEMA had fired “hundreds of contractors at call centers” as a result of cost-cutting efforts that Noem has implemented as chief of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). CNN reported that new rules requiring the secretary to sign off on contracts or grants exceeding $100,000 delayed the deployment of search and rescue crews.
“I’m not sure where it came from,” Noem told NBC. “The individuals who are giving you information out of FEMA, I’d love to have them put their names behind it because anonymous attacks to politicize the situation is completely wrong.”
“The false reporting has been something that is inappropriate and it’s something that I think we need to clear up,” she added. “This response was by far the best response we’ve seen out of FEMA, the best response we’ve seen out of the federal government in many, many years and certainly much better than what we saw under Joe Biden.”
Despite the criticism over FEMA’s lack of disaster preparedness, Noem renewed her fevered attacks against the country’s primary disaster relief agency. “The president recognises that FEMA should not exist in the way that it always has been,” she said. “It needs to be redeployed, in a new way, and that’s what we did during this response.”
She further stressed that “it’s not just FEMA that can respond in these situations” because the federal government has “all kinds of assets, and we deployed them.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
