Trump's first visit after taking office was to Helene ravaged North Carolina
State lawmakers will hold committee hearings on Helene recovery, new office created by Gov. Stein
President Donald Trump's first visit after taking office was to western North Carolina to see what was going on with Hurricane Helene efforts.
What the president said when he landed in Asheville set the tone for the rest of the day.
"Everybody thought I was going to California. I said, “No, no. I’m stopping in North Carolina first, because they’ve been abused by what’s happened.” I mean, it’s terrible," said Trump. "It should have been done. It should have been — a lot of things should have happened that didn’t happen. So, we’re here. We’re going to fix it out."
Trump went on to say FEMA has "not done the job" and implied his administration was looking at dismantling or completely reforming how disasters are handled by the federal government.
At the press briefing, Trump reiterated his issue with FEMA.
"I want to say that we're very disappointed in FEMA," said Trump. "Your new governor, it's not his fault. He's brand-new to the whole situation. But we're going to work together with the governor."
The president went on to say his administration would work with North Carolina's Congressional delegation. Trump also said he wanted Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley to be "in charge of making sure everything goes well." For those who don't know who he is, Whatley is from North Carolina and is the former NC Republican Party Chairman.
Trump praised the private sector for its aid to hurricane victims, singling out Samaritan's Purse's Franklin Graham, who the president said "has been unbelievable."
The president didn't just give statements, he met with Hurricane Helen survivors. He saw the devastation that still remains over four months later and saw how survivors are currently living with his own eyes in a stop in hard-hit Swannanoa.
During his remarks where he met with survivors, Trump brought up the recent situation where FEMA was kicking survivors out of hotels just as a big winter storm was descending on the state. He then asked NC Speaker of the House Destin Hall (R-Caldwell) what happened.
"We had an incompetent administration under Biden," Hall replied. "And we had a disaster, and then we call it “the disaster after the disaster” — that was the FEMA response."
"You had nothing but disaster since then. I — it doesn’t matter at this point. Biden did a bad job," said Trump. "Some residents still don’t have hot water, drinking water, or anything else. And m- — many of them don’t have quarters. They don’t have anything. They got a stipend for what they lost, and we’re going to take care of it."
Trump went on to call the situation "totally unacceptable.
"This is totally unacceptable, and I’ll be taking strong action to get North Carolina the support that you need to quickly recover and rebuild," the president said. "We’re working on it very hard."
Watch the video of his full visit:
For more on the FEMA comments, North State Journal.
For the full press briefing remarks, hit the White House Press Room.
More To The Story
Following the president's visit, North Carolina Governor Josh Stein issued a statement.
“It’s a positive signal that President Trump made his first visit outside the capital as President to our mountains," Stein said. "I thanked the President for coming and asked for his support of $20 billion in additional disaster relief and for 100% reimbursement of eligible FEMA expenses for another six months."
Stein had asked FEMA to extend transitional sheltering assistance for another six months, however; FEMA responded with just a 60-day extension.
“Families, businesses, and communities are struggling and need these urgent resources to help them rebuild," said Stein. "I look forward to working with the Trump Administration in the coming weeks and months to get people what they need to rebuild and recover.”
The governor posted no photos from Trump’s visit. On his social media channels, Stein only posted a graphic of his formal statement.
Stein has discarded the NC Office of Recovery and Resiliency (NCORR) that was created by his predecessor Roy Cooper and replaced it with a new bureaucracy called Governor’s Recovery Office for Western North Carolina (GROW NC).
GROW NC is part of a set of Stein's first executive orders that he issued upon taking office earlier this month.
As I reported earlier this month, Stein's order number four created GROW NC, which will have "up to 35 governor-appointed members" representing the western half of the state. GROW NC members will serve one-year terms and the meetings will be subject to open meeting laws.
The purpose for GROW NC is “advising on housing, small business relief, infrastructure repair, and funding recommendations.” GROW NC’s end date is Dec. 31, 2026, unless Stein’s order is rescinded ahead of that date.
GROW NC will be one of the topics covered this coming week at a Jan. 30 hearing held by the legislature's Joint Legislative Commission on Governmental Operations, Subcommittee on Hurricane Response and Recovery. Additionally, the House Select Committee on Helene Recovery is set to meet the day before, on Jan. 29.
Stein's office is sending Stephanie McGarrah and Jonathan Krebs to testify about GROW NC, with lawmakers wanting to know how this new organization is different from NCORR and how it will operate.
“Simply creating a new group to oversee hurricane recovery will not cure the ills of the previous administration,” Senate Leader Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) said in a press release announcing the hearing. “It’s imperative that the legislature get a good understanding of GROW NC’s operations and plans to ensure Western North Carolina can rebuild and come back stronger than ever.”
NCORR's Gibson Pryor will be testifying as well. Former Gov. Cooper hired Pryor into his office in 2022 as a "Senior Legislative Advisor," but had previously used Pryor as a "fixer" in 2020, appointing him to head up the state's unemployment benefits division after that agency struggled to deal with the pandemic.
Cooper put Pryor into an oversight type role at NCORR last January when it became clear the agency was still failing to get Hurricane Matthew and Florence survivors back into their homes.
It was learned last October that NCORR had run over budget by at least $175 million. That budget gap detail was dropped in the last page of Cooper's Hurricane Helene funding request to the General Assembly.
NCORR's Director Laura Hogshead left the agency following a heated Joint Legislative Commission hurricane subcommittee hearing in November 2024. During that hearing, the budget gap was estimated by both Pryor and Hogshead to actually be closer to $221 million. NCORR falls under the NC Dept. of Public Safety (DPS). Following Hogshead's departure, DPS refused to confirm or deny whether or not she had actually been fired.
In addition to its slow recovery response, NCORR also faced a discrimination complaint filed by Legal Aid North Carolina in May 2024. The complaint was filed with the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development over proof of ownership requirements that allegedly disproportionately affected black homeowners and accused the NCORR of violations of various sections of the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
In December 2024, NCORR was also dinged by the state auditor over $112 million in funds distributed with "limited monitoring" and ways to measure results.
Both of the upcoming hurricane-related hearings can be watched by the public. Links to the committees and their live streams are on the legislature's website under the calendar section.