Ice Barbie Fiasco Forces Trump Into Humiliating Reversal

The White House is racing to do damage control on Kristi Noem—before it turns deadly.

Donald Trump’s administration is quietly working to reverse the damage done to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, at Noem’s direction during her tenure as Homeland Security secretary. The former South Dakota governor was ousted in March, and now serves as the Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas.

While FEMA’s sworn mission is to help Americans before, during, and after disasters, a year marked by firings, re-hirings, frozen funds, and feuding among political appointees has plunged the agency into chaos. Now, after pushing Noem aside from FEMA oversight, the White House is scrambling to repair the agency—despite Trump’s repeated insistence that it should not exist in its current form.

“It could take a decade to fix what they broke,” a high-ranking FEMA official told CNN. “And if we have a major disaster this year, we’re screwed.”

In a report published Sunday, CNN detailed conversations with some 50 FEMA insiders over the past year, many of whom said the havoc wrought under Noem in just 13 months will cripple the agency for years to come.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/kristi-noem-fema-fiasco-forces-trump-into-humiliating-reversal/