Cameron Hamilton, above, has been nominated by President Trump to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). He previously led the agency in an acting capacity, but was removed by the Trump administration about a year ago after telling Congress that he did not believe the agency should be eliminated.
José Luis Magaña/AP
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José Luis Magaña/AP
President Trump nominated Cameron Hamilton to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), about a year after the administration removed Hamilton from the same position.
FEMA has not had a Senate-confirmed leader since President Trump took office. Hamilton previously led the agency in an acting capacity. If confirmed by the Senate, he will regain control of the agency as the Atlantic hurricane season approaches.
Last week, a Trump-appointed council of disaster experts recommended major changes to how FEMA operates.
Hamilton is a former Navy Seal who worked in emergency planning for terrorist events for the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), according to an official biographical summary presented to Congress when he appeared as a witness last year.
Hamilton temporarily led FEMA in the spring of 2025, but was removed by the Trump administration after a dramatic public disagreement with senior administration officials over whether the agency should continue to exist.
“President Trump has been very clear from the beginning that he believes that FEMA and its response in many, many circumstances has failed the American people, and that FEMA, if it exists today, should be eliminated,” former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told reporters in May 2025.
That same week, Hamilton attended a congressional hearing and told reporters, “I don’t think it’s in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”
The next day, Hamilton was replaced. He later described his relationship with DHS officials as “very hostile” on the podcast. Disaster resistant.
Hamilton has since spoken out against the Trump administration’s approach to helping disaster survivors.
Under Hamilton’s successor, FEMA was slow to help those who had survived hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and wildfires. Secretary Noem, who was fired from DHS position in Marchrequired her to personally sign all contracts over $100,000, creating a bottleneck for the fast-moving disaster agency. In one case, after deadly flooding hit central Texas last summer, tens of thousands of calls Survivors’ questions to FEMA went unanswered because the call center contracts had been allowed to expire.
Mention repeatedly defended its decisions, arguing that FEMA was operating efficiently. But Hamilton raised the alarm about Noem’s policies. They imposed “completely new forms of bureaucracy that are now lengthening waiting times for claim recipients and delaying the deployment of urgent resources.” hamilton wrote on the networking website LinkedIn.
In the same post, he said claims that the administration’s policies were making FEMA work more efficiently could amount to “lying.”
Hamilton now faces confirmation hearings in the Senate. Lawmakers from both parties have expressed frustration over long waits for disaster assistance and federal grant money to protect people across the country from floods, fires and storms.
