President Donald Trump plans to nominate Cameron Hamilton to lead FEMA less than a year after he was unceremoniously fired from the disaster relief agency, three people familiar with the decision told CNN.
Hamilton was first tapped to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency at the start of Trump’s second term – when the administration was aggressively pursuing plans to eliminate the agency and shift responsibility for disaster response to the states.
But Hamilton soon clashed with then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski, the longtime Trump ally helping her run the department, which oversees FEMA. Lewandowski, in particular, believed Hamilton wasn’t moving quickly or forcefully enough, according to sources familiar with the situation.
Hamilton, meanwhile, increasingly balked at the plan to scrap the agency, arguing that while FEMA needed major reforms, preserving it was ultimately in the public’s best interest.
“We have no personnel matters to announce at this time,” a FEMA spokesperson told CNN. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A former Navy SEAL who ran a failed bid for Congress in 2024, Hamilton had limited experience managing natural disasters before his first stint at FEMA last year.
He learned he might be fired last May, just hours before he was scheduled to testify on Capitol Hill. Hamilton testified anyway — and, with his potential firing looming, publicly broke with the administration’s stance on FEMA’s future.
“As the senior advisor to the president on disasters and emergency management, and to the secretary of homeland security, I do not believe it is in the best interest the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency,” Hamilton told the committee last year.
Hamilton’s expected return to FEMA highlights a sharp shift in the administration’s posture toward the agency under Noem’s successor, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
Mullin’s team has begun rolling back several Noem-era policies and cuts, while striking a different tone — praising FEMA’s work even as he pushes to cut red tape and speed disaster aid to communities.
Trump was the first to say FEMA should “go away,” floating the idea just days into his presidency and later saying the administration would phase out the agency after last year’s hurricane season.
But Noem’s aggressive overhaul — which hollowed out senior leadership, cut roughly 30% of the workforce, cratered morale and helped create a multibillion-dollar backlog in disaster funding — triggered backlash from state and local officials nationwide, as well as prominent Republican lawmakers.
Now, the administration appears to be pulling back from its most sweeping plans, even as FEMA awaits a final report from the FEMA Review Council, a task force Trump created early in his presidency to overhaul the agency.
Trump is yet to nominate a FEMA administrator during his second term.
Instead, DHS has cycled through three acting leaders over the past year, including Hamilton.
Hamilton’s first tenure was marked by dramatic moments.
In the month before his firing, news leaked about a closed-door policy meeting that included Hamilton about FEMA’s future, including discussions of how the agency could be dismantled. Days later, DHS leaders ordered him to take a lie detector test.
Then, just hours before he was to testify at the congressional hearing, Hamilton was mistakenly tipped off to his impending termination, after DHS notified FEMA security that his access would soon be shut off. DHS then informed FEMA leadership that an error had been made.
While he advocated for FEMA to be saved at that hearing, he also testified: “I am not in a position to make decisions and impact outcomes on whether or not a determination as consequential as that should be made. That is a conversation that should be had between the president of the United States and this governing body.”
Hamilton was escorted out of FEMA headquarters the next day.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt later blamed Hamilton’s testimony for his firing, saying, “This individual testified saying something that was contrary to what the president believes and the goals of this administration in regards to FEMA policy.”
Multiple sources have told CNN the decision to fire Hamilton was actually weeks in the making.
