a briefing from emergency responders on recovery efforts.

president trump: thank you very much. hi, virginia. virginia: hi. president trump: thank you very much. a little cold outside but you're getting used to the cold. and one of the things that are very important to me and one of the reasons i'm happy that we won so convincingly is help north carolina get fixed up. they supported us in record numbers and i'm supporting them in record numbers, too. they had me set and i wanted to go to los angeles to see what's going on in california where they're not releasing the water, they're sending it out to the pacific. one day somebody will explain that one. in the meantime they have no water in los angeles where they

had the problems. we're going there. i said what about north carolina? well, you can do that later. i said no i can't. we're stopping in north carolina first and then we're going to los angeles. and we just appreciate the outpouring of love we've had here. laura was, as you know, very instrumental in the campaign and she lived here and is loved and we appreciate it. and michael wadley has been incredible, wherever michael is. michael wadley has been great and your congressmen have been great and what we thought we'd do is take a quick look around. first we wanted to do this, i want to say we're very disappointed in fema, 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. we're going to work together with the senators but really,

we're going to work with your congressmen, especially the three in the area and michael wadley, and i'd like to put michael in charge of making sure everything goes well, and franklin graham has been unbelievable. we've made a big contribution to franklin and we'll continue to do so. but i've been hearing nothing but praise for the job samaritan's purse has done with franklin. i knew his father in the latter years. well, he doesn't have long to go. he was having a hard time and lived three or four years. they say it was good stock. he had the ultimate good stock. i want to thank you, franklin. you've been fantastic. and everywhere he goes. he's always the first one i see

because people don't realize how good it is. a lot of people go well, maybe it's the people he's got. and you guys know because you're here. but the people he's got have done amazing work. i want to introduce some of the people we have. we'll start with our first lady. she wanted to be here because of north carolina. i said well, can you do that but you have to come to california, too. she said that's ok. and we've got to fix that one up, too. you ever see anything like that one. who would have thought that could have happened. so governor joshstein, thanks very much. we appreciate it. and we'll have a very long and good relationship. representatives maybe stand up if you will. so the press can see.

representatives chuck edwards. chuck, thank you. thank you, chuck. tim moore. virginia. you know virginia fox, a legend. she is such a powerful woman. pat harrigan. thank you very much. your agricultural commissioner i hear is excellent, steve proxler. thank you, steve. you have plenty to do. more than you ever thought. north carolina speaker dustin hall. thank you, dustin. thanks. very good. house majority leader, brendan jones. brendan, thank you very much. we're making good progress, brendan. state representatives dudley green, karl gillespie, thank you very much, fellas. good. state senators kevin corbin, warren daniel. thank you very much, kevin and warren. and county commissioner jennifer

best. thank you, jennifer. thank you. so hurricane helene was one of the worst natural disasters in american history. it was far worse than it was even billed. i have never seen such water damage, largely water damage, wind damage but water damage no one has ever seen. i've been here numerous times but now i'm here in a position where we can do something, meaning i've been in office for four days, and i wanted to come sooner but actually they had a little problem with getting logistically in here but i would have been here even sooner. 104, 104 north carolinians have at least lost their lives. is that now a fairly firm number or are they still finding people, do you know? what do you think? are they still finding people? pretty much ok? it's a lot of people. 104 people lost their lives.

73,000 homes were severely damaged or destroyed. i'll tell you, i've been to a lot of them, and this was like lots of hurricanes. i've never seen such damage done by water and the water came, it was violent and left and there was nothing left. it's really pretty amazing. at one point half the emergency calls to fema went unanswered. that's real bad. fema wasn't doing their job. the city of asheville went without running water for two months. a whistle blower testified some fema employees refused to help people who displayed trump signs on their property. i think that's true, isn't it? i read that. that's not nice. that's not too nice, is it? but whoever those property people were, thank you very much. michael, is that true? that's not good, huh, about the property owners, you put a trump sign on them, they wouldn't help, fema? earlier this year, fema kicked

2,000 north carolinians out of their temporary housing into below freezing temperatures, what was that all about, you know about that? what happened? tell me. >> we had an incompetent administration under biden and we had a disaster and we call it the disaster after the disaster, the fema response. president trump: you've had nothing but disaster since then. it doesn't matter at this point, biden did a bad job. some residents still don't have hot water or drinking water or anything else. many of them don't have quarters or anything. they've got a stipend for what they lost and we're going to take care of it. this is totally unacceptable. i'll be taking strong action to get north carolina the support that you need to quickly recover and rebuild. we're working on it very hard. and if michael wadley does half as good a job for north carolina as he did for my campaign, we'll be very happy. him and laura were a very powerful team.

you think you can handle it, michael? i'm not sure, michael. i think this is maybe in many ways easier, ok. but you're going to lead the team. you want to say who the congressmen are you want to appoint? you want to introduce them? michael: we have dean fox, chuck moore in their districts. president trump: they're the districts most impacted? you were affected? virginia: yes. president trump: i'll sign a executive order to begin the process of fundamentally funding or overhauling fema or frankly getting rid of fema. i think they're not good. i think when you have a problem like this, i think you want to go, whether it's a democrat or republican governor, you want to use your state to fix it and not waste time calling fema and fema gets here and don't know the area and they've never been to the area and they want to give you rules that you've never

heard about, they want to bring people that aren't as good as the people you already have. fema's turned out to be a disaster. you can go back a long way. you can go back to louisiana. you can go back to some of the things that took place in texas. it turns out to be the state that ends up doing the work, it just complicates it. we'll recommend that fema go away and we pay directly, we pay a percentage to the state. but the state should fix this. if the state did this from the beginning, it would have been a lot better situation. i think you agree with that, right? i just want to say that asheville, i know it well. it's a great place and we're going to have it be a great place again. that was the one that was most severely affectedded. but north carolina's going to come back bigger, better, stronger than ever before. and you're going to be very thankful. and you've already seen, i know that it really began four days ago but you've already seen more action than you have in the last three months.

and we're going to get it together. we're informing the army corps of engineers to get going. because you have a lot of river breaks in a lot of areas that you'll need some pretty big work. and they're on their way. they're going to be working much harder than they've been working in the past and we're going to take care of it. any questions from the press? any of the congressmen or governor, anybody? >> what did you say about fema, getting rid of it? can you say more on getting rid of fema? president trump: fema has been a very big disappointment and cost a tremendous amount of money and it's very bureaucratic and very slow. other than that we're very happy with them, ok. and i think when there's a problem with the state, the problem should be taken care of by the state. that's what we have the states

for, they take care of problems. the governor can handle things very quickly. and i also noticed when they come, they end up in arguments, they're fighting all the time over who does what. it's just not a good system. this system is so beautifully designed over 250 years approximate. but it's been designed very well and we'll leave it that way. when north carolina, south carolina, florida, tennessee, when everybody knows the governor of tennessee, everybody. do you know everybody here pretty much? right over the hill. >> here to help the people in this region, including tennessee and the people of applachia are

grateful you are here and haven't forgotten. there are other disasters but this was enormous for north carolina and tennessee so thank you. president trump: i've seen a lot of disasters and when i came here right after the -- the day after. when i came here i couldn't believe the damage. and i've seen a lot of them. this was more like a tornado. than it was what we witnessed. and we'll get it very much taken care of. good job. that's nice of you. so you call it -- you're right over the ridge. i like tennessee, too. let's see, where did i get more votes, tennessee or north carolina? i hate to tell you north carolina, it was tennessee. >> there's one of the counties in this disaster that had 88% for you. president trump: the people are just incredible people. you have any questions, press? reporter: you talk about conditions being placed on california, the variety and the like. are there any conditions you'll

put on aid to north carolina? president trump: we're going to do a lot for north carolina. they've been very slow. i don't know why it's been so bad. this has been one of the worst i've seen. katrina, of course was something obviously a long time ago and that's not good. this has been very slow. i don't know if it was for political reasons because they lost the state. biden lost the state and maybe he felt he doesn't care and maybe there were other reasons, i don't know but this has been very slow by any standard, this has within very slow and we'll make up for lost time. reporter: no conditions, you're going to push for aid? president trump: in california, i want them to have voter i.d. so people have a voice. right now people don't have a voice because you don't know who is voting and it's very corrupt. and we also want them to release the water. if they release the water, they wouldn't have had a problem and if they released the water when i told them to because i told them to do it seven years ago. if they had done it, you

wouldn't have had the problem. you might not even have had a fire. here i don't have that. this is a different thing. you were hit by a storm. the people were incredible and worked really well. franklin was fantastic and other groups came in that also were fantastic. and other states came in, tennessee and a couple others came in and they really helped. that's the way it's supposed to be. no, this is a different kind of a thing. reporter: mr. president, do you know how much funding you would pay for disaster relief, have you decided how much money udallo indicate for disaster relief? president trump: i have to see what it is. reporter: are you disappointed senator schiff hasn't joined you on this trip? it's reported you invited senator schiff on this trip and he was too busy in? president trump: i was told schiff would travel with us to california. i wasn't thrilled to be honest with you. i saw him last night on television and it looked like he got hit with a baseball bat or something.

what happened to him? something happened to him. looked like he got hit or beat around. i'll ask caroline to find out what happened to him. if he wanted to come out, i would have done that but i don't know. somebody said he wanted to come on the plane but i think he's staying back for the votes. there's some pretty good votes going on. reporter: president, what is your time line to getting rid of fema? president trump: for this one? reporter: you possibly looked at getting rid of fema. president trump: here you're talking about, to start, we'll start immediately time line. and to finish, it's going to be a period of time, you know. people are also rebuilding their houses. how long does it take to build a house, it takes some time. and i want them to build houses bigger, better, nicer than they had before so they can have -- at least they get something out of this disaster. this was a real disaster. time line will be fast in terms of infrastructure, i think very

fast. i want to thank elon because he was able to get us communication systems, as you know, starlink. we had no communication. the first day i got here i was asked by one of the people, one of the really great representatives, professionals, is there any way you can get starlink here because they had no communication whatsoever. and i called up elon musk and he had hundreds of units brought here, brought immediately. they're hard to get and couldn't get them before and that made a lot of difference. i think it saved a lot of lives, actually. yeah. infrastructurewise we'll do it quickly. reporter: sir, can you talk about how long you think it might take to get rid of fema, what's the time line on that, you're going to roll it back? president trump: look, as far as i'm concerned, i'm not really thinking about fema right now. here. i'm think of michael wadley and thinking about the three congresspeople you just heard from and also the other people

in congress and they'll be working with the governor. they'll be working with the reporter: the laken riley act was signed by speaker johnson yesterday. when do you anticipate to sign that? president trump: i was there at the time and we had a big meeting with the parents after that horrible thing took place. and you know what that represents. and there was a bipartisan bill. many democrats signed onto it. that is something that is a tribute to laken. beautiful young lady who was killed viciously by an illegal alien and passed a very powerful bill. and it was just approved and have a ceremony very shortly. i will be signing it. i will definitely be signing it.

reporter: the security detail was terminated for anthony fauci. security detail for anthony fauci was terminated last night. do you have a comment? president trump: when you work for government, your security detail comes off and you can't have them forever. so, i think it is very standard. if it would be for somebody else -- the question is very fair. but you work for government. we took other people off, too. but you can't have a security detail for the rest of your life because you work for government. we'll see what happens. [indiscernible question] president trump: no. no. they all made a lot of money. they can hire their own security. i can give them numbers of very good security people. they all made a lot of money.

fauci made a lot of money. they all did. if they felt that strongly, certainly, i would not take responsibility. reporter: north carolina relies on manufacturing. are you going to make an announcement. rich, rich country and tariffs are going to be kash common sense, confidence and tariffs. tariffs is one of the most beautiful words. reporter: the business secretary of the united kingdom said there is an even trade between the u.s. and u.k. and shouldn't have tariffs. does balance trade affect tariffs? president trump: imbalance and deficits. with canada we lose $200 billion because we allow them to make cars and take lumber.

we don't need their cars or lumber or their food products because we make the same products right on the other side of the border. we just allowed that bad management and allowed it over the last four years to become very imbalanced. and i call him governor trudeau but he was prime minister trudeau. he was unable to give me an answer. he said, i don't know. and i said you think it's fair we are paying $200 billion to keep canada going. i asked him, what would happen if we didn't subsidize canada? he said we would be a failed nation. i said then you should be a state, because why are we paying all of that money to canada when we could use it ourselves. we take care of their military. we are going to order about 40

coast guard big ice breakers, big ones, and all of a sudden canada wants a piece of a deal. i like doing it if they are a state. and they have been very nasty to us on trade. canada has been very unfair to us on trade. we'll see how it works out. i would love to see canada be the 51 state. think would get a tremendous tax cut because they are highly taxed and you wouldn't have to worry about military or many of the things. you would have better health coverage. much better health coverage. the people of canada would like it. but just to start off, they have a massive tax cut and they would have a lot more business and we would let business go to canada routinely and have no tariffs.

>> the united kingdom might be in a better spot, then? [indiscernible question] president trump: say it once again. [indiscernible question] frum thrum -- president trump: his father was a big asset to the state. i think franklin and and other people that are doing what franklin have done. but i have known franklin so long. he made a speech, beautiful speech, beautiful prayer. he does a great job. and we made a big donation and it was money well spent. sometimes you make donations that aren't well spent. we are going to the site now and one of the sites and i think for

those who haven't seen it, you won't even believe it. and i can speak for the republican congressman, we're going to knock it out, right? we're going to knock it out and we take it personally. north carolina was very unfairly treated, very unfairly treated. it was obvious and too obvious and we are going to make up for lost time. thank you to the people of north carolina. thank you everybody. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2025] captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org