FEMA Chief Quits in Disgust at Kristi Noem’s Texas Flood Response

The head of FEMA’s Urban Search and Rescue Branch has resigned, telling colleagues that the Trump administration’s disastrous response to the deadly flooding in Texas had driven him over the edge, CNN reported.

Ken Pagurek, who had worked in that branch for more than a decade, reportedly told colleagues that his departure Monday from FEMA had come after mounting frustrations with the Trump administration’s efforts to gut the disaster aid agency. But Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s pitifully delayed response to the flooding over the Fourth of July weekend was apparently the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Noem had severely botched FEMA’s Texas response by failing to renew contracts with companies staffing FEMA call centers, resulting in a majority of calls going unanswered for days as the floodwaters raged. The secretary dismissed the reporting as “fake news.”

She also reportedly delayed FEMA’s initial response by instituting a policy that required her to personally sign off on all DHS expenditures exceeding $100,000. FEMA officials, who were unaware of the new rule, didn’t receive Noem’s go-ahead for 72 hours.

In his resignation letter, Pagurek didn’t mention the floods at all. “This decision was not made lightly, and after much reflection and prayer, it is the right path for me at this time,” he wrote. “I have been continually inspired by the unwavering dedication, unmatched courage, and deep-seated commitment we share for saving lives and bringing hope in the face of devastation.”

One DHS spokesperson defended the response to the floods, while another criticized Pagurek’s decision, saying that it was “laughable that a career public employee, who claims to serve the American people, would choose to resign over our refusal to hastily approve a six-figure deployment contract without basic financial oversight.”

“We’re being responsible with taxpayer dollars, that’s our job,” the second spokesperson said.

Last month, Donald Trump said he plans to “phase out” FEMA after this year’s hurricane season, and future disbursements would come straight from him. “We’re going to give it out directly. It’ll be from the president’s office. We’ll have somebody here, could be Homeland Security,” Trump said at the time.

Clearly, putting Noem in charge of personally approving decisions in a disaster comes at a cost, and the Trump administration’s mismanagement of relief is more far-reaching than just the flooding in Texas.

Asked about the latest developments in the ongoing Jeffrey Epstein fiasco, President Donald Trump quickly shifted attention to the accusations that his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, is making against former President Barack Obama.

Trump’s deputy attorney general and former personal lawyer Todd Blanche on Tuesday announced that he will meet with convicted Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell to find out “about anyone who has committed crimes against victims” of the late convicted sex criminal.

The move seems to be an effort to stamp out the ongoing fire surrounding the administration’s perceived lack of transparency in the Epstein case, not to mention Trump’s own reported ties to the disgraced financier (though a closed-door sit-down with Maxwell might not exactly allay suspicions that the administration is in on a cover-up).

When asked about Blanche’s anticipated meeting with Maxwell on Tuesday, Trump replied curtly.

“I don’t really follow that too much. It’s sort of a witch hunt, just a continuation of the witch hunt,” said the president, who has in recent days sought to dismiss the Epstein affair as a hoax spun up by Obama and Hillary Clinton.

He then hastened to change the subject to Gabbard’s recent allegations against those very MAGA bêtes noires.

“The witch hunt that you should be talking about,” he continued, “is they caught Obama absolutely cold, Tulsi Gabbard.” Accusing Obama and Clinton of rigging the 2016 and 2020 elections, Trump added, “After what they did to me, and, whether it’s right or wrong, it’s time to go after people.… So that’s really the things you should be talking about. I know nothing about the other.”

Gabbard last week released documents that she purported “detail a treasonous conspiracy by officials at the highest levels of the Obama White House to subvert the will of the American people and try to usurp the president from fulfilling his mandate.” Trump has pounced on the dubious findings, sharing memes about imprisoning Obama this weekend in a Truth Social posting spree that touched on just about everything but the Epstein-shaped thorn currently lodged squarely in his side.

If Gabbard’s wild accusations were not concocted expressly to distract from the persistent controversy surrounding the late sex criminal, the president’s remarks Tuesday show that he’s happy to use them for just that purpose.

The president is still gung-ho that the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein is a “witch hunt”—to the point that he didn’t even know his own government was continuing its investigation.

Speaking with reporters at the White House Tuesday, Donald Trump was apparently completely out of the loop regarding the Justice Department’s investigation into the pedophilic sex trafficker, unaware of the DOJ’s requested interview with Epstein’s imprisoned associate, Ghislaine Maxwell.

“Do you support the DOJ seeking an interview with Ghislaine Maxwell?” asked a journalist in the pool.

“I don’t know anything about it. They’re gonna what? Meet her?” said Trump.

“The deputy attorney general has reached out to Ghislaine Maxwell’s attorney, asking for an interview,” the reporter clarified.

“Yeah, I don’t know about it, but I think it would be something—sounds appropriate to do, yeah,” Trump responded.

The reporter then asked if Trump believed it was appropriate for deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche—who had previously worked as Trump’s personal attorney—to conduct the interview.

“He’s a very talented person, he’s very smart. I didn’t know he was going to do it, I don’t follow it too much, it’s sort of a witch hunt,” Trump said.

Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking in 2022, when she was sentenced to 20 years in prison for her role in the pedophile network, helping Epstein abduct and abuse underage girls over the span of a decade.

Trump has a well-documented history with Epstein. Prior to his death, the New York financier described himself as one of Trump’s “closest friends.” The socialites were named and photographed together several times; the first time that Trump slept with his now-wife Melania was reportedly aboard Epstein’s plane, nicknamed the “Lolita Express”; and Trump allegedly penned a salacious letter to Epstein for the pedophile’s 50th birthday, as reported by The Wall Street Journal last week.

Facing enormous pressure from his base last week, Trump ordered the Justice Department to release additional documents pertaining to its investigation into Epstein. The White House did not specify at the time if the documents would be made public, and did not explain the sudden contradiction after Trump had spent the better part of the last week insisting that the Epstein fiasco was a Democrat-invented “hoax.”

But rather than demonstrate a vested interest in making the case files transparent, Trump decided to double down on his “witch hunt” language, deflecting by telling the roomful of reporters that they should instead be focused on former President Barack Obama, reiterating a debunked conspiracy while claiming that his administration “caught” Obama “absolutely cold” trying to “rig” the 2020 presidential election.

President Trump says two more late-night TV hosts are “next,” just days after CBS ended The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. 

“The word is, and it’s a strong word at that, Jimmy Kimmel is NEXT to go in the untalented Late Night Sweepstakes and, shortly thereafter, Fallon will be gone,” the president wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday. “These are people with absolutely NO TALENT, who were paid Millions of Dollars for, in all cases, destroying what used to be GREAT Television. It’s really good to see them go, and I hope I played a major part in it!”

This is exactly what it looks like. Colbert was canceled mere days after he called out CBS parent company Paramount for capitulating to the Trump administration by agreeing to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit over how they edited a 60 Minutes interview of failed Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, something news organizations regularly do for the sake of time. 

Colbert argued that Paramount was well aware that Trump’s lawsuit was “completely without merit” but agreed to pay a “big fat bribe” to ease its sale to Skydance Media—a deal that required Trump’s approval. The president has mocked Colbert since his cancellation, calling for Jimmy Kimmel’s job next, and stating that Fox News’s Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them. This Tuesday is just more of the same. Kimmel’s show is hosted by ABC, which also settled with Trump for millions of dollars after George Stephanopoulos said that the president was liable for the rape of E. Jean Carroll, instead of just sexual abuse.  

The president is more focused on getting late-night talk show hosts fired than on governing. CBS sacrificed Colbert for political goodwill, dumping a popular host to kiss the king’s ring. And now Trump is calling for more heads. Only time will tell how the networks respond. 

Donald Trump’s administration is desperately trying to lure retired ICE agents back into the fold to help enact the president’s massive deportation campaign, according to The New York Times.

Trump administration officials have been reaching out directly to former officers in good standing and posting tailored offers on job portals attempting to recruit them with promises of hefty cash bonuses.

One email reviewed by the Times issued an “urgent call” to former law enforcement officers to “join OPERATION RETURN TO MISSION,” and included an offer for qualified candidates to collect up to $50,000 in bonuses.

“Ready to rejoin the mission and get up to a $50k signing bonus ON TOP OF rehired annuitant pay (pension + paycheck)?” read one LinkedIn post from Robert Hammer, acting executive associate director at Homeland Security Investigations. “Submit your application by Aug 1 to be eligible for the full recruitment incentives package.”

The Trump administration’s latest efforts come alongside comments from a former agency prosecutor that many ICE agents are seeking exit strategies, having become “unhappy” and experiencing “very low” morale as they face moral dilemmas about executing their jobs. Apparently, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller’s directive to execute a lofty 3,000 immigration arrests per day has rendered many in the service completely miserable.

As it turns out, ripping families apart and then subjecting them to inhumane prison conditions isn’t everyone’s dream job. Maybe the only people who can stomach it are the ones who have already been doing it. Still, the Trump administration has said it hopes to hire 10,000 ICE agents and 3,000 border patrol agents to conduct the president’s grotesque immigration policies.