Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem rejected criticism of her agency’s flood response in Texas as “fake news” during a Sunday appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Noem pushed back against a New York Times report that found thousands of calls to FEMA’s disaster assistance line went unanswered in the days following the flood, in part because the Department of Homeland Security had allowed call center contracts to lapse.
“It’s discouraging that during this time, when we have such a loss of life and so many people’s lives have been turned upside down, that people are playing politics,” she told host Kristen Welker, calling the investigation “false reporting.”
Documents reviewed by the Times showed that nearly two-thirds of calls to FEMA’s disaster assistance line went unanswered on July 6 and 7. Still, Noem insisted the story needed to be “validified,” appearing to create a hybrid with the words “validated” and “verified.”
She also dismissed accounts from FEMA whistleblowers as “anonymous attacks” aimed at politicizing the situation.
The Times report noted that it took until five days after the July 4 floods to reinstate call center contracts, in part due to a new internal policy requiring Noem to personally sign-off on all DHS contracts over $100,000.
In an email to the Times, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security blamed FEMA’s responsiveness issue on an unexpected spike in demand.
“When a natural disaster strikes, phone calls surge, and wait times can subsequently increase,” they wrote. “Despite this expected influx, FEMA’s disaster call center responded to every caller swiftly and efficiently, ensuring no one was left without assistance.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Noem tried to reframe former President Donald Trump’s calls to dismantle FEMA, claiming he isn’t looking to eliminate the agency but simply wants to see it “remade.”
“I think the president recognizes that FEMA should not exist in the way that it always has,” she said. “It needs to be redeployed in a new way, and that’s what we did during this response.”