Kristi Noem, President Donald Trump’s newly confirmed homeland security secretary, has backed his suggestion to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has long been a target of the president’s ire.

“I would say, yes, get rid of FEMA the way it exists today,” Noem told CNN on Sunday, echoing Trump’s call for the agency, which is run by the Department of Homeland Security, to be dismantled and for disaster response to be left to individual states.

“We still need the resources and the funds and the finances to go to people that have these types of disasters, like Hurricane Helene and the fires in California, but you need to let the local officials make the decisions on how that is deployed,” she said.

During her confirmation hearing, Noem declined to say whether she would defy Trump’s orders if he asked her to withhold federal disaster relief funding from states. Instead, she said she would “deliver the programs according to the law and that it will be done with no political bias.”

States and FEMA often work together on recovery and relief efforts in the wake of disasters. But Trump has long attacked FEMA as ineffective, and he has more recently spread falsehoods about how the agency uses federal funding.

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Just days after he returned to the White House, Trump signed an executive order to review the agency while raising the possibility of “getting rid of” FEMA altogether. He has suggested that disaster relief efforts would move faster and cost less without FEMA involved.

The Washington Post reported last week that staffers with Elon Musk’s DOGE service, who have already wreaked havoc on other agencies, have been reviewing FEMA’s grant programs, raising concerns about Trump’s threat to disband the agency.

As with many of Trump’s recent moves, he does not have the ability to unilaterally eliminate FEMA and would require Congress’ approval to reorganize any congressionally created agency.

Noem told CNN that Trump would “work with Congress” to make sure any potential changes to FEMA are “done correctly.” Some Republicans, meantime, have pushed back on his idea of eliminating the agency.