Democratic lawmakers are demanding Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to explain why the Federal Emergency Management Agency failed to answer thousands of calls from victims of the Texas floods.
The demand comes after Noem claimed that a report from The New York Times—which said that she refused to extend a FEMA call center contract, leading two-thirds of calls to go unanswered—was “fake news.”
“It’s just false. Those contracts were in place. No employees were off of work, every one of them was answering calls. False reporting, fake news,” she said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
According to the Times’ report, FEMA laid off hundreds of employees at disaster assistance call centers because Noem did not renew their contracts, which needed her personal signature for renewal since she changed DHS policy for any contract over $100,000—a pittance when it comes to disaster relief needs.
According to the report:
On July 5, as floodwaters were starting to recede, FEMA received 3,027 calls from disaster survivors and answered 3,018, or roughly 99.7 percent, the documents show. Contractors with four call center companies answered the vast majority of the calls.
That evening, however, Ms. Noem did not renew the contracts with the four companies and hundreds of contractors were fired, according to the documents and the person briefed on the matter.
The next day, July 6, FEMA received 2,363 calls and answered 846, or roughly 35.8 percent, according to the documents. And on Monday, July 7, the agency fielded 16,419 calls and answered 2,613, or around 15.9 percent, the documents show.
Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington said that Noem must now provide evidence that she approved these contracts.
“Show us the receipts that you extended those contracts. Turn over documents detailing exactly when you renewed those contracts. There needs to be bipartisan oversight and Congressional hearings over these truly unacceptable failures,” she wrote on X.
Similarly, three House Oversight Committee Democrats requested that FEMA provide a “detailed and comprehensive list of every contract, grant, or other funding request from DHS and/or FEMA to Secretary Noem related to the July 2025 flooding in Central Texas, including the date the request was made and the date that it was approved or denied by Secretary Noem.”
Ultimately, the failure to renew FEMA disaster assistance call center contracts is Noem’s latest blunder in responding to the Texas floods, which have now claimed at least 130 lives, with more than 160 people still missing.
Noem also failed to approve a contract for urban search and rescue teams, slowing efforts for 72 hours after the floods, according to a report from CNN. Noem also claimed that this was false.
“Fake news, CNN again. It’s absolutely trash, what they are doing by saying that,” Noem said on Fox News.
But in trying to claim that the report was false, a DHS spokesperson actually admitted that it took 3 days for hundreds of search and rescue staffers to try to recover flood survivors, confirming CNN’s reporting.
And while Noem was twiddling her thumbs over approving FEMA contracts, she herself has been blowing through DHS funding for her own vanity projects, spending hundreds of millions of dollars cosplaying as a law enforcement officer during ICE raids and Coast Guard missions. She has also spent money to pose in front of immigrants detained in El Salvador’s notoriously violent CECOT prison. She also requested a new $50 million private jet to use to travel around and perform more stunts to scare immigrants.
Turns out that President Donald Trump’s appointment of wildly unqualified egomaniacs is now having deadly consequences for Americans.