FEMA supervisor fired over Trump texts says she didn't vote in election

A supervisor for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) who was fired after allegedly directing workers to avoid homes with yard signs supporting President-elect Donald Trump said she didn't vote in the 2024 presidential race.

Washington, who served as a FEMA reservist deployed to Florida after it was struck by Hurricanes Helene and Milton earlier this year, has come under scrutiny after The Daily Wire leaked text messages advising her team members to not canvas homes that had signs showing support for Trump, who last week won his bid to return to the White House.

In an interview with news commentator and radio host Roland Martin, Washington said she did not vote for Harris in the election and that she considers herself "nonpartisan."

"I didn't even have an opportunity to vote at all in this election due to the amount of deployment requests and the high demand of help that was needed with FEMA," she said.

FEMA employees search a flood-damaged property in Asheville, North Carolina, on October 4, 2024. A fired FEMA supervisor has defended herself against accusations that she skipped houses with Trump signs for political reasons. Mario Tama/Getty Images

She defended herself against claims that she was acting in a politically-motivated fashion by urging her employees to skip homes with Trump signs. She said she was practicing the agency's practice of "avoidance" after other incidents allegedly involving "political hostility" with Trump supporters.

"If you look at the record, there is what we call a community trend. And unfortunately it just so happened that the political hostility that was encountered by my team...they just so happened to have the Trump campaign signage," she said.

She said that FEMA is "well aware" of incidents involving the president-elect's supporters but "decided to fire me and make sure Donald Trump knows that they are loyal to him because they fear retribution."

While she would not require her team to canvas homes with Trump signs, she added that they would still register them if they came outside and asked for assistance. She said she has also noted hostilities from houses with signs in support of Harris, and others with no political signage.

FEMA has not provided details about whether there has been a trend of harassment involving Trump supporters.

Washington previously told The Washington Examiner that her team did provide assistance to homes with Trump signs and has provided resources to his supporters.

Newsweek reached out to FEMA for comment via email.

FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell announced that an employee had been fired last week but had not named Washington as the employee. She said the practice of skipping houses with Trump signs is "reprehensible."

"Recently, a FEMA employee departed from these values to advise her survivor assistance team to not go to homes with yard signs supporting President-elect Trump. This is a clear violation of FEMA's core values & principles to help people regardless of their political affiliation," she wrote in a post to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Republicans responded with outrage over the reports. GOP Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has also said the state will be investigating her actions.

"At my direction, the Division of Emergency Management is launching an investigation into the federal government's targeted discrimination of Floridians who support Donald Trump," he said. "New leadership is on the way in D.C., and I'm optimistic that these partisan bureaucrats will be fired."