Welcome to the NewsHour. President Donald Trump set off for the first trip of his second administration today touring multiple disaster zones.

The president is in California tonight where he'll survey damage from the wildfires that are ravaging the Los Angeles area.

But first, he stopped in North Carolina, four months after Hurricane Helene and threatened the future of FEMA. Laura Barone-Lopez begins our coverage.

This morning, President Donald Trump touching down in Western North Carolina. Stop number one of a cross-country disaster tour.

Hurricane Helene brought historic catastrophic floods to the state last September.

Four months later, Trump again made the recovery political.

On the tarmac in Asheville, Trump questioned the need for a federal response.

To have a group of people come in from an area that don't even know where they're going,

in order to solve immediately a problem

is something that never worked for me. I'd like to see the states take care of disasters. Let the

state take care of the tornadoes and the hurricanes and all of the other things that happen.

Shortly after, Trump said he would sign an executive order to gut FEMA. I think we're going to

recommend that FEMA go away. Eliminating the agency would sign an executive order to gut FEMA. I think we're going to recommend that FEMA go away.

Eliminating the agency would take an act of Congress. And while FEMA assists states in disaster

response, it's only at the request of governors. By afternoon, Trump was shaking hands with families

in storm-battered Swannanoa, a small town outside Asheville.

You need your riverbanks fixed. You need a lot of roads fixed, and we're going to get it done

in rapid time. All this while in Washington. In my second term, we will again stand proudly

for families and for life. The annual March for Life, where Trump made a simultaneous virtual appearance via pre-recorded video.

Crowds of anti-abortion protesters watching on.

We believe that every child has the right to life.

The event featured a lineup of Washington's new Republican leadership.

...