The Federal Emergency Management Agency supervisor who was fired after she told her staff to skip hurricane-damaged homes with Trump signs in their yards says it wasn’t an isolated incident and is a “colossal event.”

Marn’i Washington, who was fired last week, sat down for an interview with Roland Martin on Monday and insisted she was dismissed for following FEMA policy of avoiding “politically hostile” homes.

“FEMA preaches avoidance first, and then de-escalation. This is not isolated. This is a colossal event of avoidance,” Ms. Washington said.

The ex-federal worker said the avoidance wasn’t isolated to Florida, where she oversaw a staff of workers surveying the damage from Hurricane Milton to determine which residents would be eligible for federal aid.

“You will find ‘avoidance’ in the Carolinas,” Ms. Washington said, adding that she didn’t vote for a candidate in the 2024 election.

FEMA says her case was an isolated incident.

But Ms. Washington said that she didn’t have the unilateral authority to give the order to skip homes of Trump supporters while disaster relief workers were canvassing homes in Lake Placid, Florida, last month.

While Ms. Washington acknowledged the homes were skipped, she said it was because of “safety precautions, not because of political play.” She said some houses that did not have Trump signs had also been skipped because they were “politically hostile.” 

Ms. Washington insisted that her supervisor had approved the directive because there were incident reports detailing “political hostility” by residents to federal workers in the area.

“Senior leadership will tell you and tell you that they do not know, but if you ask the [Disaster Survivor Assistance] crew leads and specialists what they’re experiencing in the field, they will tell you,” she said.

“Demand for FEMA to give you those incident reports, they will substantiate what is happening to us in the field,” Ms. Washington told the interviewer. “FEMA’s very well aware of the incidents that take place, not just with my crew, but with all the crews in the states.” 

Ms. Washington was fired Saturday, according to a statement by FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell.

“I want to be clear to all of my employees and the American people, this type of behavior and action will not be tolerated at FEMA and [FEMA] will hold people accountable if they violate these standards of conduct,” Ms. Criswell said in a statement. “This employee has been terminated and we have referred the matter to the Office of Special Counsel. I will continue to do everything I can to make sure this never happens again.” 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also ordered an investigation into the reports that FEMA workers were skipping the homes of Trump supporters. 

Mr. DeSantis wrote on X that he directed the state’s Division of Emergency Management to probe “the federal government’s targeted discrimination of Floridians who support Donald Trump.” 

“The blatant weaponization of government by partisan activists in the federal bureaucracy is yet another reason why the Biden-Harris administration is in its final days,” Mr. DeSantis wrote. “New leadership is on the way in DC, and I’m optimistic that these partisan bureaucrats will be fired.”