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(WASHINGTON) — Tech billionaire Elon Musk was slated to visit the Pentagon on Friday and attend a meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that would touch on China, among other things, two United States officials confirmed to ABC News — but that plan changed after The New York Times reported Musk would be briefed on potential China war plans.

Musk visited the Pentagon on Friday — but instead of meeting with the Joint Chiefs, Musk met with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and staffers, a U.S. official said.

The meeting between Musk and the Joint Chiefs was to be at the unclassified level and attended virtually by Adm. Sam Paparo, the commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, one official said. But some time between the publication of The New York Times story on Thursday and Musk’s visit to the Pentagon Friday morning, the visit turned into just a meeting with Hegseth.

The New York Times reported that Musk would receive a briefing from senior military leaders about a top-secret military plan for potential war with China. The publication said the meeting was canceled because of its initial report.

Musk, Hegseth and President Donald Trump denied the report — with Trump asserting that Musk would not be briefed on a war plan with China.

“I don’t want to show that to anybody. But certainly, you wouldn’t show it to a businessman who is helping us so much. He’s a great patriot … But I certainly wouldn’t want — you know, Elon has businesses in China, and he would be susceptible perhaps to that. But it was such a fake story,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday.

“I don’t want to show that to anybody. But certainly, you wouldn’t show it to a businessman who is helping us so much. He’s a great patriot … But I certainly wouldn’t want — you know, Elon has businesses in China, and he would be susceptible perhaps to that. But it was such a fake story,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday.

Musk arrived at the Pentagon just before 9 a.m. and remained in Hegseth’s office for the duration of his visit.

The meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff did take place as scheduled, but Paparo did not join the meeting as previously scheduled. One of the officials said the meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the in the conference room known as “The Tank” went on for about two hours.

Musk left the Pentagon at 10:21 a.m. — about 20 minutes after it appeared that the meeting in The Tank actually got underway.

As Musk departed Hegseth’s office on Friday, he was asked by reporters how the meeting went and responded that “it’s always a great meeting.”

“I’ve been here before, you know,” Musk added as both he and Hegseth walked together. Musk did visit the Pentagon in 2016 to meet with then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter.

When they were outside the Pentagon, Hegseth and Musk shook hands and Musk was overhead to say, “If there’s anything I can do to be helpful, I’d like to see you.”

Neither responded to questions at that time about whether they had discussed China or if was a classified briefing.

Hegseth previously posted on X that the meeting was not about “China war plans,” but rather described it as an “informal meeting about innovation, efficiencies & smarter production.”

Trump posted on his conservative social media platform that China would not be mentioned or discussed during the meeting.

Musk went so far as to suggest there should be prosecutions of anyone at the Pentagon who may have leaked information.

“They will be found,” Musk wrote on X.

ABC News’ Justin Gomez and Chris Boccia contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump announced Friday that two key functions of the agency he is seeking to dismantle, the Department of Education, will be moved to new departments: The Small Business Administration will take on student loans, and the Department of Health and Human Services will take on special needs and nutrition efforts.

“I do want to say that I’ve decided that the SBA, the Small Business Administration, headed by Kelly Loeffler, [who] is a terrific person, will handle all of the student loan portfolio,” he said.

“We have a portfolio that’s very large, lots of loans, tens of thousands of loans — pretty complicated deal. And that’s coming out of the Department of Education immediately,” Trump said, adding that he believes it will be “serviced much better” than it has been.

Student loans are currently overseen by the Federal Student Aid Office within the Department of Education, and it handles not tens of thousands of dollars in loans but $1.6 trillion in loans for 43 million people.

However, the SBA, which already handles billions of dollars in loans each year, has faced cuts since Trump took office, saying it would reduce its staff by 43% amid agencywide reorganization.

The SBA said it would “eliminate approximately 2,700 active positions out of a total active workforce of nearly 6,500 through voluntary resignations, the expiration of COVID-era and other term appointments, and a limited number of reductions in force.”

The Federal Student Aid Office employs over 1,000 employees, but it is unclear whether these employees would move under the SBA or how the agency would handle an influx in loans to manage.

Trump noted that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s HHS will handle “special needs and all of the nutrition programs and everything else,” conceding that it’s “rather complex.”

“Those two elements will be taken out of the Department of Education, and then all we have to do is get the students to get guidance from the people that love them and cherish them,” Trump said.

The president maintained that the core functions would remain intact.

“Pell Grants, Title 1, funding resources for children with disabilities and special needs will be preserved, fully preserved,” Trump said Thursday before signing the bill. “They’re going to be preserved in full and redistributed to various other agencies and departments that will take very good care of them.”

The president did not offer any details about how exactly those portfolios would be transferred to other agencies, saying only that it would happen “immediately.”

At least one component of the plan — moving the student loan system to another department — is likely to face significant legal pushback.

The central legal issue is likely to focus on the Higher Education Act of 1965, which stipulates that the Federal Student Aid Office should be under the purview of the secretary of education.

“Congress has charged the secretary of education with administering the federal student aid program by issuing student loans and grants to support students’ attainment of higher education,” said Andrew Cook, press secretary for the American Federation of Teachers. “The department’s office of Federal Student Aid is statutorily mandated to do so and has the unique expertise to manage the complex student aid program.”

AFT President Randi Weingarten was more blunt: “See you in court,” she said in a statement after Trump signed the executive order on Thursday.

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(WASHINGTON) — Wyoming Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman tangled with a fiery town hall audience in her home state on Thursday night as she went back and forth with constituents over Elon Musk’s DOGE and cuts to federal spending.

At one point, Hageman sparred with a woman who said she was a retired military officer and Republican, who grilled the congresswoman over the evidence of alleged fraud that Musk and Republicans contend they have uncovered.

“Just to give you a little reference, I’m a retired military officer,” an unidentified woman said at one point in the town hall. “At 18, I rose my hand to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. … “And my question, having looked at Musk’s DOGE, you are a lawyer. Where is this fraud? Who? What company? What organization? What personnel are we going after right now?”

DOGE’s actions have come under fire, not only for recommending thousands of federal workers be fired, including many veterans but allegations, backed by President Donald Trump and the White House pertaining to what they say is massive fraud in government spending. The claims of fraud, which Trump outlined in his recent address to Congress, are not yet verifiable.

Hageman, fired back at the constituent, saying, “Oh my gosh, I’ll just start reading some of it. I’ll just start reading it right now, if you like me to. I’ll just focus on USAID spending right here.”

“I didn’t say spending, I said actual fraud,” the woman shouted back at Hageman.

“This is what it is,” Hageman retorted. “This is the spending associated with the fraud. This is the fraud. Spending is the fraud.”

“No, no, no,” the woman shouted back. “Go after specific companies or specific personnel that are committing fraud.”

“This is fraud. This is fraudulent spending,” said Hageman.

“No, it may be abusive spending, but it’s not fraud,” the woman replied.

“What I said was waste, fraud and abuse. Waste, fraud and abuse,” Hageman said back, before trying to give figures on USAID spending.

The same constituent then pressed Hageman over firings and whether or not they were actually making government more efficient: “Just because you’re firing somebody doesn’t mean that’s efficient because the job is still there. It still needs to be done,” she said.

“We will eliminate some of those jobs as well,” Hageman said. “Those jobs will be being eliminated. They don’t need to be done.”

At another point during the town hall, another woman pressed Hageman over what qualifies Musk to be making cuts to federal spending.

“You just described the cuts to the government right now as some kind of careful audit, but the cuts that DOGE has been making have been willy-nilly by someone who has never served in the government, has never run a nonprofit, who has 19-year-olds infiltrating computers and agencies and making decisions. So who is Musk accountable to? What qualifies him to be making these cuts? It’s not an audit,” she asked.

DOGE claims to have saved $115 billion but that full amount is unverifiable because there are only receipts for a portion of the claimed savings.

“As I said a moment ago, this is, it is an audit. It is the closest thing that we are ever going to get to zero-based budgeting in the federal government,” Hageman said.

“What I cannot understand, whether he is a billionaire, a millionaire, or someone who is, just as he says, tech support, all he is doing is going in and looking at every single agency and how the money is being spent. Do you think that you are entitled to know how your money is being spent?” she added.

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(WASHINGTON) — Elon Musk’s political action committee is offering Wisconsin voters $100 who sign a petition opposing “activist judges” ahead of the April 1 Wisconsin Supreme Court election, echoing the billionaire’s controversial cash giveaways during President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign.

The petition, promoted online and at in-person events by Musk’s America PAC, asks voters in the state to reject “activist judges who impose their own views.” Wisconsin voters who sign up are eligible to receive the $100, according to the PAC.

The petition’s language mirrors recent attacks by Musk and Trump on federal judges who have ruled against the administration. It reads: “Judges should interpret laws as written, not rewrite them to fit their personal or political agendas. By signing below, I’m rejecting the actions of activist judges who impose their own views and demanding a judiciary that respects its role — interpreting, not legislating.”

The petition also allows Musk’s team to collect voter data for get-out-the-vote efforts ahead of next month’s election.

The world’s richest man has used cash giveaways in past elections, including a controversial $1 million sweepstakes to voters in swing states who signed a second amendment petition in efforts to boost Trump’s chances.

So far, two political groups aligned with Musk — America PAC and Building America’s Future — have poured nearly $20 million into supporting Republican candidate Brad Schimel.

In a memo obtained by ABC News, Building America’s Future said that internal polling showed Schimel was “within striking distance” of Democratic candidate Susan Crawford. To pull ahead, Schimel needed to “consolidate the base and present Schimel as a pro-Trump conservative,” according to the memo.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Government Efficiency approach’s to identifying fraud at the Social Security Administration “is tantamount to hitting a fly with a sledgehammer,” a federal judge said Thursday, blocking DOGE’s unlimited access to sensitive agency data.

In a 137-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander wrote the Trump administration never justified the need to access the data — which they argued was vital to identifying alleged fraud — and likely violated multiple federal laws in doing so.

“The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion. It has launched a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack,” she wrote.

The judge’s order blocks the agency from granting DOGE access to systems containing personally identifiable information and orders DOGE members to destroy any data in their possession that identifies individual taxpayers. However, the judge’s decision allows DOGE to continue to allow access anonymized data from the agency.

According to Hollander, the decision to give DOGE “unlimited access to SSA’s entire record system” endangered the sensitive and private information of millions of Americans, risking information including Social Security numbers, credit card information, medical and mental health records, hospitalization records, marriage and birth certificates, and bank information.

“The government has not even attempted to explain why a more tailored, measured, titrated approach is not suitable to the task,” she wrote. “Instead, the government simply repeats its incantation of a need to modernize the system and uncover fraud. Its method of doing so is tantamount to hitting a fly with a sledgehammer.”

The lawsuit challenging DOGE’s access was filed last month by two national unions and an advocacy group who argued DOGE’s access violated privacy laws and the Administrative Procedures Act. In a statement to ABC News, the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees celebrated the decision as a “major win for working people and retirees across the country.”

“The court saw that Elon Musk and his unqualified lackeys present a grave danger to Social Security and have illegally accessed the data of millions of Americans,” AFSCME President Lee Saunders said in a statement.

In her decision, the judge also pointed out the irony that DOGE has accessed the sensitive information of millions of Americans while the identities of the DOGE employees working in the SSA have been concealed for privacy reasons.

“The defense does not appear to share a privacy concern for the millions of Americans whose SSA records were made available to the DOGE affiliates, without their consent,” she wrote.

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(WASHINGTON) — In President Donald Trump’s escalating battle with the judiciary, he and his Republican allies have zeroed in on a similar message.

No single judge, they argue, should be able to use an injunction to block the powers of the country’s elected chief executive.

“That’s a presidential job. That’s not for a local judge to be making that determination,” Trump said on Fox News earlier this week as he railed against a judge who issued a limited injunction to stop deportation flights of alleged Venezuelan gang members to other countries after Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, peppered with questions after the administration did not turn the planes around, on Wednesday preemptively offered her own rebuke of judges who’ve recently ordered injunctions taking effect nationwide.

“The judges in this country are acting erroneously,” she said. “We have judges who are acting as partisan activists from the bench. They are trying to dictate policy from the president of the United States. They are trying to clearly slow walk this administration’s agenda, and it’s unacceptable.”

The White House argues that’s especially the case when it comes to immigration matters, foreign affairs, national security and the president exercising his constitutional powers as commander in chief.

Judges have, so far, temporarily blocked Trump’s efforts to ban transgender people from serving in the military, freeze federal funding and bring an end to birthright citizenship.

Supporters of nationwide injunctions say they serve as an essential check to potentially unlawful conduct and prevent widespread harm. Critics say they give too much authority to individual judges and incentivize plaintiffs to try to evade random assignment and file in jurisdictions with judges who may be sympathetic to their point of view.

In general, legal experts told ABC News an injunction is meant to preserve the status quo while judges consider the merits of the case. (Judges also issue temporary restraining orders — with similar impact — as short-term emergency measures to prevent irreparable harm until a hearing can be held.)

“Often the nationwide injunction, or universal injunction, is put in place right at the start of a litigation,” said Amanda Frost, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law.

“All of these can be appealed, and they are,” Frost said. “It’s appealed to a three-judge court and then the Supreme Court after that. So, when people say one district court is controlling the law for the nation, well maybe for a few weeks. The system allows for appeals, and the Trump administration has appealed.”

Chief Justice John Roberts said the same in a rare statement after Trump attacked the federal judge in the deportation flight case as a “Radical Left Lunatic” and called for him to be impeached.

In fact, Trump was handed a win when an appeals court last week lifted an injunction on his executive orders seeking to end diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs in the federal government.

Nationwide injunctions are also not new, though scholars agree they’ve been used far more in recent decades.

“We saw them with Obama, we saw them with the first Trump administration, and saw them with Biden,” Frost said. “And now we’re seeing them even more with President Trump but they go in lockstep with the sweeping executive orders that seek to change and upend vast swaths of our legal structure.”

According to a study by the Harvard Law Review, President Barack Obama faced 12 injunctions, the Trump administration faced 64 and President Joe Biden 14 injunctions.

Both Democrats and Republicans have either urged the judiciary to rein in injunctions or celebrated their outcomes, depending on whether they align with their political goals.

In 2023, when a federal judge in Missouri issued an injunction limiting contact between the Biden administration and social media sites, then-candidate Trump called it a “historic ruling” and the judge “brilliant.” The U.S. Supreme Court eventually sided with the Biden administration on the issue.

Now, the Trump administration is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court to curb injunctions after three different federal judges temporarily blocked the president’s birthright citizenship order, saying it likely violated the 14th Amendment.

“At a minimum, the Court should stay the injunctions to the extent they prohibit agencies from developing and issuing public guidance regarding the implementation of the Order. Only this Court’s intervention can prevent universal injunctions from becoming universally acceptable,” Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris wrote in an application to the high court last week.

Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and president of West Coast Trial Lawyers, said he understands the “frustration” that can stem from nationwide injunctions but ultimately “judges are there to make sure that the government doesn’t violate the Constitution.”

“Trump is really taking a sledgehammer to everything government related,” he said. “These norms have been around for decades, so you have to allow some time for the courts, particularly the Supreme Court, to weigh in and say whether this is appropriate or not.”

The White House has said Trump will comply with the courts, but his intensifying rebukes of judges and rulings have raised the question: What happens if he doesn’t?

“That would completely undermine the integrity of our system,” Rahmani said.

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