Politics – Page 122

Warren warns of ‘dire consequences’ of Education Department firings for student loans

March 20, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Elizabeth Warren is urging Education Secretary Linda McMahon to reinstate former Department of Education employees who were critical to the nation’s federal student aid process or else borrowers will suffer “dire consequences,” according to a letter Warren sent to McMahon on Wednesday.

“The Department of Education (ED) appears to be abandoning the millions of parents, students, and borrowers who rely on a functioning federal student aid system to lower education costs,” Warren and a group of Democratic senators wrote in a letter to McMahon.

“ED should immediately restore all fired [Federal Student Aid] employees responsible for reviewing student aid complaints and refrain from taking any measures to deter the submission of complaints,” the senators added.

The Education Department intended to remove the “Submit a Complaint” button from FSA’s website, according to the letter. It found a senior employee at the department called the move an “overall win” as the change would decrease the volume and number of complaints. But more than 90% of the office’s complaints were submitted online last year.

“ED’s actions will hurt parents trying to understand how to submit the FAFSA correctly so that they can afford to send their child to college, veterans whose loan repayment status has been processed incorrectly due to their deployment, and students whose aid is being improperly withheld by predatory for-profit schools,” the letter said.

The letter alleges the FSA website changes — like moving the submit a complaint function — weakens FSA’s capacity to resolve complaints and puts borrowers at risk of loan scams. Warren, D-Mass., and the senators demand answers about the agency’s complaint backlog, why the department fired the civil servants, and how much influence Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency had on the firings.

“Donald Trump is telling students that if you’re scammed by your student loan servicer or have a problem getting the aid you need to go to college, he doesn’t care,” Warren said in a statement to ABC News. “Secretary McMahon is helping Trump rip opportunities away from kids who just want a good education, and as a result, real people will get hurt. Democrats in the Senate are not going to roll over and give up on our kids — we’re fighting back,” Warren added.

This comes as President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order to gut the U.S. Department of Education at the White House on Wednesday, multiple sources familiar told ABC News. The president’s order will direct McMahon to take all necessary steps permitted by law to dissolve department, according to the sources familiar. It would take 60 votes in the Senate to dismantle the agency that Congress created.

The education department took its first steps to eliminate nearly half the agency’s workforce last week through a massive reduction in force, deferred resignations and retirement buyouts, according to the agency. After a federal judge ordered that former probationary employees be reinstated, dozens were rehired. A source familiar told ABC News that most of the reduction in force impacted the offices for Civil Rights and Federal Student Aid. FSA civil servants are tasked with helping the nation’s students achieve higher education, including overseeing a $1.6 trillion portfolio of student loans.

FSA received nearly 300,000 complaints in Fiscal Year 2024, according to the letter. The office had about 1,400 employees before the layoffs and hundreds will be lost after last week’s cuts.=

Still, the department will continue to administer its statutory functions that students from disadvantaged backgrounds rely on, including grants, formula funding and loans, McMahon stressed recently.

“We wanted to make sure that we kept all of the right people, the good people, to make sure that the outward-facing programs, the grants, the appropriations that come from Congress, all of that are being met and none of that is going to fall through the cracks,” she said on “The Ingraham Angle” on Fox News.

FSA’s operations have already been impacted, according to a source familiar. The federal student loan website was down briefly last week. Less than 24 hours after being fired, IT employees were called frantically to join an hours-long troubleshooting call, according to the source.

Throughout President Joe Biden’s tenure there were widespread issues with the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, form. During a House Committee on Appropriations hearing last spring former Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said the department was working on fixing the botched rollout of the form “around the clock.” McMahon’s department touted a 50% increase on the number of FAFSA applications submitted compared to this time last year.

Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders, the ranking member on the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee, were among the 11 lawmakers who signed the letter. The deadline for the administration to respond is March 25.

A former FSA attorney, who did oversight and enforcement in the borrower defense unit, said they were heartbroken when they were let go from their dream job on Valentine’s Day.

Since the checks stopped coming in last month, the former employee said it’s been difficult living on unemployment benefits. The former employee described making about a fifth of what they brought in before being fired.

However, they said the letter to McMahon gives them renewed hope.

“If I could get my job back I would take it in a heartbeat,” the former FSA attorney told ABC News, adding, “I loved the work that we did.”

DOD says it ‘mistakenly removed’ Jackie Robinson, other content from website amid DEI purge

March 19, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — The Pentagon said Wednesday that in “rare cases” it may have deliberately or mistakenly removed some webpages in efforts to remove diversity, equity and inclusion content after a tribute to Jackie Robinson’s Army service was suddenly scrubbed from a Department of Defense’s website.

A DOD official told ABC News that the Robinson webpage, among other content recently removed from Pentagon websites, was “mistakenly removed” due to the search terms used to scrub DEI terms from platforms.

The official said Robinson’s page and others that were unpublished, including content honoring the Tuskegee Airmen, the Enola Gay, the Navajo Code Talkers, history-making female fighter pilots and the Marines at Iwo Jima, would be republished.

Pentagon press secretary John Ullyot said in a statement to ABC News that “everyone at the Defense Department loves Jackie Robinson” as well as others whose webpages were removed and will be restored.

Ullyot added that the DOD salutes many of these military heroes and does “not view or highlight them through the prism of immutable characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, or sex.”

“We do so only by recognizing their patriotism and dedication to the warfighting mission like ever other American who has worn the uniform,” Ullyot said, saying DEI initiatives “divide the force.”

“We are pleased by the rapid compliance across the Department with the directive removing DEI content from all platforms,” he added. “In the rare cases that content is removed — either deliberately or by mistake — that is out of the clearly outlined scope of the directive, we instruct the components and they correct the content so it recognizes our heroes for their dedicated service alongside their fellow Americans, period.”

It was not clear which terms in the Robinson story, published by DOD News, led to its removal.

Ahead of the DOD saying the webpage removal was a mistake, Jackie Robinson Foundation Chairman Leonard Coleman, the former National League president, told ESPN that Robinson “represents America at its best.”

“Removing an icon and Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient from government websites represents America at its worst,” he added.

According to an online archive of the story, which was a part of a series on “Sports Heroes Who Served,” Robinson was “assigned to a segregated Army cavalry unit in Fort Riley, Kansas,” after being drafted in 1942.

It recounted Robinson’s arrest in 1944 after an Army bus driver ordered Robinson “to move to the back of the bus, but Robinson refused.”

The story, which the Pentagon said would be restored, noted that Robinson in his baseball career “did experience a lot of hatred from fans and other baseball players who felt that Black players should not be allowed in Major League Baseball.”

Still, in a statement given to ABC News, Ullyot defended the removal of DEI from the DOD, saying it is “a form of Woke cultural Marxism.”

“As Secretary Hegseth has said, DEI is dead at the Defense Department,” Ullyot said.

Zelenskyy says Putin’s ‘words’ aren’t enough after call with Trump

March 19, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke on Wednesday about a partial ceasefire on energy infrastructure amid broader efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

Their conversation came one day after Trump failed to persuade Russia’s Vladimir Putin to sign on to the 30-day total ceasefire proposed by the U.S. and backed by Ukraine, though Putin said he agreed to pausing attacks on energy sites.

Trump “fully briefed” Zelenskyy on his discussion with Putin, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House national security adviser Michael Waltz.

“The two leaders also agreed on a partial ceasefire against energy. Technical teams will meet in Saudi Arabia in the coming days to discuss broadening the ceasefire to the Black Sea on the way to a full ceasefire,” Rubio and Waltz said. “They agreed this could be the first step toward the full end of the war and ensuring security.”

Zelenskyy said in his own statement following the hourlong call that Ukraine was ready to halt energy attacks once details are ironed out.

“I supported this step, and Ukraine confirmed that we are ready to implement it,” Zelenskyy wrote, adding that U.S. and Ukrainian officials discussed this issue in Jeddah last week.

“We instructed our teams to resolve technical issues related to implementing and expanding the partial ceasefire,” he added. “Ukrainian and American teams are ready to meet in Saudi Arabia in the coming days to continue coordinating steps toward peace.”

Zelenskyy said he is preparing a list that Ukraine will share “to our partners” on what facilities and targets will be off-limits to attack in a potential agreement between Russia and Ukraine.

But the Ukrainian leader also expressed skepticism on Wednesday that Russia would hold up its end of any agreement.

“Just assurances and only Putin’s words that he orders not to strike energy facilities — that is not enough. Why? Because, unfortunately, this war has made us very practical people,” Zelenskyy said.

“If the Russians do not strike our facilities, we will certainly not strike theirs,” Zelenskyy said.

Russia and Ukraine continued to trade strikes overnight after Trump’s conversation with Putin. Ukrainian authorities reported attacks on a hospital and damage to a gas pipeline, while Moscow said Ukraine struck an oil depot facility. Though the Kremlin claimed on Wednesday that Russia neutralized seven of its own drones from carrying out attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.

Wednesday’s call was the first between Trump and Zelenskyy since their Oval Office clash last month, in which Trump accused the Ukrainian leader of not being ready for peace and not holding any cards in negotiations.

Following the tense exchange, the Trump administration cut off military assistance and some intelligence sharing to Kyiv. Those tools, however, were reinstated after Ukraine agreed to a 30-day truce during talks with top U.S. officials in Saudi Arabia last week.

Both Trump and Zelenskyy struck a more cordial tone after Wednesday’s conversation. Trump wrote on Truth Social that it was a “very good” call. Zelenskyy said he had a “positive, very substantive and frank conversation” with Trump.

Plus, the White House said Wednesday the U.S. would help Ukraine acquire additional air defense systems, “particularly in Europe.”

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt was also asked if intelligence sharing with Kyiv would continue, after the Kremlin on Tuesday said a key condition to ending the war should be the U.S. and allies completely stopping military and intelligence assistance to Ukraine.

“Intelligence sharing, and in terms of defense for Ukraine, will continue to be shared,” Leavitt said.

ABC News’ Ellie Kaufman and David Brennan contributed to this report.

Trump to speak with Ukraine’s Zelenskyy after Putin rebuffs 30-day ceasefire plan

March 19, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump will speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday as talks continue to try to end the Russia-Ukraine war, according to sources familiar.

Their conversation will come one day after Trump failed to convince Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to a 30-day total ceasefire proposed by the U.S. and backed by Ukraine, though Putin agreed to pause attacks on energy infrastructure.

Zelenskyy told ABC News Chief International Correspondent James Longman on Tuesday that he counted on having a conversation with Trump about the “details” of a partial energy ceasefire.

“We have always supported the ceasefire position and not to use any weapons against the energy infrastructure, and also we have supported the position of not to attack the naval corridors,” Zelenskyy said.

But Russia and Ukraine continued to trade strikes following Tuesday’s developments. Ukrainian authorities reported a drone attack on a hospital, while Moscow said Ukraine struck an oil depot facility.

The actions prompted Zelenskyy to say “only a real cessation by Russia of attacks on civilian infrastructure as evidence of a desire to end this war can bring peace close.”

Wednesday’s call will be the first between Trump and Zelenskyy since their Oval Office clash last month, in which Trump accused the Ukrainian leader of not being ready for peace and not holding any cards in negotiations.

Trump had expressed optimism ahead of his call with Putin that there would a good chance of success in securing the monthlong ceasefire. But then in an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Tuesday night, Trump conceded it “would have been tough.”

The Kremlin said following Tuesday’s call that in terms of the monthlong ceasefire, Russia “identified a number of significant issues related to ensuring effective control over a possible ceasefire along the entire line of contact.”

Plus, it said a key condition for ending the war would be the total “cessation” of military and intelligence assistance to Kyiv.

“Today, Putin effectively rejected the proposal for a full ceasefire. It would be right for the world to respond by rejecting any attempts by Putin to prolong the war,” Zelenskyy responded on Tuesday.

“Sanctions against Russia. Assistance to Ukraine. Strengthening allies in the free world and working toward security guarantees. And only a real cessation of strikes on civilian infrastructure by Russia, as proof of its willingness to end this war, can bring peace closer.”

Pentagon aims to cut 50,000 to 60,000 civilians

March 18, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The Pentagon is attempting to reduce the size of its civilian workforce by between 50,000 to 60,000 employees through voluntary workforce reductions, though it remains unclear if it will be able to meet that goal without possibly having to carry out forced reductions in the civilian workforce.

The Defense Department is currently carrying out a voluntary process to reach its goal of a 5% to 8% reduction of its 878,000 civilian employees — a number that equates to 50,000 to 60,000 employees, a senior defense official told reporters on Tuesday.

“The number sounds high, but I would focus on the percentage, a 5% to 8% reduction is not a drastic one,” said the official, who added that the percentage is one that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “is confident can be done without negatively impacting readiness in order to make sure that our resources are allocated in the right direction.”

The voluntary process includes employees who have chosen to resign through what is known as the “Fork in the Road,” a freeze on hiring new employees to replace those who are departing and the dismissal of 5,400 probationary employees who have less than one or two years’ experience in their current jobs.

About 21,000 civilian employees have had their voluntary resignation requests approved under what the Pentagon calls the Deferred Resignation Program (DRP), which allows employees to resign but continue to be paid through the end of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

The senior defense official declined to disclose how many civilian employees in total had sought to opt into the Deferred Resignation Program.

ABC News has previously reported that 31,000 civilian employees had offered to resign under the Trump administration initiative with some of the requests being denied.

The hiring freeze means that the average 6,000 employees who join the Pentagon every month are also not coming into the workforce as other employees leave.

The Defense Department had also begun the termination of 5,400 probationary civilian employees — which has now been paused by a temporary restraining order imposed by a federal judge.

The official stressed that the 5,400 probationary employees had not been selected for termination “blindly based on the time they had been hired.” The Department has 54,000 total probationary employees, a term that refers to employees who have less than one or two years’ experience in their current jobs.

Instead, the official said the 5,400 were employees who “were documented as significantly underperforming in their job functions and or had misconduct on the record.” It is unclear if all of the 5,400 probationary employees targeted for termination fell into those categories.

“The fact that someone was a probationary employee did not directly mean that they were going to be subject to removal,” said the official.

The official declined to offer what “reduction in force” steps the Pentagon might undertake should the voluntary efforts not reach the goal of reducing the workforce by 50,000 to 60,000 employees.

“I won’t get ahead of the Secretary,” the official said. “It’ll be the Secretary’s prerogative to designate how and when he might use any of the other tools that would be available to him to achieve the stated reduction targets.”

There has been speculation that military service members may be asked to fill in for some of the civilian jobs that are being vacated or will not be filled by the hiring freeze, but the official said the goal is not to affect military readiness.

“We are confident we could absorb those removals without detriment to our ability to continue the mission, and so that’s how we can be confident that we don’t need to worry about any resulting impact on the uniformed force,” the official said.

The official acknowledged that some military veterans would be among the civilians who would be leaving the department, but did not provide an estimate of how many.

“Some of those people will be veterans that served in uniform previously, we’re certainly again looking at case by case as we plan workforce reduction,” said the official. “There are so many critical skills and experience that veterans have to offer, and that’s part of the analysis when we consider who is contributing to the core mission functions and who should be retained.”

FBI arrests alleged MS-13 leader with help of Mexican government

March 18, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(MEXICO) — The FBI extradited an alleged senior leader of the MS-13 gang who was on the agency’s “10 most wanted” list with the help of the Mexican government, FBI Director Kash Patel said Tuesday.

Patel said Mexican authorities arrested Francisco Javier Roman-Bardales — who Patel said is believed to be a “key senior leader” of the gang. Roman-Bardales is being extradited to the United States, Patel added.

Patel touted the arrest as a “major victory.”

“He was arrested in Mexico and is being transported within the U.S. as we speak, where he will face American justice,” Patel wrote in a post on X. “This is a major victory both for our law enforcement partners and for a safer America.”

Roman-Bardales, 47, has been charged with several offenses for “his alleged role in ordering numerous acts of violence against civilians and rival gang members, as well as his role in drug distribution and extortion schemes in the United States and El Salvador,” the FBI said.

A federal arrest warrant was issued for Roman-Bardales in a New York court in 2022 after he was charged with conspiracy to provide and conceal material support and resources to terrorists; narco-terrorism conspiracy; racketeering conspiracy; and alien smuggling conspiracy.

Mexican authorities got intelligence that Roman-Bardales was in Baxtla, Mexico. Mexican law enforcement was deployed to the area, where Roman-Bardales was identified and arrested, the FBI said.

Patel thanked Mexican partners for their help in bringing Roman-Bardales to the U.S.

“This crucial step enhances the safety of communities across America,” Patel said.

The arrest comes as President Donald Trump and his administration target gangs such as MS-13.

He discussed his efforts during his address to a joint session of Congress last month, mentioning the deaths of Jocelyn Nungaray — who was killed by two undocumented men from Venezuela — and Laken Riley — who was killed by an undocumented immigrant.

“All three savages charged with Jocelyn and Laken’s murders were members of the Venezuelan prison gang — the toughest gang, they say, in the world — known as Tren de Aragua. Two weeks ago, I officially designated this gang, along with MS-13 and the bloodthirsty Mexican drug cartels, as foreign terrorist organizations. They are now officially in the same category as ISIS, and that’s not good for them,” Trump said in his joint address to Congress.

Also, Trump’s administration is working to deport gang members from the U.S. Over the weekend, the Trump administration handed over more than 200 alleged gang members — including two top members of the Salvadoran MS-13 gang — to El Salvadoran authorities. The move has raised questions as to whether the deportations could be in violation of a federal judge’s order temporarily blocking the removal of Venezuelans pursuant to the administration’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act.

Schumer defends vote to avert shutdown and his position as Senate Democratic leader

March 18, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer defended his choice to vote with the minority of his party to keep the government open last week and his position as leader in an appearance on “The View” on Tuesday.

His comments come as some Democrats have publicly raised questions about their confidence in Schumer’s role as party leader following his move to allow Republicans to advance their led funding bill.

Schumer doubled down on the assertion he made on the Senate floor ahead of Friday’s closely watched vote: The Republican funding bill, called a continuing resolution or CR, was bad, but a government shutdown would have been worse.

“I knew it was a difficult choice, and I knew I’d get a lot of criticism or my choice, but I felt as a leader I had to do it,” Schumer told “The View” hosts.

Schumer said he and fellow Democrats “hated” the funding bill because it creates a “slush fund” for President Donald Trump, his adviser Elon Musk and Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought to “push around.”

But a shutdown, Schumer said “would have devastation like we have never seen.”

He said it would have given the Trump administration the freedom to slash programs it views as nonessential, with little to no recourse for Democrats to pursue. Programs like Medicaid and SNAP or funding for mass transit could have been indiscriminately slashed, he said.

“You have two choices: one bad, the other devastating,” Schumer said. “One chops off one of your fingers, the other chops off your arm.”

He said he was being “trolled” by Trump when the president congratulated him for passage of the bill on Trump’s Truth Social platform.

“He was trolling me. I know this guy. He’s trying to confuse people he always tries to confuse people,” Schumer said.

As a leader, Schumer said he had to act to avert a crisis down the road that would have been caused by a shutdown. But his position has not quelled calls within his own party for new leadership after Democrats appeared to some to be lacking in a strategy during Friday’s vote.

Schumer defended his role atop the caucus from ongoing criticism.

Responding to concerns that the party is somewhat aimless without an official leader, Schumer said Democrats have many talented leaders.

“When we don’t have a president, there is a lot of leaders. We have a great bench,” he said. “As for the Senate caucus, of which I am the leader, I should be the leader.”

Schumer touted his ability to recruit talent to win seats in the Senate, pointing to the 2020 election when Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff successfully claimed both seats in Georgia.

He also likened himself to an “orchestra leader” conducting his caucus to help their talents come through.

“We have a load of talent in our caucus, and I’ll tell you one thing: We are united in going after Trump and showing the American people that he is making the middle class pay for the tax cuts on the rich.”

Schumer also promoted his new book, “Antisemitism in America: A warning.”

He encouraged a number of individuals to read the book, including the president.

“He doesn’t understand what Jewish people are like. And he does things that can lead to antisemitism,” Schumer said. “He should read the book. He could learn something.”

He also warned against the left “sliding into” antisemitism.

Chief Justice John Roberts pushes back against Trump’s call to impeach judge

March 18, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts pushed back against President Donald Trump’s call to impeach a judge whose ruling conflict with his administration’s priorities.

In a statement on Tuesday, Roberts issued a rare statement after Trump hurled insults at the federal judge who conducted a “fact-finding” hearing on Monday over whether the Trump administration knowingly violated a court order when it handed over more than 200 alleged gang members to El Salvadoran authorities over the weekend.

In a post on his social media network on Tuesday morning, Trump called U.S. District Judge James Boasberg “crooked” and suggested that he should be impeached.

“This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!” Trump wrote. “WE DON’T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY.”

“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said in the statement. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”

The statement signals a stark difference in opinion between the judicial and executive branches.

Trump argued on Tuesday that he should not be prevented from carrying out his immigration agenda, saying “I’m just doing what the VOTERS wanted me to do.”

Trump’s comments about Boasberg came after the federal judge blocked the Trump administration from deporting any noncitizens after the president’s recent proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

Boasberg, in verbal instructions during a hearing on Saturday, gave orders to immediately turn around two planes carrying noncitizens if they are covered by his order, including one that potentially took off during a break in the court’s hearing. However, sources said top lawyers and officials in the administration made the determination that since the flights were over international waters, Boasberg’s order did not apply, and the planes were not turned around.

On Monday, Boasberg questioned whether the Trump administration ignored his orders to turn the planes around, saying it was “heck of a stretch” for them to argue that his order could be disregarded.

Deputy Associate Attorney General Abhishek Kambli argued Monday during the “fact-finding” hearing convened by Boasberg that the judge’s directive on Saturday evening to turn around the flights did not take effect until it was put in writing later that evening.

Boasberg ordered the Justice Department to submit, by noon Tuesday, a sworn declaration of what they represented in a filing Monday — that a third flight that took off after his written order on Saturday carried detainees who were removable on grounds other than the Alien Enemies Act.

ABC News’ Devin Dwyer and Sarah Beth Hensley contributed to this report.

Military officials say recruiting off to strong start in 2025, building on recent trends

March 18, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. military is tracking strong early-year recruiting figures across the services, a signal it will meet or exceed 2024 performances, military officials told ABC News.

The Army and Navy, the two largest services and the most ailing from recruiting challenges, both say they’ve recruited at promising rates in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, which began on Oct. 1. However, neither the Army nor the Navy could readily point out a reason, and the Navy said it is too early in the fiscal year to evaluate.

“We’ve seen momentum unlike anything we’ve [had] in a decade,” said Gen. James Mingus, the Army’s vice chief of staff, at a congressional hearing on Wednesday, March 12 — when he disclosed that five months into its recruiting year the Army had already signed up close to 73% of the year’s annual goal of 61,000 recruits.

The upward recruiting trends for the military services began last summer and have continued at a high pace. Some service chiefs projected then that the numbers would quickly surpass this year’s annual recruiting goals and build up the pool of recruits needed to start off the new recruiting year in October.

From 2023 to 2024, during the final year of the Biden administration, recruitment across the services jumped 12.5%, according to the Department of Defense.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said increased recruitments after President Donald Trump’s election were a reflection of a new mindset the Pentagon would promote to service members — a “warrior ethos” that Hegseth has said would focus away from diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives he said were a distraction from a focus on military lethality.

“I think we’ve seen enthusiasm and excitement from young men and women who want to join the military actively because they are interested in being a part of the finest fighting force the world has to offer and not doing a lot of other things that serve oftentimes, too often, to divide or distract,” Hegseth said after becoming secretary.

At his confirmation hearing to be secretary, Hegseth said the military’s strongest recruiting asset was the commander in chief himself. “There is no better recruiter in my mind for our military than President Donald Trump,” he told senators.

One commanding general of recruitment, Air Force Brig. Gen. Christopher Amrhein, told ABC News that “there is no one silver bullet” for recruiting, but he said the Air Force had “honed in on the right ingredients, and they’re all working.”

Alex Wagner, a former senior Pentagon official in the Biden administration, said Hegseth’s conception of recruiting by promoting a warrior ethos amounted to “little more than a restatement, not even a rebranding, of existing efforts.”

Hegseth’s approach brings “nothing new of any substance,” said Wagner, who, as Air Force assistant secretary for manpower and reserve affairs, was a civilian leader in recruiting.

“People want to come into the military for a number of reasons, but one of the key reasons is to be something bigger than yourself and to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” he added. “I think we’ve long been building a warrior ethos.”

In his address to a joint session of Congress earlier this month, Trump said the U.S. Army “had its single best recruiting month in 15 years.”

That claim may be a reference to the Army’s recruiting success this past January. A defense official told ABC News that in January, the Army recorded the highest average growth in contracts per day since January 2010.

Mingus attributed the turnaround to changes in “who you recruit, where you recruit, how we recruit, more professionalizing of our recruit[ing] force [and] expanding the population.”

“All of those things [that] we’ve been working [on] for the last 18 to 24 months, we believe are coming to fruition,” he said.

The president took the credit for steady recruiting gains among the services, falsely claiming in the address to Congress that “it was just a few months ago where the results were exactly the opposite.”

Hegseth said in the past women should not serve in combat roles and that “normal” white men had been pushed away from serving.

“I’m straight-up just saying that we should not have women in combat roles — it hasn’t made us more effective, hasn’t made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated,” Hegseth said on the “Shawn Ryan Podcast” in November.

Critics have worried it could have a chilling effect on recruitment for groups including women and non-white men.

“In recent weeks, for the very first time, I’ve heard from a number of women, both in the service and who would consider the service, questioning whether or not the military is a place for them,” Wagner said. “Clearly this stems from the secretary’s firing of the military’s two most senior women, who earned their positions — and the respect of their peers — based solely on merit.”

Asked for demographic data on the first quarter 2025 figures, only the Air Force was able to answer ABC News’ query. A spokesperson said Air Force officials “weren’t tracking any significant demographic change” at this point.

A Navy spokesperson said it was “too early to tell” about demographics but pointed to successful early-year figures. Comparing the first quarter of fiscal year 2025 to that of fiscal year 2024, the Navy contracted 4,000 new sailors and shipped 5,000 more to boot camp, the spokesperson said.

It set its recruiting goal at its highest in 20 years, a turnaround from the pandemic era, when benchmarks and enlistments slumped.

“We are on pace to exceed recruiting goals in 2025,” said Adm. James Kilby, the Navy’s vice chief of naval operations, in the congressional hearing on Wednesday, March 12. “We’ve made some progress in the Navy, as the other services have. We have stopped the problem.”

The Navy spokesperson said the service makes assessments on figures on an annual basis but noted that some policies that enlarged the pool of recruits, including a preparatory course that helps potential sailors meet Navy academic and physical standards, have helped the effort.

The Navy’s prep course followed the success of the Army’s Future Soldier Preparatory Course that contributed close to a quarter of last year’s Army recruiting goal of 55,000 recruits.

“We did open up the aperture a little bit for people that want to serve in uniform, and we expanded various policies to increase opportunities for qualified candidates,” the spokesperson said.

Policies that open the aperture enable services to tap into a wider range of potential recruits — and the prep courses are intended to help them reach the academic or physical shape to meet standards.

Katherine Kuzminski, the director of studies at the Center for a New American Security, said the Army and Navy prep courses act as a sort of “pre-basic training” program.

Only 23% of youth are eligible based on service standards to serve in the military, and 9% of youth are interested in signing up, Kuzminski said, narrowing the pool to a “Venn diagram [that] does not necessarily overlap.”

The Air Force has also had a recruiting success story, said an Air Force Accessions Center spokesman, due largely to more recruiters in the field. The Air Force, under which the tiny Space Force is folded, has hiked its recruiting goals by 20% in 2025.

Wagner said the Biden administration had “initiate[d] a comprehensive review of military [entry] standards to ensure they made sense in the year 2025,” paving the way for it to meet its 2024 goals and even adjust them higher before the fiscal year ended.

Part of the approach was “making sure that our requirements were realistic, rather than an outdated vestige of a different era,” said Wagner, who also served under secretaries of defense in the Obama administration.

The Air Force during the Biden administration loosened body fat standards, which were stricter than the Army and Navy standards, he said, and it lifted a lifetime ban for airmen who tested positive for THC, as other military services had after recreational marijuana was legalized in parts of the United States.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin, in a March 3 post on X, said recruitment for December, January and February were at 15-year highs and that the delayed entry program, or the DEP, is at its largest in nearly 10 years.

The DEP, which allows services to recruit future service members and ship them to boot camp at a later date, is a product of sustained work, Wagner said.

“I mean, you don’t build the healthiest DEP in a decade over the course of five weeks, right?” he added.

It’s unclear whether early success for military recruiters is a consequence of Biden administration policies such as the prep courses or enthusiasm for the new president — or a combination of both.

It is too early to assign credit, Kuzminski said.

“We can’t dismiss the fact that perhaps [the current administration] did affect either American youth’s decision to join the military or, more likely, their parents’ willingness to let them go into the military, for some portion of those folks,” she said.

“But the reality is that over the last three years, we’ve seen a lot of structural changes that improved the recruiting enterprise as a whole,” she added.

The smallest military service, the U.S. Marine Corps, has been historically resilient to recruiting shocks like the pandemic.

A Marine official said in a statement to ABC News that the Marine Corps “consistently meets its required accession mission.” That “enduring success,” the official said, “is directly attributed to the hard work of our Marine Recruiters.”

Trump insults federal judge amid legal battle over deportation flights

March 18, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump hurled insults at the federal judge who conducted a “fact-finding” hearing on Monday over whether the Trump administration knowingly violated a court order when it handed over more than 200 alleged gang members to El Salvadoran authorities over the weekend.

In a post on his social media network on Tuesday morning, Trump called U.S. District Judge James Boasberg “crooked” and suggested that he should be impeached.

President Donald Trump hurled insults at the federal judge who conducted a “fact-finding” hearing on Monday over whether the Trump administration knowingly violated a court order when it handed over more than 200 alleged gang members to El Salvadoran authorities over the weekend.

In a post on his social media network on Tuesday morning, Trump called U.S. District Judge James Boasberg “crooked” and suggested that he should be impeached.

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