(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge wants to hear directly from one of the top officials at the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau to learn if the Trump administration is unlawfully gutting the agency or just trying to streamline it.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson — who expressed concern the CFPB might be “choked out of its very existence” — said she plans to hold a hearing next Monday to get testimony from CFPB Chief Operating Officer Adam Martinez and others about the state of the agency tasked with protecting American consumers.
During a lengthy hearing Monday, Jackson grew frustrated with a lack of clear answers from either side about the current state of the CFPB. Lawyers with the Department of Justice argued the relief requested by the federal unions who brought the lawsuit amounted to putting the CFPB into receivership, while the plaintiffs argued the Trump administration was causing irreparable harm by slowly starving the agency.
“According to the plaintiff, the sky is falling. According to the defendant, if I issue the order, the sky will be falling,” Jackson remarked.
Jackson is considering issuing a preliminary injunction to block the dismantling of the CFPB but added she might consider additional relief if the plaintiffs can demonstrate that the government’s actions are causing irreparable harm.
“I think what we’re talking about is interim oversight to make sure that it hasn’t been choked out of its very existence before I get to rule on the merits,” she said.
In a sworn court filing last week, Martinez argued the changes at the CFPB — which has operated under a stop work order for the last month — are simply a “common practice at the beginning of a new administration.” Jackson raised skepticism to the idea that what’s happening at the CFPB is business as usual.
“One of the big defenses of all this is that this is normal, that this is what happens when the new team comes to town, and I’m just not sure that’s true at all, at least not since I’ve been here,” she remarked. “Are you telling me that … when President Reagan took over from President Carter — on top of freezing regulations and enforcement and litigation — fired all provisional employees, shut the building, stopped all work and said the funding should stop?”
Lawyers with the Department of Justice insisted the Trump administration is trying to improve the CFPB, not destroy it.
“You can’t blow it up, but why should you be able to starve it to death?” Jackson asked.
“Acting Director [Russell] Vought wants to have a more streamlined and efficient bureau, not to blow it up,” responded a DOJ attorney.
Elon Musk, however, wrote “RIP CFPB” in a post on X on Feb. 7, the same day workers received termination notices.
The CFPB is an independent agency established by Congress after the 2008 financial crisis under the landmark Dodd-Frank Act. It’s a consumer watchdog aimed at protecting American households from unfair and deceptive practices across the financial services industry.
Its oversight applies to everything from mortgages to credit cards to bank fees to student loans to data collection. By law, the CFPB has the rare ability to issue new rules and to impose fines against companies who break them.
Since its establishment in 2011 through last June, the CFPB said it has clawed back $20.7 billion for American consumers.
ABC News’ Elizabeth Schulze contributed to this report.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar backed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday after the volatile White House meeting with President Donald Trump on Friday, saying she “just couldn’t believe” how Friday’s meeting unfolded..
The Minnesota Democrat told ABC News’ “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos she was “appalled by what happened in the Oval Office,” and thinks the fallout of the exchange “is not in President Trump’s best interest.”
“We stand with our friends, not our enemies,” Klobuchar said. “The great country of America goes into negotiations with strength, not surrender.”
Klobuchar said she — along with other senators from both sides of the aisle — had been with Zelenskyy before he left for the White House, and said he had been in “great spirits.”
Watching video of the explosive meeting, Klobuchar said she “just couldn’t believe it.”
“It was Vice President Vance, particularly, who was on the offense, who was berating President Zelenskyy, who simply was trying to explain that … we needed a strong security commitment from all of our allies to be able to have a lasting peace, which is something that President Trump says that he wants to see.”
Klobuchar speculated on how the meeting so quickly became caustic when asked by Stephanopoulos if it had been an ambush.
“Either it was an ambush setup, or they just got so hotheaded, the president and the vice president, that what happened happened,” she said. “It’s the chaos of this presidency.”
Meanwhile, British ambassador to the U.S. Lord Peter Mandelson said the U.S.-Ukraine relationship needs a “reset” after the Trump-Zelenskyy meeting.
“I think that Ukraine should be the first to commit to a ceasefire and defy the Russians to follow,” Mandelson told Stephanopoulos. “And then, as part of the unfolding plan for this negotiation, the Europeans and perhaps some other countries too, have got to consider how they are going to put forces on the ground to play their part in providing enduring security and deterrence for Ukraine.”
European leaders were meeting in London on Sunday to discuss a UK-French peace plan they’re working on with Zelenskyy that they plan to present to the U.S.
Mandelson said it will be important to “create the circumstances in which enough pressure is brought on” to “force [Russia] to the negotiating table.”
“And then we will see the true color of their intentions and what they’re prepared to agree and to stand by,” he said. “But if it goes wrong, we must be there on Ukraine’s side, continuing to arm them to make sure that they have the capacity to withstand any further Russian attack with ourselves lining up behind them in that eventuality.”
(WASHINGTON) — Crowds of current and recently fired federal workers gathered at a job fair in Maryland on Saturday to search for new career opportunities as the Trump administration continues its purge of federal workers.
Many were filled with despair and frustration over the cuts, spearheaded by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
Daniel Leckie was a historic preservation specialist for the General Services Administration who got fired in February. He attended the job fair with his wife and 6-month-old baby.
“We’re now just incredibly terrified and scrambling to find new jobs to keep the roof over our head and feed our little one,” he told ABC News.
Leckie said he was fired for being a probationary employee and was just one day away from fully satisfying his probationary period.
Leckie and his wife, Jennifer Hopkins, just bought a new home in Maryland, making their first mortgage payment just a few weeks ago. He was also working toward completing the public service loan forgiveness program.
“I had about maybe two or three months left before I would have satisfied the terms of my student loans. It’s an $80,000 proposition for our family. It’s between this job, the student loan forgiveness that we were counting on and the job that we took included a promotion potential as long as I was performing fully, successfully in my duties, which I was,” he said.
“That’s what we based a lot of our financial future on, including deciding to start a family and taking out a mortgage and becoming homeowners here in the D.C. area,” Leckie added.
William Dixon, a 30-year veteran who has worked in the federal government for 23 years, told ABC News the layoffs are a “stab” against veterans.
“Because after we’ve sat up here and put the sacrifice out, like we don’t even matter, we don’t count,” he said.
Dixon works in logistics for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, but he and his wife, who also works for the Pentagon, are bracing for their jobs to be cut any day now as the Defense Department prepares to make sweeping layoffs.
Dixon said both he and his wife received the email from the Office of Personnel Management asking them to list what they accomplished last week, but they’ve refrained from responding based on guidance from their supervisors.
He did, however, have a message for Musk and Trump.
“Stop. You’re hurting families. You’re hurting people,” he said. “Everybody depends on having a paycheck to take care of their family as well as to build for their retirement as well as take care of young ones. You’re doing nothing but hurting, hurting the whole nation and their families. That’s all you’re doing.”
(WASHINGTON) — While Friday’s explosive meeting between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ended with a shouting match, the start of the Oval Office meeting was full of optimism about signing the minerals deal.
Trump, who called the Ukrainian president a dictator last week, started the Oval Office spray in a smoother fashion, saying, “We’ve actually known each other for a long time. We’ve been dealing with each other for a long time and very well there. We had a little negotiation spat, but that worked out great, I think, for both countries.”
Zelenskyy was also optimistic about an agreement that would have given the United States access to critical minerals from Ukraine.
“I hope that this document will be the first step to real security guarantees for Ukraine,” he said. “Our people, our children really count on it. And, of course, we count that America will not stop support. Really, for us, it’s very important to support and to continue it. I want to discuss it with details further.”
Zelenskyy urged the U.S. to take a strong position in stopping Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying he is a “killer” and “terrorist.”
“I hope that together we can stop him. But for us, it’s very important to to save our country, our values, our freedom and democracy,” Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy also stressed the importance of having the U.S. backing up European security contingencies.
“I think that France and U.K. already spoke to you, and we know that Europe is ready, but without the United States, they will not be ready to be as strong as we need,” he said.
Still, Trump argued that Russia will not go back on its word once a peace deal is reached, and he declined to get into security guarantees that Zelenskyy said he views as critical to any peace agreement.
“We’ll make a deal,” he said. “I have to make the deal first. I don’t worry about security right now.”
Other cracks started to show just over 10 minutes into the spray, including one notable moment when Zelenskyy and Trump disagreed over the amount of support Europe has given Ukraine.
“They really gave a lot, Mr. President,” Zelenskyy said.
“They gave a lot — but they gave much less,” Trump replied, without providing details.
“No,” Zelenskyy shot back with a look of skepticism, though they continued to keep the tone light.
Trump and Zelenskyy also disagreed over Putin’s reliability once a deal is struck, with Zelenskyy saying Putin will never accept just a ceasefire.
“It will not work without security guarantees,” the Ukrainian president added.
The president also defended his talks with Putin, saying it is the only way to get a deal across the finish line when he was pressed about concerns he’s too aligned with Putin.
“I’m not aligned with anybody. I’m aligned with the United States of America. And for the good of the world,” Trump said.
Vice President J.D. Vance then chimed in and continued to push Trump’s point, claiming President Joe Biden did not do enough to deter the war.
At that point, Zelenskyy interjected, bringing up the struggles his country has faced over the last decade, prompting Vance and Trump to shout at the Ukrainian president.
U.S. President Donald Trump delivers his State of the Union address at the US Capitol in Washington DC, United States on February 04, 2020. (Photo by Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is set to address a joint session of Congress on Tuesday — his first speech to Congress of his second term.
His speech will be his fifth public address before a joint session of Congress, and comes at a time when Republicans hold a trifecta with a GOP president and majorities in both the House and the Senate.
Here’s what you need to know about the speech and how to watch.
When is it?
Trump will address a joint session of Congress at the Capitol on Tuesday, March 4, at 9 p.m. ET (8 p.m. CT; 6 p.m. PT).
House Speaker Mike Johnson invited Trump to deliver the joint address to Congress last month so that Trump could share his “America First vision for our legislative future,” the speaker wrote in his invitation.
How can I watch and stream?
ABC News will have special coverage of Trump’s speech from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET on ABC and ABC News Live, which streams on Disney+, Hulu and other digital platforms as well.
“World News Tonight” anchor and managing editor David Muir will lead the coverage and be joined by ABC News Live “Prime” anchor and “World News Tonight” Sunday anchor Linsey Davis, chief Washington correspondent and “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl, chief global affairs correspondent and “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz, chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce, chief justice correspondent Pierre Thomas, chief business, economics and technology correspondent Rebecca Jarvis, senior political correspondent Rachel Scott, national correspondent Mireya Villarreal and multiplatform reporter Jay O’Brien.
ABC News Digital will have wall-to-wall coverage, including a live blog with up-to-the-minute commentary on the major themes of the address and response from ABC News’ team of experts, notable moments and key takeaways from the evening, and a fact check. 538 will have data-driven previews and reactions to the address, too.
What is an address to the joint session of Congress?
Since this speech will be Trump’s first during his second term, it’s not referred to as a “State of the Union” — although both the address to the joint session and State of the Union are effectively the same.
The address is called the State of the Union for the years that don’t include the president’s inauguration.
Trump, like other presidents, will take the opportunity to discuss his agenda.
Since taking office, Trump has been aggressive in pushing his priorities, which include curbing what he sees as wasteful government spending through federal job cuts.
He will likely discuss those efforts as well as his goals with immigration, foreign policy and the economy.
Who will be there?
Trump’s speech will bring all branches of government together as he is joined by members of Congress and Supreme Court justices.
The speaker of the House and the vice president sit behind the president while he speaks. This speech will mark the first time Vice President JD Vance will be seated behind Trump for the address. During his previous administration, former Vice President Mike Pence was seated behind him.
During his last State of the Union address in 2020, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi memorably ripped up a copy of Trump’s speech just as he finished.
Invited guests also attend the event. The White House and members of Congress typically invite guests with specific backgrounds and stories that are important to them both personally and politically — people they want to thank, to honor or even to highlight a particular issue.
The White House has not yet released its list of invited guests.
Who is speaking for the Democratic Party?
Each year, the opposing party has a televised response to the president’s message. This year, Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin will deliver the Democratic response following Trump’s address to Congress.
“The public expects leaders to level with them on what’s actually happening in our country. From our economic security to our national security, we’ve got to chart a way forward that actually improves people’s lives in the country we all love, and I’m looking forward to laying that out,” Slotkin, a freshman senator, said in a statement.
Slotkin is a political survivor who won her Senate seat in November by less than 20,000 votes, even though Trump carried the state on the presidential level.
The former CIA analyst and Pentagon official also served two terms in the House, after flipping a suburban Detroit seat in 2018. Trump won her district by 4 points in 2016 and lost it by .5 points in 2020.
Democratic Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, will deliver the Spanish language response to Trump. He’s the first Dominican American — and formerly undocumented immigrant — to serve in Congress.
ABC News’ Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — A group of bipartisan senators met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday morning ahead of the tense exchange between the Ukrainian leader, President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance.
Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Chris Coons, D-Del., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., as well as other Democratic and Republican senators, gathered for an hourlong “encouraging” meeting with Zelenskyy ahead of his visit to the White House, the three lawmakers posted on their social media accounts.
“Just finished an encouraging meeting in Washington with President @ZelenskyyUa and a bipartisan group of Senators to discuss our ongoing partnership with Ukraine,” Coons wrote on X, accompanied by a selfie with Zelenskyy, Graham and Klobuchar.
“Really good bipartisan meeting before President Zelensky heads to the White House. We stand with Ukraine.🇺🇦” Klobuchar wrote in a post on X.
“So honored to take part in the hour-long discussion with President Zelensky and Senators Coons, Graham, and other Democratic and Republican Senators this morning. There is strong bipartisan support in the Senate for Ukraine’s freedom and democracy,” she added.
Graham, in a video, also said he met with Zelenskyy, adding that he was headed to the White House for the signing of the minerals deal.
“This is a half a trillion dollars that will enormously benefit the American economy. Ukraine is the richest country in Europe when it comes to critical minerals,” Graham said. “These minerals are necessary for us to compete and win the 21st century economy. President Trump was very excited, President Zelenskyy is very excited about this economic deal.”
However, the deal now appears to be in jeopardy after Zelenskyy, Trump and Vance sparred in the Oval Office and subsequently canceled the deal-signing ceremony.
Graham at the White House later Friday appeared to change his tune from his morning remarks, saying, “I have never been more proud of the president. I was very proud of J.D. Vance standing up for our country.”
“What I saw in the Oval Office was disrespectful, and I don’t think we can do business with Zelenskyy ever again,” he said.
“He made it hard for the American people to believe he is a good investment,” he added. “He either needs to resign and send somebody over that we can do business with or he needs to change.”
Still, Klobuchar and Coons came out with posts on X in defense of the Ukrainian president after his exchange in the Oval Office, particularly the moment in which Vance accused Zelenskyy of being “disrespectful” toward his American hosts.
“Answer to Vance: Zelenskyy has thanked our country over and over again both privately and publicly. And our country thanks HIM and the Ukrainian patriots who have stood up to a dictator, buried their own & stopped Putin from marching right into the rest of Europe. Shame on you,” Klobuchar wrote.
“Every time I’ve met with President Zelenskyy, he’s thanked the American people for our strong support. We owe him our thanks for leading a nation fighting on the front lines of democracy — not the public berating he received at the White House,” Coons wrote.
(WASHINGTON) — Congressional Republicans on Friday were nearly unanimous in their praise of President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance after they and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had a fiery exchange before live cameras in the Oval Office.
Speaking to reporters in the White House driveway right afterward, South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham predicted that the shouting match could end U.S. support for Zelenskyy, calling the meeting a “complete, utter disaster.”
“Somebody asked me, am I embarrassed about Trump. I have never been more proud of the president. I was very proud of JD Vance standing up for our country. We want to be helpful. What I saw in the Oval Office was disrespectful, and I don’t know if we can ever do business with Zelenskyy again,” Graham, the Senate Budget Committee Chairman, said. “The way he handled the meeting, the way he confronted the president, was just over the top.”
He suggested Zelenskyy might need to consider resigning.
“He either needs to resign and send somebody over that we can do business with, or he needs to change,” Graham said.
“Thanks to President Trump – the days of America being taken advantage of and disrespected are OVER,” Speaker Mike Johnson posted on X.
“Zelenskyy could have left the White House today with a peace deal for his country, ending this conflict. Instead, he chose to disrespect our President and nation,” Rep. Diane Harshbarger, R-Tenn., posted on X. “Thank you, President Trump and Vice President Vance, for standing up for our country!”
Rep. Victoria Spartz, an Indiana Republican who is Ukrainian-born, said Zelenskyy is doing the Ukrainian people a “serious disservice” by insulting the American president.
“This is not a theater act but a real war!” she posted on X. “Zelensky is doing a serious disservice to the Ukrainian people insulting the American President and the American people – just to appease Europeans and increase his low polling in Ukraine after he failed miserably to defend his country.”
“No funding to Ukraine. This gross disrespect will not stand,” GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida posted on X. “Time for everyone in Congress to drop their Ukraine pins.”
“America First in action,” freshman Texas Republican Brandon Gill posted on X. “Thank you, @realDonaldTrump and @JDVance for prioritizing our people first and for promoting peace!”
Democrats, on the other hand, were dismayed by the jarring, if not unprecedented, diplomatic performance.
“Trump and Vance are doing Putin’s dirty work,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said. “Senate Democrats will never stop fighting for freedom and democracy.”
“A hero and a coward are meeting in the Oval Office today. And when the meeting is over, the hero will return home to Ukraine,” Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., posted on X.
“What we saw in the Oval Office today was beyond disgraceful,” Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., posted on X. “Trump and Vance berating Zelenskyy — putting on a show of lies and misinformation that would make Putin blush — is an embarrassment for America and a betrayal of our allies.They’re popping champagne in the Kremlin.”
Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, said, “Every time I’ve met with President Zelenskyy, he’s thanked the American people for our strong support. We owe him our thanks for leading a nation fighting on the front lines of democracy – not the public berating he received at the White House.”
Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota said, “That press conference was choreographed for an audience of one and he sits in Moscow. Once, we fought tyrants. Today Trump and Vance are bending America’s knee. And that weakens us.”
“President Trump and his administration continue to embarrass America on the world stage,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement. “Today’s White House meeting with the President of Ukraine was appalling and will only serve to further embolden Vladimir Putin, a brutal dictator.”
One moderate House Republican, Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, a major Ukraine ally on Capitol Hill, joined Democrats in defending Ukraine — though he stopped short of criticizing the president or vice president.
“Some want to whitewash the truth, but we cannot ignore the truth. Russia is at fault for this war,” Bacon posted on X.
Later, in an updated statement, he said, “A bad day for America’s foreign policy. Ukraine wants independence, free markets and rule of law. It wants to be part of the West. Russia hates us and our Western values. We should be clear that we stand for freedom.”
Democratic Rep. Mike Quigley, co-chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus and member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said Trump “chose the side of dictators.”
“What just happened in the Oval Office was one of the most embarrassing moments in American history,” Quigley, from Illinois, exclaimed. “The world order that was established after the Second World War is dead.”
Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick said, “It was heartbreaking to witness the turn of events that transpired in today’s meeting regarding Ukraine’s future. It is time to put understandable emotions aside and come back to the negotiation table. This can and will be fixed. A strong, sovereign Ukraine is essential for global stability in the face of Putin’s ongoing aggression.”
ABC News’ Oren Oppenheim contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Transgender service members are fighting back against the Pentagon’s recent announcement requiring the separation of transgender people from the military.
Lt. Cmdr. Geirid Morgan has served in the Navy for 14 years as part of the medical service corps. She told ABC News that as an openly transgender woman, seeing the ban in “black and white” was “jarring.”
“I just want everyone to know that [transgender military members] have been serving honorably and effectively for a decade now,” Morgan said. “We serve in almost every job role you can imagine in the military. We have doctors, lawyers, fighter pilots, special operations personnel.
“This is a calling, this is a this is a life of sacrifice, a life of service. This isn’t just a job, this isn’t just a career,” Morgan added. “We’re all over the place. We’re doing the jobs. We’re doing it effectively, and that’s it.”
Morgan is part of a lawsuit filed earlier this month by the Human Rights Campaign and Lambda Legal against President Donald Trump following his executive order banning transgender service members from the military.
On Wednesday night, the Pentagon’s new transgender policy, as approved by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, was disclosed in a memo filed as an exhibit file by the Defense Department in another court case challenging Trump’s order.
The memo requires the Pentagon to form a procedure to identify transgender troops by March 26 and separate them from the military by June 25, unless they receive an exemption. This would include service members receiving some form of treatment or hormones for that diagnosis of gender dysphoria, as well as those who have gone through a gender-affirming surgery.
“I’m going to put my uniform on every day, go to work, do my job with the best of my abilities for as long as I’m able to,” Morgan added.
Sasha Buchert, an attorney for Lambda Legal who served in the military while openly transgender, told ABC News that the recent Pentagon memorandum does not come as a surprise.
“This is exactly what we anticipated, and it’s exactly how we framed up our complaint and our motion for preliminary injunction,” Buchert said on Thursday. “The executive order, frankly, is dripping with animus, and we expected nothing less than exactly what we got today. So there is absolutely no surprises, and it’s absolutely shameful.”
When asked what else could be expected of the Trump administration regarding transgender service members, Buchert said there is “no bottom” to how extreme the administration may take things.
“Of all of the national security priorities that we have and all of the domestic priorities we have as a country, they’ve chosen transgender people as a top priority of things to work on,” Buchert said. “I think it’s shameful and disgraceful and has caused great harm to both transgender military service members and their families, but also to the military at large.”
“This is just plain wrong,” Buchert added. “This is the opposite of a meritocracy.”
The lawsuit, Shilling v. Trump, claims the ban on transgender service members is unconstitutional and violates fairness principles. Plaintiffs include transgender service members from a range of military branches affected by the Trump administration.
Buchert added that removing thousands of transgender service members will negatively affect the military financially given the U.S. military investment in each troop’s training and development. A 2020 Palm Center study found the removal of these troops would cost nearly $1 billion.
There are currently 4,240 active-duty, National Guard and Reserve service members who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a defense official previously told ABC News.
(WASHINGTON) — After a month of fits and starts, a final hammer came down on the U.S. Agency for International Development on Wednesday night when the State Department, which had previously said it was going to review all foreign aid, announced that review was over and it had decided to terminate nearly 10,000 government contracts worth about $60 billion in humanitarian work abroad.
The cancellations left aid organizations reeling Thursday.
Many, for weeks, had been advocating behind closed doors for their projects to continue and applying for waivers in order to deliver immediate, lifesaving aid while the review process was underway. Several organizations on Thursday decided to start to speak out as they face a future with almost all U.S. foreign aid cut off.
“Any type of communicable disease, I think we will see rage rampant. I think we will see increased conflict in the world. I think we will see increased terrorism in the world. And so, I think, the implications are going to be really dire in terms of the instability that this creates in already very unstable regions of the world,” said Jocelyn Wyatt, CEO of Alight, an international organization that provides food, medicine and services for refugees in 20 countries around the world.
Like all international aid organizations, four days after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Alight was told to suspend all programming funded through U.S. grants and contracts.
Wyatt described scrambling to keep her organization’s health care clinics afloat. They had to shutter programs in Uganda and Myanmar but were able to secure waivers from the State Department for lifesaving humanitarian aid to keep their operations going in Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan.
But as of Thursday, all of Alight’s U.S. contracts have been canceled going forward, even contracts related to those programs that had received waivers to continue in the last few weeks.
Now, Wyatt said Alight is closing 33 health care clinics in Sudan, many in areas where they were the only health care provider, as well as water and sanitization services in three refugees camps in the country and another 13 clinics in Somalia.
According to Wyatt, their clinics see 1,200 people a day in Somalia alone, including about 700 malnourished children a day at designated feeding centers where the children get weighed and provided with supplemental food.
“We are unable to provide any services to those severely malnourished children, and so it’s really a matter of days or weeks before many of them will die,” she told ABC News during an interview Thursday. “The toll, the human lives that will be lost, is unfathomable.”
Thursday appeared to be a watershed moment for humanitarian leaders who, so far, had been reticent to speak put publicly out of concern that their organizations could face backlash or see grants and contracts suffer.
David Miliband, president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee, called the termination of contracts “a devastating blow.”
“These are people who depend on the U.S.-funded services for the basics of survival. These programs are not just numbers on a spreadsheet; they represent real lives and real futures,” he wrote in a statement, calling on the U.S. government to reconsider. “The countries affected by these cuts — including Sudan, Yemen, Syria — are home to millions of innocent civilians who are victims of war and disaster. We now face the starkest of stark choices about which services can be protected, and are calling on the American public, corporations and philanthropists to show that America’s generosity of spirit and commitment to the most vulnerable has not been lost.”
“We are no longer the shining city on a hill,” one humanitarian leader, who requested to speak anonymously out of fear of retribution for his organization, said to ABC News in an interview Thursday.
“It seems cruelty is the point. This is not about putting America first. This will kill people around the world,” the leader added.
While aid organizations expected a review of their work with the new administration, the scope and scale of the cuts have been shocking and will mean many aid organizations will be forced to dramatically cut their work or shutdown all together.
The termination notices were included in a court filing late Wednesday as leading aid organizations sued the federal government over nearly $2 billion in past payments they say they are owed for work already completed during the first part of this year.
The filing stated that almost 5,800 USAID awards for future work, and approximately 4,100 distributed through the State Department, will be terminated, while around 500 USAID awards and roughly 2,700 State Department awards will be retained.
Alight typically relies on U.S. foreign aid dollars for about 30% of their revenue and they have already had to lay off hundreds of staff members as they also wait for payments due from the U.S. federal government for work previously done.
Still, Wyatt said her organization will survive and worries about others that will not as well as the impact it will have on the people they serve.
Despite the turmoil of the last few weeks, she was reticent to speak publicly out of a concern that her organization and the clients they serve, could be impacted and retaliated against.
She said she understands the new administration’s push to evaluate taxpayer spending and foreign aid and that she was prepared to undergo an evaluation of their organization and make sure it aligned with Trump’s American First foreign policy.
But now that all of her contracts have been cancelled, Wyatt hopes to raise awareness and apply public pressure.
International Medical Corps, one of the largest first responder and disaster relief organizations in the world, wrote in a statement that they received cancellation notices for “the majority of our U.S. government-funded programs” late Wednesday night.
“As a result, we are in the process of closing affected programs. Though we receive funding from a variety of sources, this loss of funding will significantly impact our lifesaving global operations. To navigate this challenge, we will need to implement substantial changes across the organization in the coming days and weeks,” the statement read.
The IMC, which works in over 30 countries and last year alone said they provided direct health care services to over 16.5 million people, had received about half of its funding from the U.S. It is also currently runs two of the only field hospitals still operational in Gaza.
Global Refuge, formerly Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, wrote in a statement Thursday that the contract terminations did not amount to a “simple review of federal resources,” but instead, “seeks to end America’s longstanding religious tradition of helping the least among us.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is expected to sign a historic executive order designating English as the United States’ official language, a White House official confirmed to ABC News.
The order marks the first time the country has ever had a national language.
The executive order rescinds a Clinton-era mandate that required agencies and recipients of federal funding to provide extensive language assistance to non-English speakers. Under the new order, agencies will have the flexibility to decide how and when to offer services in languages other than English.
It’s not yet clear when Trump is expected to sign the executive order.
The move comes amid Trump’s crusade to curb government support for programs promoting diversity, equity and inclusion. On his first day in office, the president signed an order directing federal agencies to terminate all “equity-related” grants or contracts and later signed a follow-up order requiring federal contractors to certify that they don’t promote DEI.
The White House is defending the action, saying that while hundreds of languages are spoken across the United States, English is the most widely used. Also, the White House maintains that establishing a national language unifies the country and its citizens.
“Establishing English as the official language promotes unity, establishes efficiency in government operations, and creates a pathway for civic engagement,” the White House wrote in a memo provided to ABC News.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates
