(WASHINGTON) — The United States Supreme Court on Monday will hear arguments in a Louisiana case involving politics, race and voting maps with potential implications for the 2026 midterm elections.
The justices are considering a dispute over how Louisiana’s congressional districts were drawn after the 2020 census.
Louisiana has six congressional districts — four represented by Republicans and two by Democrats. The Democratic districts are majority black residents.
A group of non-black citizens is challenging those Democratic districts, saying the state relied too much on race as a factor in how the lines were drawn. The group is requesting that the state only have one majority black district.
The state and civil rights groups — on the same side — are defending the map, conceding that officials did consider race as part of a mandate by the Voting Rights Act to ensure that minority voters were given a fair shot at representation. Still, the state and civiil rights groups are insisting that it did not predominate in decision making.
The Supreme Court is being asked to clarify rules for how states can draw maps that comply with two competing rules : VRA mandates to protect minority voter rights and the Equal Protection Clause, which ensures that everyone is treated equally under the law.
The balancing act could have consequences for who controls power in Washington.
Republicans have a razor-thin majority in the House, which means every single seat could be key to the balance of power after the 2026 midterm elections.
A decision in the case is expected by the end of June.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump seemed to issue a warning to individuals who participate in Tesla vandalisms, as reports of destruction to vehicles, dealerships and charging stations surge across the country.
Early Friday morning, Trump posted on his social media platform: “People that get caught sabotaging Teslas will stand a very good chance of going to jail for up to twenty years, and that includes funders. WE ARE LOOKING FOR YOU!!!”
He also suggested those found guilty of participating in Tesla-related crimes could be sent to prison in El Salvador, referring to the administration’s controversial move to deport alleged gang members to the country after Trump signed a proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act even though a court order temporarily blocked the authority.
“I look forward to watching the sick terrorist thugs get 20 year jail sentences for what they are doing to Elon Musk and Tesla,” Trump said in a posting. “Perhaps they would serve them in the prisons of El Salvador, which have become so recently famous for such lovely conditions.”
Recent attacks aimed at Tesla have been reported in Seattle, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Charleston and other cities across the United States since Tesla CEO Elon Musk began his role with the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
When asked about his comments at the White House on Friday afternoon, Trump called the vandalism suspects “terrorists” and appeared to argue what was happening with Tesla vehicles was worse than what happened during the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol.
“You didn’t have that on January 6, I can tell you. You didn’t have anything like that on January 6, which is sort of amazing,” Trump said.
Three people have been charged for their alleged involvement in recent attacks against Tesla properties in Salem, Oregon; Loveland, Colorado; and North Charleston, South Carolina. Adam Lansky of Salem was charged with illegally possessing an unregistered destructive device on March 5, Lucy Grace Nelson of Lyons, Colorado, was charged with one count of malicious destruction of property on Feb. 27 and Daniel Clarke-Pounder of North Charleston was charged with arson on March 15, according to federal prosecutors.
Both Lansky and Clarke-Pounder have not entered any pleas, but Nelson pleaded not guilty on March 11, according to court records.
Attorney General Pam Bondi also spoke out against the Tesla vandalisms, saying on Thursday the three suspects will face the “full force of the law” for allegedly using Molotov cocktails to set fire to the electric vehicles and charging stations.
“The days of committing crimes without consequence have ended,” Bondi said in a statement. “Let this be a warning: if you join this wave of domestic terrorism against Tesla properties, the Department of Justice will put you behind bars.”
More Tesla incidents continue to pop up across the country, with the latest occurring in Fargo, North Dakota, early Friday morning, where fire crews found “a small fire in wood chips at the base of the electric vehicle chargers in the parking lot,” according to the Fargo Fire Department.
Officials said the fire is considered “suspicious” and the cause of the fire is under investigation. It is unclear whether the fire damaged the chargers, authorities said.
In addition to the company dealing with the recent attacks, Tesla’s stocks have tumbled nearly 48% this year and in recent weeks, four top officers at the company have sold off $100 million in stock, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Musk, the owner of X, reposted reactions to Trump’s comments on Friday, including one that said “ESPECIALLY the funders” should be held responsible for these attacks.
A spokesperson for Tesla did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
(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.
President Donald Trump stands with Secretary of Education Linda McMahon /Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
(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.
(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.
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
(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.
(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.
(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.
People hold signs as they hold an “informational picket” over DOGE’s reductions to the federal workforce outside the Jacob K. Javits Federal Office Building on March 19, 2025 in New York City. Federal workers and supporters from affected federal agencies, labor leaders, elected officials, and consumer advocates protested Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and the firings of federal workers.
(WASHINGTON) — Thousands of federal workers nationwide have been forced out of their jobs by the Trump administration as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency’s says it aims to improve the government and cut down waste.
From park rangers and Department of Veterans Affairs social workers to scientists and foreign relations experts, the workers have decades of experience and knowledge that are crucial to their fields.
With that wealth of knowledge and experience, labor and security experts told ABC News that those fired federal workers are being recruited by private firms and foreign governments, which they said raises the risk of security threats against the United States.
“From an intelligence and law enforcement perspective, the potential for foreign intelligence forces to recruit government workers is hot,” said John Cohen, an ABC News contributor and former acting undersecretary for intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security.
At the same time, state and local governments could step up to fill in their offices with that talent as President Donald Trump seeks to shift many roles and responsibilities out of the federal government.
“It would be an easy transition for them and, in the end, benefit the public, which needs their experience now,” Victor Narro, a professor of labor studies at the Labor Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, told ABC News.
Workers ripe for the picking by private sector
Narro, who has worked in Los Angeles city public boards and commissions and on a U.S. Agency for International Development project, said one of the biggest things being overlooked in DOGE’s mass firings is the fact that many of these employees had strong training from top colleges and chose to have a career in public office instead of the private sector.
“A lot of public sector employees give up jobs in the private sector because they care about being a public worker,” he said. “They all know they could have made a lot more money and had more benefits.”
What federal workers may lack in salary, they can make up in connections with policymakers and organizations, as well as access to government data and knowledge. It is common for federal workers who leave the public sector to take that knowledge to private sector jobs, such as consulting firms that specialize in the environment, national security and healthcare, Cohen said.
The unprecedented mass firing of federal workers may lead to the creation of new private sector organizations made up of those workers, Cohen said.
“It would be hard to think that those employees wouldn’t be in demand,” he said.
In fact, billionaire Mark Cuban pitched an idea in a post on March 1 that those fired workers band together and start their own consulting company.
“It’s just a matter of time before DOGE needs you to fix the mess they inevitably created. They will have to hire your company as a contractor to fix it. But on your terms. I’m happy to invest and/or help,” the Shark Tank host wrote.
There have been no public updates about Cuban’s proposal since the post as of March 18.
Foreign national threat increased
Cohen said Cuban’s proposal has some merit, but he warned that not everyone offering a helping hand will have altruistic intentions.
In fact, he warned offers could very well be ruses designed by foreign adversaries.
Cohen said counterintelligence operations throughout history have targeted disgruntled federal employees who are left in despair and with no way to pay off their expenses and debts.
Each fired worker, from those at the Social Security Administration, who have knowledge about the U.S. benefits system, to nuclear engineers, could be a perfect asset to intelligence agencies in Russia, China and other nations, Cohen said.
Additionally, general knowledge about the inner workings of federal offices, personalities of top officials and other information could be appealing to adversaries, he said.
“It’s not just classified information that is valuable,” he said.
Cohen said Trump and Musk’s belittling of the federal workers as lazy, inefficient and not useful for the government will help make it easier for foreign recruiters to make their case.
“It’s a standard recruitment tool. You find that sense of grievance, you fan the flames and you get them to cooperate because they are angry at what was done to them,” he said.
Those same operations have also found success through more shady tactics, Cohen said.
He noted that there have been cases where federal employees have unknowingly worked for foreign governments posing as private U.S. companies or have been closely working with legitimate companies already operating in the U.S., clouding evidence of foreign intervention.
“It could be something as simple as offering someone to write a research paper and pay a lot for it or give a speech at a conference,” Cohen said. “From there, it could lead to something long term.”
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey told reporters at news conferences this week that this is playing out in her state, saying on Wednesday, “What has happened is you have other governments, from China, from the Middle East, from around the world, coming into this country, coming into campuses in Massachusetts and basically saying, ‘Hey the federal government is going to take away your funding and take away your research come to our country. We’ll give you a lab. We’ll set you up. We’ll give you a staff. And you can pioneer the new technologies on our shores.'”
“That’s not putting America first,” she added.
Typically, the federal government prompts workers to do their due diligence and refrain from working with anyone appearing to have foreign government ties, but Cohen said it is going to be difficult to self-police this on such a massive scale.
“The government has to rely on someone’s patriotism and their sense of ethics to willingly not support a foreign intelligence service. But very often, a person may not know they are being recruited,” he said.
State, local governments to the rescue?
The recruitment efforts, however, aren’t limited to foreign entities and private companies. State and local governments are now seeking to fill their offices with the displaced talent.
Earlier this month, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the “You’re Hired” campaign, which encourages fired federal workers to go to New York and apply for jobs in various state agencies. The state placed ads in Union Station that redirected them to a website with state job offerings.
“We’re looking for qualified, experienced candidates across a wide variety of fields. I need technologists, I need engineers, I need attorneys, healthcare workers, educators, public policy experts and so many more,” Hochul told reporters at a news conference on March 3.
“I’m in competition for the top attorneys, the top engineers [and] people to work at the Department of Financial Services,” she added. “In a place like New York City, there’s a lot of higher-paying jobs. So these are special people who walk away from those jobs and those opportunities and come here, and I want to let them know that we will take care of them.”
As of March 18, over 200 people have signed up for webinars hosted by the New York State Department of Labor, according to the governor’s office.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, have started similar campaigns.
Narro said it is not surprising that local governments would take the opportunity to fill their offices, given that many are now bracing for extra responsibilities following the DOGE cuts.
At the same time, there is no guarantee that those local governments can take in all of those workers, he said.
“A lot of it depends on the state. You have a better chance of getting a public job in New York versus Iowa because of the number of offices, departments and ultimately the budget,” Narro said.
Cohen and Narro added that Trump’s pledge to give more power to the states, particularly education, but no details on how they would get the funding to do so has also left many states in limbo when it comes to recruitment.
“It’s great that the states are coming up with these programs, but if they can’t commit, you’re going to have more frustrated federal workers,” Cohen said.
Can the damage be undone?
Narro noted that the situation with fired federal workers is still fluid as court cases play out and some of the firings have been stopped or reversed.
However, the uncertainty alone could be devastating to the future of the federal workforce.
“People’s families depend on stability, and if they can not keep up with the changing decisions, they may just quit altogether,” Narro said. “I suspect this is what Trump and Musk are seeking to do in their strategy.”
Narro said that even if Trump’s and Musk’s policies are reversed by a future administration, there could be long-term damage.
“In the end of the day, the public loses out the most,” he said. “It’s going to be harder for anyone to consider giving up a private job and dedicating their talents to serving the public if this is how they will be treated.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump continued his sweeping education agenda as he signed an executive order to diminish the Department of Education at the White House on Thursday.
The president’s order directs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to take all necessary steps permitted by law to shrink the Department of Education, according to the sources.
Trump signed the order during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House while flanked on each side by schoolchildren seated at desks.
“Today we take a historic action that was 45 years in the making,” he said, noting that his order will “begin eliminating the federal Department of Education.”
“The Department of Education will be much smaller than it is today,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters earlier Thursday, noting the department will not be completely shut down and that it will continue to carry out “critical functions.”
“When it comes to student loans and Pell Grants, those will still be run out of the Department of Education,” she said. “But we don’t need to be spending more than $3 trillion over the course of a few decades on a department that’s clearly failing in its initial intention to educate our students.”
Trump is directing McMahon to take “all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education authority to the States,” according to a White House summary of the order reviewed by ABC News.
The order also calls for the “uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.” It’s still unclear how the administration plans to accomplish that. Sources said the administration has been looking into how to move some of the key programs to other agencies.
Republican Govs. Ron DeSantis of Florida, Greg Abbott of Texas, Mike Braun of Indiana, Kim Reynolds of Iowa, Jeff Landry of Louisiana and Mike DeWine of Ohio were among the state leaders attending the signing ceremony.
However, several Democrats and education advocacy organizations slammed the order.
“Shutting down the Department of Education will harm millions of children in our nation’s public schools, their families and hardworking teachers,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a Thursday statement. “Congress created the Department of Education and only an act of Congress can eliminate it. We will stop this malignant Republican scheme in the House of Representatives and in the Courts.”
House Education and Workforce Committee ranking member Bobby Scott, D-Va., said the order will cause “irreparable harm” to students and educators.
“By dismantling ED, President Trump is implementing his own philosophy on education which can be summed up in his own words, ‘I love the poorly educated,'” he added.
The department took the first steps to downsize last week when it laid off nearly half its employees, and it shrunk significantly in size through a massive reduction in force, deferred resignations and retirement buyouts, according to the department.
Trump is expected to continue the reforms — pledging to erase more staff from the department.
“I expect it will [be shut down entirely],” Trump said on “Full Measure” with Sharyl Attkisson earlier this month. “You’ll have a few people left just to make sure [the states are] teaching English — you know, you say reading, writing and arithmetic.”
However, congressional approval is required to abolish a federal agency, and McMahon has acknowledged she would need Congress to carry out the president’s vision to close the department she’s been tapped to lead. It would take 60 “yes” votes in the Senate to overcome the filibuster and dismantle the department that Congress created.
“Legality aside, dismantling ED will exacerbate existing disparities, reduce accountability and put low-income students, students of color, students with disabilities and rural students at risk,” Scott said.
Critics argue the department is needed for vital financial assistance and grant programs. Education experts suggested that shuttering the Department of Education could gut public education funding and disproportionately affect high-need students across the country who rely on statutorily authorized programs, such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Title 1, which provides funding for low-income families.
These programs could be housed in a reformed, shrunken-down Department of Education, and McMahon said the department will still administer those statutory programs that students from disadvantaged backgrounds rely on. In an interview on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle,” McMahon suggested the “good” employees who administer the statutorily mandated functions will not be harmed by staff reductions.
A statement from the department said it will “continue to deliver on all statutory programs that fall under the agency’s purview, including formula funding, student loans, Pell Grants, funding for special needs students, and competitive grantmaking.”
In more than four decades, Trump and Department of Education skeptics have said they believe the agency has had too much spending power without achieving results.
After McMahon was sworn in, she underscored that abolishing the department is rooted in allowing families the right to choose a “quality education” so America’s students aren’t “stuck in failing schools.”
“This is also, I would say, a national security issue,” Leavitt added Thursday morning. “When you look at how students around the world, particularly in China, are being educated, American students are falling behind. We’re not keeping up with our allies or our adversaries, and that’s a major problem for our country, and the president is fixing it today.”
After Trump signed the bill, House Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg said McMahon “understands the importance of getting the federal government out of the way.”
“Bottom line, the Department of Education has failed to deliver results for America’s students and today’s actions by the Trump administration will help ensure our nation’s youth are put first,” he added.
