Another DOGE flip-flop

Politico

17-06-2025

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The Department of Government Efficiency will need to cross out several more line items on its frequently edited 'wall of receipts.'
After claiming in February that it would terminate the leases of 10 local offices of the National Labor Relations Board, President DONALD TRUMP's administration is saying it will reverse course.
The DOGE-backed proposal to shutter the offices ran into outcry from Democratic senators as well as opposition from the NLRB's Trump-appointed chair and acting general counsel, according to two people familiar with the decisions who were granted anonymity to discuss the matter.
It's the latest flip-flop in DOGE's mad-dash approach to cost-cutting. The haphazard method has produced repeated miscalculations and misrepresentations, and multiple reversals and corrections.
MICHAEL PETERS, the commissioner of the Public Buildings Service office within the General Services Administration, told West Wing Playbook that the GSA is 'using existing cancellation rights to better align with evolving and long-term agency needs,' although he didn't speak directly to the recent reversals.
'This approach improves space utilization and helps secure more favorable terms and pricing for the federal government,' Peters said.
The NLRB's field offices, which are scattered around the country, play a critical role in enforcing U.S. labor laws. The offices administer elections and process ballots when workers at private companies want to unionize. NLRB investigators probe charges of unfair labor practices, many of which are filed in person at the field offices. Agency lawyers dispense advice to workers and sometimes conduct labor trials at the field offices, too.
So DOGE raised concerns within the agency when it listed on its website the planned termination of NLRB's lease for its regional office in Buffalo, New York. The GSA, which handles the government's real estate, was ultimately instructed to close virtually all NLRB buildings with leases that could be immediately terminated without incurring a penalty. That would have meant closing 10 outposts, including in cities such as Phoenix, Nashville and Milwaukee. Administration officials did not clearly indicate whether they would relocate the workers, nor how they could continue their legally sensitive work at different facilities.
The NLRB has a network of 48 field offices that cover 26 different regions across the country, and spends $21 million annually altogether on rent, according to the agency's latest budget request.
Despite the move to cancel the leases, the GSA has informed the Labor Board in recent days that it intends to leave the offices open for now, the two people said.
The Labor Board and GSA didn't respond to requests for comment.
The planned lease cancellations caused some chaos inside the Buffalo office, even prompting Senate Minority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER to advocate for keeping it open. Sen. RUBEN GALLEGO (D-Ariz.) later led an opposition effort by lawmakers from Arizona and Nevada in demanding answers about the planned cancellation of the lease for the board's office in Phoenix. That office also serves parts of New Mexico, Texas and Nevada, including a strong service worker union presence in Las Vegas.
Former DOGE chief ELON MUSK initially promised up to $2 trillion in overall federal savings, but he later walked back that goal to $150 billion. The group claimed to have saved the government $160 billion in May, but those numbers remain in dispute, and government spending has been climbing since Trump took office compared to the first four months of 2024. The GSA also announced in March that it was preparing to sell 443 federal properties, before later retracting the list and republishing a pared-down version.
The latest about-face on the NLRB offices wipes away another few million dollars from DOGE's initial claims about the amount it has saved the government.
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POTUS PUZZLER
Who was the first president to fly in an airplane while in office?
(Answer at bottom.)
Agenda Setting
'SET UP FOR FAILURE': Cuts and freezes are holding up some basic government functions at agencies the Trump administration has targeted in recent months, more than a dozen federal employees told our ZACK COLMAN. Spending lockdowns and an absence of guidance from political appointees are leaving EPA scientists unable to publish their research, preventing some Energy Department officials from visiting their labs and forcing the cancellation of disaster planning exercises at FEMA.
'We are set up for failure,' one FEMA official said.
Budget cuts at the NIH have prevented the agency from taking new submissions for its Environmental Health Perspectives journal, removing a way for federal scientists to publish peer-reviewed research for free.
AG GETS AGGRESSIVE: More than 250 agriculture groups signed a letter, first obtained by our GRACE YARROW, urging the Trump administration to 'correct' the direction of its Make America Healthy Again goals following the release of the MAHA Commission report, which criticized the use of common herbicides and food ingredients. The groups slammed the commission's lack of transparency in creating the report and said its number of citation errors and 'false claims' could have been avoided with better industry input ahead of the release.
'The stakes are high going forward,' the groups wrote. 'The unintended consequences of making uninformed decisions for U.S. food production based on misinformation or unproven theories would be sweeping for our nation's farmers.'
MORE ON MAHA … The Trump administration and House Republicans are targeting a popular nutrition program that was praised in the MAHA Commission report, our MARCIA BROWN reports. The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children is under threat as the White House moves to cut fruit and vegetable benefits extended under the Biden administration.
Food aid advocates are pointing out the contradiction, as the commission noted in its report that WIC helps lower obesity rates in kids. The White House fiscal 2026 budget proposes cutting the program's monthly fruit and vegetable benefits for breastfeeding mothers from $54 to $13 and the benefit for young children from $27 to $10.
'NO SAFE SPACES': The Department of Homeland Security is reversing course on earlier guidance that barred federal immigration agents from conducting raids at farms, hotels and restaurants, WaPo's CAROL D. LEONNIG, NATALIE ALLISON, MARIANNE LEVINE and LAUREN KAORI GURLEY report.
The agency last week instructed ICE agents to 'hold on all worksite enforcement investigations/operations' at such businesses after Trump suggested he was sympathetic to concerns raised by agriculture and hospitality executives about his mass deportation operation's impact on labor. But by Monday, the administration had changed gears.
'There will be no safe spaces for industries who harbor violent criminals or purposely try to undermine ICE's efforts,' said DHS spokesperson TRICIA McLAUGHLIN.
MAKE IT MAKE SENSE: Office of Management and Budget Director RUSS VOUGHT said the federal disaster fund is 'flush' with enough cash to last through September — contradicting FEMA estimates that the disaster fund would run out of cash in August, in the middle of hurricane season, POLITICO's E&E News' THOMAS FRANK reports. The apparent misstatement came as Trump has promised to reduce FEMA aid, putting pressure on states to handle higher disaster costs.
Musk Radar
THANKS FOR THAT: Musk posted his drug test results early this morning for his 221 million followers on X … because … why not?
It comes weeks after the New York Times reported that the former DOGE chief used ketamine, ecstasy, psychedelic mushrooms and Adderall while campaigning alongside Trump. Musk has denied the story — going so far as to apparently take a urine test, which appears to have come back negative for more than a dozen drugs.
'lol,' Musk wrote.
The Times' communications account said in an X post that the paper stands by its reporting. 'Nothing that he's said or presented since our article about his drug use during the presidential campaign was published contradicts what we uncovered,' the account wrote.
COUGHING IN MEMPHIS: The NAACP and an environmental group today informed xAI, Musk's artificial intelligence company, that they intend to sue the organization over environmental and health concerns at its supercomputer facility, AP's ADRIAN SAINZ reports.
Last month, POLITICO's E&E News' ARIEL WITTENBERG reported on the ground in Memphis that the facility is belching smog-forming pollution over a part of the city that is made up predominantly of Black residents. The area already leads the state in emergency department visits for asthma.
WHO'S IN, WHO'S OUT
EXODUS AT DOJ: The Department of Justice is set to lose about 4,500 employees to DOGE's 'fork in the road' buyout program, Bloomberg Law's SUZANNE MONYAK and JUSTIN WISE report. The agency proposed eliminating 5,093 positions, and its workforce is expected to shrink more through voluntary early retirement. Additional reduction-in-force actions 'will also be implemented as needed,' the DOJ said earlier this week.
AND AT INTERIOR: Nearly 11 percent of the workforce at the Interior Department — amounting to almost 7,500 employees — have taken the Trump administration's buyout offers or early retirement in the past five months, POLITICO's E&E News' JENNIFER YACHNIN reports. Responding to a FOIA request, the department said that it has shed more than 1,000 staffers each from the National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, and Bureau of Reclamation in recent months.
What We're Reading
The Tyrant Test (The Atlantic's Adam Serwer)
MAGA's Plan to Remake an Iconic New York Landmark (POLITICO's Ian Ward)
New FDA Chief Wants to Fast-Track Some Drugs, Use More AI (WSJ's Liz Essley Whyte)
MAGA Is at War With Itself Over Iran (The Atlantic's Jonathan Lemire and Isaac Stanley-Becker)
POTUS PUZZLER ANSWER
Former President THEODORE ROOSEVELT became the first sitting president to fly in an airplane, making the maiden voyage with the pilot ARCH HOXSEY on Oct. 11, 1910, according to the National Air and Space Museum.