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Yomiuri Shimbun
08-07-2025
- Business
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Veterans Affairs Reverses Course on Large-Scale Layoffs
The Department of Veterans Affairs said Monday that it will no longer be forced to conduct a large reduction in workforce, unlike several other federal agencies that were forced to make mass layoffs because of the Trump administration's U.S. DOGE Service. In a news release, VA said that it was on pace to reduce its total staff by nearly 30,000 employees by the end of this fiscal year, a push that the department said eliminates the need for a 'large-scale reduction-in-force.' The announcement marks a significant reversal for the Trump administration, which had planned for months to cut VA by roughly 83,000 employees, according to plans revealed in an internal memo circulated to agency staffers in March. At the time, VA Secretary Douglas A. Collins said in remarks shared to social media that the cuts were tough but necessary. 'We'll be making major changes, so get used to it now,' Collins said at the time. The White House argued that the downsizing would make a 'bloated' VA more efficient and transparent. But the proposed staff-slashing quickly drew backlash from veterans and their advocates, who warned that the quality of VA service would decline. Morale plummeted among employees, spurring many to leave their jobs. VA's decision not to cut more of its workforce through an RIF comes after blowback from several veterans' groups, Congress and VA staffers who warned that an agency with less manpower and fewer resources would negatively impact veterans. Veterans, who make up a disproportionate share of the federal workforce, felt the brunt of the rapid push to shrink that workforce, stirring ire in a reliable political base for Republicans. Continuing to pursue deep cuts to the VA workforce could have carried major political risks for President Donald Trump, who is highly popular among veterans and who has repeatedly said he would not order cuts to their VA benefits. In a statement Monday, VA said its original plan to conduct department-wide RIFs to reduce its staff levels by up to 15 percent was avoided after employees left the agency through retirements, normal attrition and deferred resignations. Additionally, a federal hiring freeze helped reduce the number of employment slots, the agency said in the statement. In January, VA recorded roughly 484,000 employees. By June, there were 467,000 staffers left – a loss of nearly 17,000 workers, according to agency numbers. The agency expects that between July and September nearly 12,000 additional staffers will exit through normal attrition, voluntary early retirement, or the deferred resignation program. In an email VA staffers received Monday, Collins said that 'after nearly four months of careful study, analysis, and action, I am pleased to report to you that VA is headed in the right direction – both in terms of staff levels and customer service.' Collins insisted that even though the agency is expected to lose a total of 30,000 staffers 'performance continues to improve.' 'These improvements include huge drops in the number of Veterans waiting for disability benefits, sizable increases in claims processing productivity, and extraordinary progress regarding our electronic health record modernization,' Collins wrote in the email. In the statement Monday, VA said it had established 'multiple safeguards in place to ensure these staff reductions do not impact Veteran care or benefits.' Mission-critical jobs, the agency wrote, are exempt from the deferred retirement and early retirement offers. Additionally, 350,000 jobs in the agency are exempt from the federal hiring freeze. VA, which provides medical care for millions of veterans and their families and is among the largest employers of federal workers, had already seen cuts under the second Trump administration, losing 2,400 workers to layoffs in February. Facing the threat of further cuts, thousands more VA workers opted this spring for an early retirement offered by Trump, The Washington Post reported. Frustrations began to build this summer over the diminishment of the agency. In June, thousands of veterans rallied in Washington against further reductions, and similar veteran-led protests unfolded at hundreds of locations across dozens of other states. The reversal may also reflect yet another decline in the power and influence of billionaire Elon Musk and the DOGE team he previously led, which stormed into government in January determined to slash staff and spending. After a few months of frenzied cutting – some of it halted by court challenges – Musk and Trump fell out in a highly public spat over the merits of the president's tax and spending cuts bill. Musk left Washington in a huff, soon followed by some top aides who had been detailed to DOGE. Other DOGE team members remain ensconced in government and are working toward various Trump policy goals, including revising or canceling dozens of rules and gun restrictions at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Still, DOGE's clout has diminished in other ways. Last month, for example, the team lost its power to control the government's process for awarding billions of dollars in federal funds. In his email Monday, Collins told the remaining VA staff that they are 'an important part' of the administration's efforts to revamp the agency. 'I thank you for your hard work and dedication to our vital mission,' he wrote. In a statement to The Washington Post, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Connecticut), the top Democrat in the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, said Monday's announcement 'makes clear VA is bleeding employees across the board at an unsustainable rate because of the toxic work environment created by this Administration and DOGE's slash and trash policies.' 'This is not 'natural' attrition, it is not strategic, and it will inevitably impact veterans' care and benefits – no matter what blanket assurances the VA Secretary hides behind,' Blumenthal said. Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) struck a more celebratory tone, saying he spoke with Collins about the change in plan earlier Monday. Moran said he appreciated Collins's 'efforts to make certain veterans are at the center of any changes at the VA.'
Yomiuri Shimbun
01-07-2025
- Politics
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Republicans Tillis and Bacon, Who Split with Trump, Won't Seek Reelection
Two of the best-known GOP lawmakers who have split with Donald Trump in his second term said in a span of 24 hours this week that they would not seek reelection – illustrating how little room there is in the party for dissenting voices and complicating the GOP's path to keeping its majorities in the midterm elections. Rep. Don Bacon (R-Nebraska) – who has taken issue with Trump's tariff policy, his posture toward Russia and Elon Musk's U.S. DOGE Service, among other things – announced his retirement Monday, calling himself a 'traditional conservative' caught in a 'tug of war' in his party over issues such as foreign policy and trade. A day earlier, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) declared that he would not seek a third term, after drawing Trump's wrath for opposing the president's priority legislative package. The developments emboldened Democrats in their efforts to try to defeat the sweeping tax and immigration bill as well as capture both lawmakers' seats next year – and worried some Republicans on both fronts. Bacon represents one of only three GOP-held House districts nationwide that Trump lost last year, while Tillis was considered the most vulnerable Senate Republican up for reelection next year. 'When the energy's on the other side, you really don't want to have to defend an open seat,' said Tom Davis, a former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. The ranks of Republican elected officials who have differed with Trump in recent years has thinned considerably, as fealty to him has become the biggest litmus test in the party and the president has frequently vowed retribution against his critics. Some have stepped down voluntarily, while others have been ousted in Republican primaries. That dynamic is in play once again ahead of the 2026 elections, with other Republicans facing difficult decisions. In Texas, Republican Sen. John Cornyn is already facing a tough primary challenger in a vocal Trump ally, state Attorney General Ken Paxton. Cornyn has said he is fully committed to running again. But Paxton sought to stoke doubts about that. 'You next?' Paxton asked Cornyn on X after Tillis announced his retirement. Jeff Flake, a former Republican senator from Arizona who retired in 2019 after his own disagreements with Trump, said the decisions by Bacon and Tillis show how partisanship has only intensified since he left office. That has left independent-leaning lawmakers torn between retiring or forging forward with their every move scrutinized for loyalty to the party, he said. 'I don't blame them at all,' said Flake, specifically referring to Tillis's predicament. 'To go through the next 18 months … trying to thread that needle when the president's already come out against you – no way. That's asking for too much. You couldn't truly be independent.' Trump lashed out at Tillis on Saturday night after he voted against moving forward with the president's bill, and promised to meet with potential primary challengers in the coming weeks. Tillis vowed to speak more freely after announcing his retirement – and wasted little time, heading to the Senate floor hours later to give a scathing speech arguing that the bill went against Trump's insistence that he would not harm Medicaid. 'Republicans are about to make a mistake on health care and betray a promise,' Tillis said Sunday. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday bluntly dismissed Tillis's concerns that the bill's Medicaid provisions would prompt rural hospital closures. 'The senator was wrong,' Leavitt said during a White House press briefing. 'The president put out a Truth Social post addressing it, and then the senator announced he's no longer running for office anymore, so I think that case has been closed.' Several moderate House Republicans privately said they were stunned by how the White House responded to Tillis's retirement announcement, according to two lawmakers familiar with the conversations, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail private conversations, fueling their concerns about how hard the president's team will work to satisfy centrist concerns' ahead of the midterms. Speaking with reporters in Omaha on Monday, Bacon, who unlike Tillis had avoided an open back-and-forth conflict with Trump, acknowledged that some of his positions, such as his support for free trade and international alliances, put him at odds with some fellow Republicans in the Trump era. 'I'm a traditional conservative at heart, but I feel like I've been able to do what I thought was right, whether it's infrastructure, whether it was also certifying the election,' he said, referring to his support for President Joe Biden's bipartisan infrastructure law and for confirming Trump's 2020 reelection loss as the president falsely claimed it was rigged. Bacon said he was retiring to devote more time to family after years of representing a battleground district that requires the incumbent to be 'all in.' He advised his party to be discerning about who they put forward next in Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District. 'Be careful in a primary of being drug way to the right because you can't win in the general,' he said. Democrats said they were eager to contest the open seat. 'Even though [Bacon] always did end up voting the way that Trump wanted him to, he gave a hopeful vision, which is why he was able to win,' Jane Kleeb, head of the Nebraska Democrats, said Monday during a call with reporters. 'Now that that seat is open, there's no question that we're going to be able to send a Democratic official to Congress representing the 2nd Congressional District.' House Republicans hold a slim majority and roughly a dozen of them have already announced runs for governor and senator, with several others mulling whether to launch their own bids, according to multiple GOP campaign strategists. Two strategists familiar with House races said that the pace of announcements is on par with past years, and that more retirements could come after the August recess, when lawmakers have time to deliberate with their families about running for reelection. Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-South Dakota) – chair of the Main Street Caucus, which bills itself as a bloc of 'pragmatic conservatives' – announced Monday he was running for governor, and Rep. Michael Lawler (R-New York) said he would take more time to consider his own gubernatorial bid. Lawler is one of the other House Republicans who represents a district that Trump lost last year. Several House Republicans who belong to the more moderate wing of the party have privately signaled they are considering stepping aside rather than running in tougher terrain, according to GOP officials with knowledge of the situation, but House GOP campaign strategists think those seats – if left vacant – would easily remain Republican. In the battle for the Senate, Republicans may now be in for a messy primary in North Carolina, though operatives acknowledge an early Trump endorsement could tamp down infighting. The potential candidates include Lara Trump, the president's daughter-in-law who grew up in Wilmington; Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley, the former head of the North Carolina GOP; and some of the state's House members, such as Reps. Pat Harrigan and Richard Hudson. 'This is all kind of fresh within the past 24 hours for me, really learning that this was a viable option and that Senator Tillis wouldn't be seeking re-election,' Lara Trump said Monday on Fox News Radio. 'So look, I'm considering it.' On the Democratic side, former Rep. Wiley Nickel is already running, though many Democrats are waiting to see if former Gov. Roy Cooper joins the race. Some Trump-aligned GOP operatives said there was upside to Tillis's decision, giving the party a fresh opportunity to find a nominee who could better unite Republicans and enter the general election with a stronger hand. But open seats can be risky, and the party has fielded some untested contenders in recent elections who ultimately fell flat. Tillis's tensions with Trump date to his first term, when the senator initially opposed the president's declaration of a national emergency to build a border wall. He reversed the position days later amid political blowback. At the start of Trump's second term, Tillis stood out for scrutinizing the background of Pete Hegseth as a choice for defense secretary, though he ultimately voted to confirm him. Tillis openly disagreed with Trump's decision to pardon almost all defendants in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and later helped sink Trump's nominee to be D.C.'s top prosecutor, Ed Martin, over his positions on Jan. 6. While House Republicans praised Bacon on Monday, the reaction to Tillis's decision was more muted among Senate Republicans. Sen. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina), the chairman of the Senate GOP campaign arm, did not mention Tillis in a statement expressing confidence the party would keep the seat. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), the former majority leader who has repeatedly split with Trump over the years, said on X that Tillis's retirement was a 'big setback' for the Senate GOP. Freshman Sen. Jim Banks (R-Indiana), who won his primary last year without opposition after Trump endorsed him, struck a different tone during an appearance on 'Fox And Friends.' 'I would retire too,' Banks said, 'if I voted against this bill.'
Yomiuri Shimbun
29-06-2025
- Politics
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Trump Says He Will Move Aggressively to Undo Nationwide Blocks on His Agenda
An emboldened Trump administration plans to aggressively challenge blocks on the president's top priorities, from immigration to education, following a major Supreme Court ruling that limits the power of federal judges to issue nationwide injunctions. Government attorneys will press judges to pare back the dozens of sweeping rulings thwarting the president's agenda 'as soon as possible,' said a White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations. Priorities for the administration include injunctions related to the Education Department and the U.S. DOGE Service, as well as an order halting the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the official said, detailing efforts to implement plans President Donald Trump announced Friday. 'Thanks to this decision, we can now promptly file to proceed with numerous policies that have been wrongly enjoined on a nationwide basis,' Trump said at a news conference, during which he thanked by name members of the conservative high court majority he helped build. Trump on Friday cast the narrowing of judicial power as a consequential, needed correction in his battle with a court system that has restrained his authority. Scholars and plaintiffs in the lawsuits over Trump's orders agreed that the high court ruling could profoundly reshape legal battles over executive power that have defined Trump's second term – even as other legal experts said the effects would be more muted. Some predicted it would embolden Trump to push his expansive view of presidential power. 'The Supreme Court has fundamentally reset the relationship between the federal courts and the executive branch,' Notre Dame Law School professor Samuel Bray, who has studied nationwide injunctions, said in a statement. 'Since the Obama administration, almost every major presidential initiative has been frozen by federal district courts issuing 'universal injunctions.'' Nationwide injunctions put a freeze on an action until a court can make a decision on its legality. They have became a go-to tool for critics of presidential actions in recent times, sometimes delaying for years the implementation of an executive order the court ultimately approves. Experts said the Supreme Court's ruling could make it more difficult and cumbersome to challenge executive actions. It could result in courts issuing a patchwork of rulings on presidential orders in different parts of the country. In the short term, the ruling is a setback for liberals who have gone to court to thwart Trump. But the decision could also ultimately constrain conservatives seeking broad rulings to rein in a future Democratic president. Trump undertook a flurry of executive actions in the opening month of his term that ranged from dismantling government agencies to seeking the end of birthright citizenship. There have been more than 300 lawsuits seeking to block his executive actions. Federal district judges have issued roughly 50 rulings to date, temporarily holding up the administration's moves to cut foreign aid, conduct mass layoffs and fire probationary employees, terminate legal representation for young migrants, ban birthright citizenship, and more nationwide. Some of those rulings have been stayed by higher courts. The Supreme Court found Friday that federal district courts must limit their injunctions to the parties bringing the case, which could be individuals, organizations or states. They had previously been able to issue injunctions that applied to people not directly involved in cases. The ruling came as part of a case challenging Trump's ban on birthright citizenship. The court did not rule on the constitutionality of that executive order. The justices left it to lower courts to determine whether a nationwide injunction might be a proper form of relief for states in some cases, like the ban on birthright citizenship, where the harm could be widespread. The court also did not forestall plaintiffs from seeking nationwide relief through class-action lawsuits. Smita Ghosh, a senior appellate counsel with the Constitutional Accountability Center, a progressive public interest law firm, said the ruling could be a blow to plaintiffs seeking to stymie Trump's executive orders. The CAC has filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of plaintiffs challenging the birthright citizenship ban. 'This approach will make it more difficult and more time-consuming to challenge unconstitutional executive practices, limiting courts' abilities to constrain unlawful presidential action at a time when many believe that they need it most,' Ghosh said. Many groups will pivot to filing class-action lawsuits to sidestep the ruling, she predicted, as some plaintiffs in the birthright citizenship lawsuit sought to do Friday. Such lawsuits allow individuals or groups to sue on behalf of a larger class of individuals who have suffered a similar harm from a government policy. It's likely courts will see more and more class- or mass-action lawsuits from cities, counties and states that realize they can no longer rely on litigation brought by others to advocate for their interests, said Jonathan Miller, chief program officer for the Public Rights Project, which is challenging several Trump policies. 'I think this decision will be perceived by this administration as a green light to more aggressively pursue its agenda, be bolder when it comes to compliance with injunction and its willingness to test the limits of the judiciary,' Miller said. Not everyone expected the ruling to have broad impacts. Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which has filed numerous challenges against Trump's agenda, called it a 'limited ruling' and said the court left open a number of routes for challenges against executive actions that could result in broad blocks on Trump's policies. Ed Whelan, a conservative attorney, was likewise skeptical. He wrote in a newsletter that 'the ruling is probably going to accomplish much less than many people celebrating it realize,' in part because plaintiffs would instead pursue more class-action lawsuits that would ultimately produce similar results as nationwide injunctions. The administration on Friday trumpeted the decision at the White House as a victory in its broader fight against the judiciary. Officials frequently deride judges who rule against the administration as activists and obstructionists. Dozens of judges appointed by presidents of both parties have temporarily paused many of Trump's efforts, and data shows threats against the judiciary have risen since he took office. 'Americans are getting what they voted for, no longer will we have rogue judges striking down President Trump's policies across the entire nation,' Attorney General Pam Bondi said, standing beside Trump at the news conference. She added, 'These lawless injunctions … turned district courts into the imperial judiciary.' Both Democratic and Republican presidents have complained about the blocks, said Jesse Panuccio, a partner at the Boies Schiller Flexner law firm and a Justice Department official in the first Trump administration. 'I think the ruling is seismic for how the federal district courts have been doing business in the last 20 years or so because the universal injunction has become a fairly standard and – in my view – unlawful remedy in cases,' Panuccio said.
Yomiuri Shimbun
09-06-2025
- Business
- Yomiuri Shimbun
A Diminished DOGE Reels from the Departure of the ‘Dogefather,' Elon Musk
Tom Brenner/For The Washington Post Elon Musk in the Oval Office with President Donald Trump on May 30, his last official day in government. He and Trump feuded bitterly this week, and now the future of the U.S. DOGE Service is unclear. Cabinet officials and senior staffers across the Trump administration are reclaiming power from Elon Musk's U.S. DOGE Service, a trend that began long before the billionaire's relationship with President Donald Trump exploded in public acrimony days after Musk formally left his White House post. As Musk departed, some of his top lieutenants were streaming out of government. Among those heading for the exits even before Musk and Trump began feuding, according to a White House official speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information: longtime aide Steve Davis, who was overseeing cost-cutting efforts; lawyer James Burnham, DOGE's general counsel; and DOGE adviser Katie Miller, who is married to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. Katie Miller is now working for Musk. Meanwhile, Cabinet officials – some of whom had clashed with Musk – are moving to rehire workers who had been pushed out by DOGE. And while the group retains some clout, with DOGE staffers moving into permanent jobs in some agencies, unaffiliated political appointees in other departments have been forcing the cost-cutting group to back off. Despite the exodus, White House officials said the administration remains dedicated to rooting out waste and abuse. The administration has asked Congress to cancel more than $9 billion in spending for global health aid and for public broadcasting in the United States, an early gauge of lawmakers' appetite for codifying DOGE's cuts. And the White House budget office has proposed cutting $163 billion – nearly 25 percent – from agency budgets in the fiscal year that begins in October. 'DOGE is in the DNA of the federal government, and the president is committed to seeing this mission through,' said White House spokesman Harrison Fields. 'No one is under the impression that DOGE is somehow going to disappear.' White House budget director Russell Vought is expected to pick up where Musk left off in cutting federal spending, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. An architect of Project 2025, a policy blueprint put together between Trump's terms, Vought told a House hearing Wednesday that the Trump administration is eager to send more requests to eliminate previously appropriated funds as DOGE shifts from a consulting role to a position 'far more institutionalized' at OMB. Still, by DOGE's somewhat haphazard accounting, the initiative has saved only about $180 billion, a fraction of the $2 trillion Musk initially vowed to cut. That performance – along with a general recognition that DOGE created unnecessarily high levels of chaos – has left remaining members of the cost-cutting group facing growing skepticism among agency officials who, after Musk's blowup with Trump on Thursday, no longer need to fear retaliation from the world's richest person. 'DOGE was able to work its will because there was the perception that Musk was so close to the president that these orders were coming from the president,' said Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, who ran a 'reinventing government' initiative during the Clinton administration. 'Now you've got a different situation.' At the Federal Aviation Administration, for example, the DOGE team suffered a setback this week when leadership nixed their access to FAA buildings, a command center in Warrenton, Virginia, and the Air Traffic Academy in Oklahoma City, according to an employee briefed on the matter and records obtained by The Washington Post. Four DOGE staffers were also stripped of their credentials and user accounts inside the FAA's internal computer systems, the records show. As of June 2, the staffers – Brady Glantz, Samuel Smeal, Tom Kiernan and Theodore Malaska, all of whom are employees of Musk's SpaceX – no longer bear the title of 'senior adviser to the administrator' on their online profiles within the agency, per the records. In fact, their profiles no longer show any job title at all – nor an affiliated organization, manager, email or phone number, the records show. In a briefing Monday, managers explained their removal by noting the team owed its creation and power to an executive order, not an act of Congress – and that Musk was stepping down after his term as a 'special government employee' ended, according to an employee who attended, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. 'So they're being pushed out,' the employee said. DOGE still maintains a strong presence at the agencies that oversee federal spending, real estate and logistics. Its initial areas of focus included the Treasury Department, the Office of Personnel Management and the General Services Administration, where key allies are still guiding technology modernization efforts. At some other agencies, DOGE representatives have amassed powerful jobs and portfolios. In April, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued an order granting sweeping new powers to DOGE staffer Tyler Hassen, a former oil executive, The Post reported. Under Burgum's order, Hassen is now leading a campaign to 'create significant efficiencies' and eliminate 'redundant efforts' across Interior, including in IT, human resources, financial management and international affairs. About a week later, the Energy Department named a DOGE team member, Carl Coe, as chief of staff, a top job that helps decide who has access to the energy secretary, according to an email obtained by The Post. His appointment will help 'tackle the challenge of strengthening and securing the U.S. energy stem and ensuring America can lead the global race for AI leadership,' the email noted. 'The chief of staff is, behind the scenes, the duck paddling under the water making things happen,' said one Energy employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. 'DOGE could control the direction of the agency now.' Elsewhere, DOGE associates brought on for their reputation as business leaders have exerted command over agency staff, overseeing new initiatives within government. Sam Corcos, a start-up founder, has been overseeing DOGE's work at the IRS, which is increasingly looking to off-load otherwise-monotonous agency work to artificial intelligence programs, according to a person familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information. And Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia has been overseeing DOGE's attempts to modernize the federal government's paper-based retirement system, which is run through the Office of Personnel Management. Gebbia was seen by Musk allies as potentially taking over some of the broader DOGE portfolio when Musk left. But now his fate is unclear, according to a person familiar with ongoing discussions over DOGE's role after Musk's departure. Resistance to DOGE in other agencies predated Musk's blowup with Trump. In early May, staffers who said they were with DOGE roamed around secure facilities within Navy Air Station Patuxent River, a Defense Department installation in Maryland where test flights and other sensitive work are carried out. One DOGE staffer reportedly walked in behind another government worker to gain access to the building, a Defense employee said – prompting a warning from installation security officials. 'At this time, [Navy Air Systems Command] Security is considering this an unauthorized access attempt,' a security official wrote in email obtained by The Washington Post. The email instructed staffers to report people representing themselves as DOGE staffers to security officials or base police, to refuse to allow anyone to follow them into buildings, and to be on alert for suspicious behavior. In a statement, a Navy official denied that DOGE's entry into an air station was treated as a security breach. 'DOGE representatives met with NAVAIR personnel … The meeting was scheduled. We have no record of DOGE seeking unauthorized entry into NAVAIR facilities on NAS Patuxent River,' said Cmdr. Tim Hawkins, a Navy spokesman. 'Reports to the contrary are unsubstantiated.' In a move that could eventually infuse DOGE with more power, the Supreme Court on Friday ruled in two emergency decisions that the group could access sensitive Social Security data again, ending a legal restriction that had lasted for months. The court also ordered a judge to narrow a separate order requiring DOGE to submit discovery in a FOIA lawsuit. James Fishback, CEO of the investment firm Azoria who developed the idea of paying a portion of DOGE's savings directly to American taxpayers, predicted that the group is not dead yet. 'The truth is that Elon set expectations that he relayed to the President, me, and the country that he did not come close to fulfilling,' Fishback said. But 'DOGE's next chapter – under new leadership – will fully deliver on President Trump's mission of cutting waste, looking out for taxpayers, and making government leaner and more accountable.' Still, as the week wound down, some federal employees took a few moments to celebrate the diminishment of DOGE, however brief. One Interior employee said he and colleagues worked extra-hard, reveling in their government jobs as DOGE seemed to be on the way out. Then he went home and ate some ice cream. At the FAA, a group of staffers went out for post-work drinks to toast the banishment of DOGE staff. Then they offered a more solemn toast to the more than two dozen colleagues they'd lost along the way.
Scientific American
06-06-2025
- Business
- Scientific American
The Trump-Musk Fight Could Have Huge Consequences for U.S. Space Programs
For several hours yesterday, an explosively escalating social media confrontation between arguably the world's richest man, Elon Musk, and the world's most powerful, President Donald Trump, shook U.S. spaceflight to its core. The pair had been bosom-buddy allies ever since Musk's fateful endorsement of Trump last July—an event that helped propel Trump to an electoral victory and his second presidential term. But on May 28 Musk announced his departure from his official role overseeing the U.S. DOGE Service. And on May 31 the White House announced that it was withdrawing Trump's nomination of Musk's close associate Jared Isaacman to lead NASA. Musk abruptly went on the attack against the Trump administration, criticizing the budget-busting One Big Beautiful Bill Act, now navigating through Congress, as ' a disgusting abomination.' Things got worse from there as the blowup descended deeper into threats and insults. On June 5 Trump suggested on his own social-media platform, Truth Social, that he could terminate U.S. government contracts with Musk's companies, such as SpaceX and Tesla. Less than an hour later, the conflict suddenly grew more personal, with Musk taking to X, the social media platform he owns, to accuse Trump —without evidence—of being incriminated by as-yet-unreleased government documents related to the illegal activities of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. Musk upped the ante further in follow-up posts in which he endorsed a suggestion for impeaching Trump and, separately, declared in a now deleted post that because of the president's threat, SpaceX 'will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.' (Some five hours after his decommissioning comment, tempers had apparently cooled enough for Musk to walk back the remark in another X post: 'Ok, we won't decommission Dragon.') Dragon is a crucial workhorse of U.S. human spaceflight. It's the main way NASA's astronauts get to and from the International Space Station (ISS) and also a key component of a contract between NASA and SpaceX to safely deorbit the ISS in 2031. If Dragon were to be no longer be available, NASA would, in the near term, have to rely on either Russian Soyuz vehicles or on Boeing's glitch-plagued Starliner spacecraft for its crew transport—and the space agency's plans for deorbiting the ISS would essentially go back to the drawing board. More broadly, NASA uses SpaceX rockets to launch many of its science missions, and the company is contracted to ferry astronauts to and from the surface of the moon as part of the space agency's Artemis III mission. Trump's and Musk's retaliatory tit for tat also raises the disconcerting possibility of disrupting other SpaceX-centric parts of U.S. space plans, many of which are seen as critical for national security. Thanks to its wildly successful reusable Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, the company presently provides the vast majority of space launches for the Department of Defense. And SpaceX's constellation of more than 7,000 Starlink communications satellites has become vitally important to war fighters in the ongoing conflict between Russia and U.S.-allied Ukraine. SpaceX is also contracted to build a massive constellation of spy satellites for the DOD and is considered a leading candidate for launching space-based interceptors envisioned as part of Trump's 'Golden Dome' missile-defense plan. Among the avalanche of reactions to the incendiary spectacle unfolding in real time, one of the most extreme was from Trump's influential former adviser Steve Bannon, who called on the president to seize and nationalize SpaceX. And in an interview with the New York Times, Bannon, without evidence, accused Musk, a naturalized U.S. citizen, of being an 'illegal alien' who 'should be deported from the country immediately.' NASA, for its part, attempted to stay above the fray via a carefully worded late-afternoon statement from the space agency's press secretary Bethany Stevens: 'NASA will continue to execute upon the President's vision for the future of space,' Stevens wrote. 'We will continue to work with our industry partners to ensure the President's objectives in space are met.' The response from the stock market was, in its own way, much less muted. SpaceX is not a publicly traded company. But Musk's electric car company Tesla is. And it experienced a massive sell-off at the end of June 5's trading day: Tesla's share price fell down by 14 percent, losing the company a whopping $152 billion of its market value. Today a rumored détente phone conversation between the two men has apparently been called off, and Trump has reportedly said he now intends to sell the Tesla he purchased in March in what was then a gesture of support for Musk. But there are some signs the rift may yet heal: Musk has yet to be deported; SpaceX has not been shut down; Tesla's stock price is surging back from its momentary heavy losses; and it seems NASA astronauts won't be stranded on Earth or on the ISS for the time being. Even so, the entire sordid episode—and the possibility of further messy clashes between Trump and Musk unfolding in public—highlights a fundamental vulnerability at the heart of the nation's deep reliance on SpaceX for access to space. Outsourcing huge swaths of civil and military space programs to a disruptively innovative private company effectively controlled by a single individual certainly has its rewards—but no shortage of risks, too.
