The Trump administration dismissed fewer than 50 workers from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) over the weekend after fears of wider layoffs that caused chaos among staff were quickly rescinded.
Reuters learned from sources on Friday that 325 NNSA workers were sent notices that they had been laid off from the agency, which is responsible for maintaining the country’s nuclear weapons arsenal.
The NNSA reportedly employs about 2,000 people and works around the world to secure nuclear materials, including in Ukraine, despite its ongoing war with Russia.
Hours after receiving the notices on Friday, some of the layoffs were rescinded, creating a chaotic situation at NNSA offices in Washington, D.C., and other places around the country as many employees were worried about their employment status, sources told the wire service.
On Sunday, a spokesperson for the Department of Energy confirmed with Fox News Digital that fewer than 50 employees were actually dismissed from their positions.
"Less than 50 NNSA employees were dismissed. These staff members were probationary employees and held primarily administrative and clerical roles," the DOE spokesperson said. "The Energy Department will continue its critical mission of protecting our national security and nuclear deterrence in the development, modernization, and stewardship of America's atomic weapons enterprise, including the peaceful use of nuclear technology and nonproliferation."
The cuts are the result of the Trump administration’s push to cut wasteful spending across the federal government.
President Donald Trump has tasked the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with seeking out and producing a solution to cut wasteful spending, and part of that has included the reduction of workforce in places like the Departments of Interior, Energy, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services.
An NNSA source told Reuters that managers were called on Thursday evening to inform employees they had been let go, though on Friday they received emails saying things had suddenly changed.
Democratic lawmakers have blasted the NNSA layoffs, calling them "shocking."
"Until such time as we are briefed on these developments, we will not know the damage to our country and the world as a result of these haphazard and thoughtless firings," Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, said in a release.
MSNBC's Michael Steele unloaded on Democrats during a rant on Saturday, demanding they start to show they care about people "losing their jobs" and President Donald Trump's early actions as president.
"I’d just like you to show that you give a damn!" Steele, a former RNC Chair turned MSNBC host, said. "That you get a little emotional about the fact that people are losing their jobs indiscriminately! That this individual sitting down at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has given absolute power to one man, who brings his son into the Oval Office, whose son says to him, ‘you’re not the president! You shouldn’t be in that chair!’ Now, where did he get that from? He got it from his daddy! Because that’s what his daddy thinks of the man who brought him into the Oval Office."
Steele and his fellow MSNBC colleagues discussed a piece from The Nation, a progressive outlet, headlined "The Courts can't stop the Trump-Musk coup," which deemed the pair to be "barbarians at the gate," and argued that they would defy orders from the courts.
"They’re in your bedrooms!" Steele continued. "They’re in your living rooms! They’re in your businesses! They’ve got they got your data, dumb a--! They got all your stuff! Elon Musk has his tentacles in everything you’re doing! Not just off of X, but he’s in the Treasury Department! He’s in the Labor Department! He’s in Department of Homeland Security!"
"And nobody seems to give a damn! So that’s all I want — somebody to show that they care enough to get off their fat a-- and say something about it!" he said.
Co-host Symone Sanders-Townsend also issued a warning during the discussion.
"I am thoroughly concerned about how we survive. And it just makes me think about this movie that I saw on the plane a couple months ago, ‘Civil War.’ It wasn’t necessarily great, but in the movie ‘Civil War,’ like all hell is breaking loose in Washington D.C. and in places all across the country. And there were people in the middle of the country that were just living their lives like nothing was happening. And I think that that is actually where we are, and there are going to be a lot of people that are going to continue to just go on about their daily lives as though Rome is not burning," she said.
Musk has been focused on weeding out government waste through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has been met with pushback from the media and from Democratic lawmakers.
However, former Democratic lawmaker Dean Phillips said members of the party looked pathetic.
In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Phillips admitted that Democrats are being "steamrolled" by the X owner who has begun conducting internal investigations into the spending of various government agencies, while liberal lawmakers have been loudly protesting on the sidelines. Phillips urged the party to change their strategy.
"And all I‘m saying is that sometimes it’s better to join [DOGE, Trump] and actually play a role in how the strategy works, rather than so pathetically, frankly, try to combat something that clearly is a steamroller," the former Minnesota lawmaker told CNN’s Laura Coates.
Fox News' Gabriel Hays contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Brendan Carr mocked singer Sheryl Crow for selling her Tesla to protest Elon Musk.
The Trump administration dismissed fewer than 50 workers from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) over the weekend after fears of wider layoffs that caused chaos among staff were quickly rescinded.
Reuters learned from sources on Friday that 325 NNSA workers were sent notices that they had been laid off from the agency, which is responsible for maintaining the country’s nuclear weapons arsenal.
The NNSA reportedly employs about 2,000 people and works around the world to secure nuclear materials, including in Ukraine, despite its ongoing war with Russia.
Hours after receiving the notices on Friday, some of the layoffs were rescinded, creating a chaotic situation at NNSA offices in Washington, D.C., and other places around the country as many employees were worried about their employment status, sources told the wire service.
On Sunday, a spokesperson for the Department of Energy confirmed with Fox News Digital that fewer than 50 employees were actually dismissed from their positions.
"Less than 50 NNSA employees were dismissed. These staff members were probationary employees and held primarily administrative and clerical roles," the DOE spokesperson said. "The Energy Department will continue its critical mission of protecting our national security and nuclear deterrence in the development, modernization, and stewardship of America's atomic weapons enterprise, including the peaceful use of nuclear technology and nonproliferation."
The cuts are the result of the Trump administration’s push to cut wasteful spending across the federal government.
President Donald Trump has tasked the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with seeking out and producing a solution to cut wasteful spending, and part of that has included the reduction of workforce in places like the Departments of Interior, Energy, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services.
An NNSA source told Reuters that managers were called on Thursday evening to inform employees they had been let go, though on Friday they received emails saying things had suddenly changed.
Democratic lawmakers have blasted the NNSA layoffs, calling them "shocking."
"Until such time as we are briefed on these developments, we will not know the damage to our country and the world as a result of these haphazard and thoughtless firings," Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, said in a release.
The White House is taking aim at Democratic critics of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), highlighting that the new agency’s work was once championed by prominent Democrats.
"To all of the Democrats who are planning to protest this week, here’s an explanation on DOGE, from your party’s own beloved leaders," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a post on X Sunday while sharing a video of former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden calling for reforms similar to those being made by DOGE.
"Budget reform is not an option, it’s a necessity," Obama says in the video. "We can’t sustain a system that bleeds billions of taxpayer dollars on programs that have outlived their usefulness or exist solely because of the power of politicians, lobbyists or interest groups."
"The American people are entitled to transparency," Biden says in the video. "They’re entitled to be able to figure out where their dollars are going, and they’re entitled to accountability to make sure that we’re using the dollars for what we said it was for."
Democrats have ramped up their attacks on DOGE and its leader, billionaire Elon Musk, over the past week, arguing that Trump’s project is a violation of the Constitution and filing several lawsuits in an effort to bring the new department’s momentum to a halt.
But Leavitt pointed out that many of DOGE’s priorities used to be the same across the aisle, especially for the two most well-known Democratic leaders.
"We are going to go through our federal budget… page by page, line by line, eliminating those programs we don’t need, and insisting that those that we do need operate in a sensible, cost-effective way," Obama says during a speech in one portion of the video.
"What should be easy is getting rid of the pointless waste and stupid spending that doesn’t benefit anybody," Obama says during another point of the video from the Oval Office, where the then-president is seated next to a large stack of papers. "No amount of waste is acceptable, not when it’s your money."
"We hope to be instilling an entire new culture, that not only our administration, but every succeeding administration will in fact pursue," Biden says at another point in the video.
Recent polling shows Americans may side with Trump and Musk on DOGE. In one poll conducted by the Trafalgar Group, 49% of respondents said they approve of DOGE's efforts compared to 44% who indicated they disapprove.
Similar numbers were seen in a recent Economist/YouGov poll, which shows 42% of respondents view DOGE favorably, while 38% indicated they had an unfavorable opinion of the department.
Instead of the big game, DOGE leader Elon Musk was focused on U.S. government-funded media. He backed Trump ally Richard Grenell’s call to shut down VOA and Radio Free Europe, replying on X: "Yes, shut them down." Kari Lake, Trump’s nominee for VOA Director, responded, advocating for keeping them open but making them pro-American.
Lake strongly denied liberal media fears that she would turn VOA into "Trump TV," clarifying that even President Donald Trump wants it to present a fair and accurate portrayal of America — the real Voice of America. To further shake up the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), Trump also nominated a fierce conservative media watchdog and Media Research Center President Brent Bozell to lead the USAGM, the parent agency of the Voice of America and other taxpayer-funded international broadcasters.
With an annual budget of nearly $1 billion, USAGM has rightfully caught Musk’s attention. Despite then-President Joe Biden’s $950 million budget proposal for these media outlets in 2025, most Americans remain unaware of VOA’s role. Outside the U.S., however, VOA is a widely recognized international broadcaster, reaching a weekly audience of 354 million people in 49 languages.
Its reach is so extensive that it makes America’s largest domestic radio and TV networks "look like small fry," according to The Guardian. The real concern is that VOA often spreads anti-American narratives instead of promoting U.S. values. The left fears losing a well-funded, poorly monitored and highly influential tools for criticizing American values globally.
Founded in 1942 during World War II, Voice of America aimed to communicate U.S. policies and counter enemy propaganda. Joined by Radio Free Europe in 1950 and four other federally owned outlets, they played a key role in shaping global perceptions through WWII, the Korean War and the Cold War, until the Soviet Union's collapse.
However, on April 30, 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the International Broadcasting Act, establishing the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to oversee non-military international broadcasting.
Since then, concerns have risen about some programs favoring adversarial regimes like Iran, China, Russia and Cuba. In May 2020, Trump State Department’s Iran envoy, Brian Hook, criticized VOA in a New York Post article titled "Why Are U.S. Taxpayers Funding a ‘Voice of the Mullahs’ in Iran?" accusing it of promoting hostile regime narratives over American interests.
The campaign to reform VOA began in 2006, led by then-Oklahoma Republican Senator Tom Coburn. Coburn invited to testify about how U.S. taxpayer-funded broadcasts to Iran were undermining U.S. policy and proving ineffective.
In a letter to then-President George W. Bush, Coburn credited me as the initiator of efforts to reform VOA and Radio Farda, arguing that these media outlets "may actually be harming American interests rather than helping." A report commissioned by the State Department and National Security Council mirrored my testimony, despite resistance from VOA insiders.
I became involved in this issue shortly after escaping Evin Prison and fleeing Iran with the help of Bush’s administration. Having endured over five years of torture, I was recognized by Amnesty International as the first known victim of "white torture" in Iran. Before leaving Iran, I briefly watched VOA, shocked by their respect for the Islamic regime and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), downplaying brutality while promoting internal reform. In my testimony, I urged VOA to stop misleading Iranians with so-called balanced reporting.
Under President Barack Obama, Coburn continued his campaign to reform VOA, leveraging his strong relationship with the president. He successfully helped appoint eight new BBG members — equally split between Republicans and Democrats.
On April 6, 2011, I testified again before a subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee titled: "Is America’s Overseas Broadcasting Undermining our National Interest and the Fight Against Tyrannical Regimes?", alongside BBG governors and John Lenczowski, the founder of The Institute of World Politics, where I was a research fellow and visiting lecturer.
Despite initial hopes that new leadership at BBG and VOA would resolve the issues, corruption persisted. Coburn’s illness prevented him from completing his efforts, and after the resignation of the VOA Persian service director and some BBG members, VOA returned to its usual anti-American bias.
USAGM has 4,000 employees and 1,500 stringers, including over 2,000 at VOA, many of whom are bureaucrats shielded by union protections. The most effective way to bypass these obstacles is to shut down these corrupt services. Dissolving VOA and Radio Farda would remove taxpayer-funded platforms for far-left activists pushing anti-American, anti-Israel, and pro-China, pro-Russia, and pro-Iranian Mullah agendas. These services could then be rebuilt with a leaner, dedicated team of pro-American journalists, ensuring VOA truly represents America — a key step in Trump’s strategy to counter adversaries without military intervention.
Remarks by Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are fueling concerns that the U.S. will move away from Europe and align with Moscow.
Three-thousand six-hundred probationary Health and Human Services (HHS) workers are reportedly out of a job as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) shines a light on government waste.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) is reportedly planning to file a lawsuit against President Donald Trump's administration over the revoking of more than $80 million in migrant shelter funding for the city.
Bret Taylor, the chairman of OpenAI’s board, said the artificial intelligence company was “not for sale.” Mr. Musk is separately raising money for his A.I. start-up, xAI.
Investors believe Elon Musk’s debt is more likely to be paid back now that he has a central role in the administration of President Trump, whom he joined in the Oval Office on Tuesday.
Elon Musk's Tesla has taken legal action against its own customers and members of the media in China over critical comments — and emerged victorious in almost every case.
Elon Musk's X has successfully drawn in new advertisers in recent months, with some big-name brands like Apple making a comeback, but the platform's overall advertising revenue recovery remains uncertain, according to third-party data.
A federal judge in Washington on Friday handed Elon Musk's government efficiency team a win by declining a request to temporarily block it from accessing sensitive data from at least three federal agencies.
Unions and nonprofits attempted to stop Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing records at the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
U.S. District Judge John Bates wrote in an opinion that the government was likely correct in categorizing DOGE as an agency, thereby allowing it to detail its staff to other government departments.
However, Bates called his finding a "close question," noting that the government did not want DOGE to be considered an agency for purposes of another federal law, which would subject it to open records requests.
Bates, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, said DOGE was a "Goldilocks entity: not an agency when it is burdensome but an agency when it is convenient."
"Plaintiffs have not shown a substantial likelihood that [DOGE] is not an agency. If that is so, [DOGE] may detail its employees to other agencies consistent with the Economy Act," he wrote in part.
The newly minted agency, a key promise of President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, is aggressively slashing government waste when it comes to government spending. It was created via executive order and is a temporary organization within the White House that will spend 18 months carrying out its mission.
The Justice Department has argued that the DOGE personnel in question are "detailed" U.S. government employees who have access to the information under provisions of the Economy Act.
Musk hailed the decision by reposting the news on X with the caption: "LFG," an abbreviation for "Let’s f---ing go."
Judge Bates suggested earlier Friday that DOGE's creation and its hierarchy were "odd," noting that it "was created in a way to get it out of OMB [Office of Management and Budget] and instead answering to the chief of staff of the president."
DOGE "took great effort to avoid being an agency, but in this case, you're an agency," he said of DOGE. "It just seems to strain credulity."
Attorneys for unions representing Labor Department employees argued during last week's hearing that, absent court intervention, DOGE could access protected agency information, including the financial and medical records of millions of Americans, as well as employee safety and workplace complaints.
The plaintiffs noted that Labor Department systems contain sensitive information about investigations into Musk-owned companies Tesla and SpaceX, as well as information about trade secrets of competing companies, sparking concerns about Elon Musk's possible access to the information.
Attorney Mark Samburg argued that allowing DOGE access to this information could have a "chilling effect" on new employees coming forward, due to fear of unlawful disclosure or retaliation.
"The sensitive information of millions of people is currently at imminent risk of unlawful disclosure," Samburg said.
The plaintiffs had urged Judge Bates to grant a temporary request to block DOGE's access to the information, which they said would "force the agency to implement a more thoughtful process."
Separately, on Friday, a federal judge extended a temporary order blocking DOGE from accessing payment systems within the Treasury Department.
That extension came after 19 state attorneys general filed a lawsuit claiming DOGE illegally accessed the Treasury Department’s central payment system at the Trump administration’s behest.
Fox News’ Brie Stimson and Reuters contributed to this report.
FIRST ON FOX: The Department of Government Efficiency terminated employment for 3,600 probationary Health and Human Services employees on Friday — but went through a careful process to exclude those who were serving in specialized or critical roles.
More than half of the agency’s probationary employees were retained.
The cuts are estimated to save about $600 million in taxpayer dollars annually.
Probationary employees who were excluded from layoffs include:
DOGE identified critical employees by first considering key functions of HHS — frontline healthcare providers, scientists conducting innovative research, personnel responding to emergencies – followed by employee roles, including work history, background, and job title screenings.
"In many cases where there was a lack of clarity, we worked directly with folks who either knew the employees or knew the work of the division to clarify the exact work they were doing," a Trump administration official said.
While the exact process will differ with each federal agency DOGE examines, key functions, specialized responsibilities, and individual roles will be considered for each workforce-cutting analysis. HHS received special attention — especially within the CDC, with meticulous consideration of research functions, lab work, and outbreak surveillance and response.
"Healthcare is obviously an important goal for the new Secretary, for the President," the official said. "We want to make the government more efficient and want to reduce the size of the federal workforce, but we also want to make sure we’re very thoughtful about the critical functions that the government needs to perform."
Officials said DOGE does not begin any evaluation with any predetermined cost-cutting goal, and there is no official order through which federal agencies are lining up for examination.
"Typically, contracts and grants are the two main mechanisms the federal government has for dispersing funds," the official told Fox News. "And then we’re also thinking about regulations. Every agency is different, but the things we’re looking at are pretty similar across every agency."
Fox News Digital's Greg Norman contributed to this report.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's efforts at President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have revealed a number of examples of government waste that have dominated headlines in recent weeks, as his team continues to audit the federal government despite Democrat opposition.
Here are some of the top-lines from DOGE's findings:
Musk revealed this week that DOGE is investigating a limestone mine in Pennsylvania where federal employee retirements are processed manually.
"Federal employee retirements are processed using paper, by hand, in an old limestone mine in Pennsylvania. 700+ mine workers operate 230 feet underground to process ~10,000 applications per month, which are stored in manila envelopes and cardboard boxes. The retirement process takes multiple months," Musk announced on X.
Musk said only 10,000 federal employees can retire a month because it takes so long to process the paperwork and sort through the millions of manila envelopes. He described the "Iron Mountain" mine as a "time warp" slowing down a completely manual federal retirement process.
"The limiting factor is the speed at which the mine shaft elevator can move, determines how many people can retire from the federal government. The elevator breaks down sometimes, and then nobody can retire. Doesn't that sound crazy?" Musk told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), inspired by DOGE's crackdown on federal spending, said it had located $20 billion in tax dollars within the agency that the Biden administration reportedly "knew they were wasting."
"An extremely disturbing video circulated two months ago, featuring a Biden EPA political appointee talking about how they were ‘tossing gold bars off the Titanic,’ rushing to get billions of your tax dollars out the door before Inauguration Day," EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said in a video posted to X on Wednesday, citing another video from December.
The EPA found that just eight agencies were controlling the distribution of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to different entities "at their discretion," such as the Climate United Fund, which reportedly received just under $7 billion.
"The ‘gold bars’ were tax dollars, and ‘tossing them off the Titanic’ meant the Biden administration knew they were wasting it," Zeldin said, vowing to recover the "gold bars" that were found "parked at an outside financial institution."
Zeldin said that the "scheme was the first of its kind in EPA history, and it was purposely designed to obligate all the money in a rush job with reduced oversight."
In a Fox News interview, the EPA administrator praised DOGE’s work at the agency and said that the cost-cutting department is "making us better."
"They come up with great recommendations, and we can make a decision to act on it," Zeldin said.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the government's leading disaster-relief arm, gave over $59 million to house illegal immigrants in luxury New York City hotels just last week, DOGE uncovered.
The spending was exposed by Musk on Monday, who wrote in a post on X that "sending this money violated the law and is in gross insubordination to the President’s executive order," which put FEMA under review to improve the agency’s "efficacy, priorities and competence."
Of the $59.3 million, $19 million was for direct hotel costs, while the balance funded other services such as food and security, a New York City Hall spokesperson confirmed to Fox.
One day after the spending was uncovered by DOGE, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed that "Secretary [Krisit] Noem has clawed back the full payment that FEMA deep state activists unilaterally gave to NYC migrant hotels," a DHS spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
Shortly afterward, Trump, in a Truth Social post on Tuesday, suggested that FEMA should be abolished.
"FEMA spent tens of millions of dollars in Democrat areas, disobeying orders, but left the people of North Carolina high and dry. It is now under review and investigation," the president declared.
"THE BIDEN RUN FEMA HAS BEEN A DISASTER. FEMA SHOULD BE TERMINATED! IT HAS BEEN SLOW AND TOTALLY INEFFECTIVE. INDIVIDUAL STATES SHOULD HANDLE STORMS, ETC., AS THEY COME. BIG SAVINGS, FAR MORE EFFICIENT!!!" the president added.
The Pentagon’s $850 billion budget could be next up on the bureaucratic chopping block. Fox News Digital reported this week accusations of waste and inefficiency within the U.S.’s largest discretionary budget.
The Defense Business Board found in 2015 that the Department of Defense could save $125 billion over five years by renegotiating service contracts and consolidating bureaucratic processes.
A congressional inquiry in 2018 found the Air Force was spending $1,300 for each reheatable coffee cup aboard one of its aircraft. The Air Force spent $32,000 replacing 25 cups, according to Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.
A two-year audit by the Defense Department Inspector General last year found that Boeing overcharged the Air Force by 8,000% for soap dispensers. They overpaid by $149,072.
Trump's new defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, said he welcomes DOGE at the Department of Defense.
"We will partner with them. It's long overdue. The Defense Department's got a huge budget, but it needs to be responsible," Hegseth told Fox News.
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, the Senate DOGE Caucus Chairwoman, who says she speaks to Musk about spending cuts every few days, recently published a list of projects and programs she says the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has helped fund across the years.
Ernst described "wasteful and dangerous" spending that had gripped taxpayers until DOGE stepped in.
Ernst highlighted that the agency "authorized a whopping $20 million to create a ‘Sesame Street’ in Iraq."
Under the Biden administration, USAID awarded $20 million to a nonprofit called Sesame Workshopto produce a show called "Ahlan Simsim Iraq" in an effort to "promote inclusion, mutual respect and understanding across ethnic, religious and sectarian groups."
Several more examples of questionable spending have been uncovered at USAID, including more than $900,000 to a "Gaza-based terror charity" called Bayader Association for Environment and Development and a $1.5 million program slated to "advance diversity, equity and inclusion in Serbia's workplaces and business communities."
Fox News Digital's Morgan Phillips and Emma Colton contributed to this report.
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