President Donald Trump blasted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a ‘dictator without elections’ on Wednesday, after the U.S. left Ukraine out of initial peace talks with Russia this week. 

‘A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left,’ Trump wrote on TRUTH Social. ‘In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only ‘TRUMP,’ and the Trump Administration, can do. Biden never tried, Europe has failed to bring Peace, and Zelenskyy probably wants to keep the ‘gravy train’ going.’  

Trump added, ‘I love Ukraine, but Zelenskyy has done a terrible job, his Country is shattered, and MILLIONS have unnecessarily died – And so it continues…..’

Describing Zelenskyy as a ‘modestly successful comedian,’ Trump said the Ukrainian leader ‘managed to talk the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and ‘TRUMP,’ will never be able to settle.’ Trump decried how the United States ‘has spent $200 Billion Dollars more than Europe, and Europe’s money is guaranteed, while the United States will get nothing back.’ 

‘Why didn’t Sleepy Joe Biden demand Equalization, in that this War is far more important to Europe than it is to us — We have a big, beautiful Ocean as separation,’ Trump posed of former President Joe Biden. ‘On top of this, Zelenskyy admits that half of the money we sent him is ‘MISSING.’ He refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing Biden ‘like a fiddle.’’ 

Zelenskyy criticized Trump earlier Wednesday in comments to reporters in Kyiv after canceling a trip to Saudi Arabia, where Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Special Envoy Ambassador Steve Witkoff held talks with Russian counterparts earlier this week centered on negotiating an end to the three-year conflict with Ukraine. 

‘Unfortunately, President Trump – I have great respect for him as a leader of a nation that we have great respect for, the American people who always support us – unfortunately lives in this disinformation space,’ Zelensky said.

Nearly one year past the expiration of Zelenskyy’s first five-year term, the U.S. and Russia are in agreement that Ukrainians must go to the polls and decide whether to keep their head of state. 

Russia has insisted it will not sign a peace agreement until Ukraine agrees to hold elections, and the U.S. is now ‘floating’ the idea of a three-stage plan: ceasefire, then Ukrainian elections, then inking of a peace deal.

Zelenskyy’s term in office was supposed to end last May, with elections originally slated for April 2024. But the president’s aides have said elections will not be held until six months after the end of martial law. The Ukrainian constitution prohibits holding elections under martial law. With his popularity having plummeted nearly 40% since the war’s outbreak, Zelenskyy’s future could be in jeopardy if peace is reached and elections are triggered. 

Ukraine advocates say post-war elections would be a far better option, but elections offer Russia an opportunity to sow chaos. ‘The only person that benefits from elections before there’s a durable peace deal is Putin,’ Andrew D’Anieri, a fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, previously told Fox News Digital. ‘The Kremlin loves elections, not in their own country, but elsewhere, because it provides an opportunity to destabilize things.’

Trump envoy Keith Kellog, a retired 3-star general, arrived in Kyiv to hold talks with Zelenskyy on Wednesday. Ukrainian officials have emphasized that any peace deal will require U.S. security guarantees in order to ensure Russia does not invade again.

‘We understand the need for security guarantees,’ Kellog told Ukrainian media. ‘It’s very clear to us the importance of the sovereignty of this nation and the independence of this nation as well… Part of my mission is to sit and listen.’ 

State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce released a statement after Rubio met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Ridyah on Tuesday. 

Fox News’ Morgan Phillips and Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report. This is a developing news story. Check back for updates.

President Donald Trump’s return to the White House appears to have sparked a change in tune on K Street, the heart of lobbyist influence in Washington, D.C., as several prominent lobbyist voices are now pledging to work with the new president after previously criticizing him.  

‘Manufacturers are ready to work with @realDonaldTrump to roll back the federal regulatory onslaught, unleash American energy and build on the success of the pro-growth Trump Tax Cuts,’ Jay Timmons, president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), posted on X after Trump’s victory, adding in a press release that he congratulates Trump on ‘on his historic victory and strong performance across manufacturing intensive states.’

The praise of Trump comes after years of vigorously criticizing him, including after the January 6 riot, when he said that Trump ‘incited violence in an attempt to retain power, and any elected leader defending him is violating their oath to the Constitution and rejecting democracy in favor of anarchy.’

Additionally, Timmons called on then-Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Trump from office.

‘What we saw on January 6th was absolutely one of the most horrifying things that any of us who love America could have ever witnessed,’ Timmons said.

Timmons also said that Trump’s handling of the coronavirus appeared to have been ‘weaponized, and it became a political tool.’

Timmons also had a long history of praising the Biden administration for its accomplishments, saying that he ‘built a substantial legacy’ in four years and celebrating Biden’s work on the coronavirus when he was elected by saying ‘it is fantastic to have a partner in the White House’, adding that ‘we felt like we were fighting this fight, frankly, all alone for the last year.’

In a statement to Fox News Digital, a NAM spokesperson said, ‘President Trump wants to grow manufacturing in the United States. The NAM is working with him to do that.’ 

Shortly after Biden announced he was dropping out of the presidential race, NAM put out a press release saying that Biden ‘Has Rallied the World to the Cause of Democracy.’ NAM would then invite Trump to call into their board meeting a little over a month before the presidential election, where he discussed taxes, energy, and regulations stifling the manufacturing industry.

Stephen Ubl, president and chief executive officer of PhRMA, also spoke out about January 6, calling it ‘appalling,’ and took issue with some aspects of Trump’s agenda items, including his executive order push to ‘Buy American,’ which Ubl said would create ‘even more barriers to innovation and efforts to develop a vaccine for COVID-19.’

Ubl’s company, along with other organizations, filed a lawsuit in 2020 ‘against the Trump administration’s new rules for lowering drug prices.’

Ubl, who has donated at least $15,000 to Democrats, has struck a more positive tone since Trump’s victory, posting on X that he is ‘committed to working with the Trump administration and the new Congress to make our health care system work better for patients while preserving our unique ecosystem that enables greater innovation and lower costs for patients.’ 

Ubl met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in early December, and PhRMA donated funds to Trump’s inauguration. 

‘With President Trump now officially sworn into office, I look forward to working with his administration to address key challenges facing our industry and fighting for solutions to help patients access and afford the treatments they need,’ Ubl posted on X in January. 

Neil Bradley, the vice president of the Chamber of Commerce, said after January 6 that Trump’s words and actions ‘have no place in a free and Democratic society’ and the New York Times reported that he said the chamber is ‘evaluating how lawmakers voted last week during the electoral vote certification process and how they vote in the coming days when the House moves to impeach Mr. Trump when making decisions about donations.’

Bradley was also critical of President Trump’s decision to end DACA, saying in 2017 that it ‘runs contrary to the president’s goal of growing the U.S. economy.’

Bradley, a Democratic donor who donated to former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney after she voted to impeach Trump, said after Trump’s election that ‘his actions are a long overdue change in direction that will help unleash the American economy, resulting in more innovation and faster growing paychecks for American workers.’

Shortly after Trump’s victory, the Business Roundtable (BRT) put out a press release saying that it ‘congratulates President-elect Donald Trump on his election as the 47th President of the United States.’

‘We look forward to working with the incoming Trump Administration and all federal and state policymakers.’

Before Trump’s re-election, several members of the BRT were highly critical of Trump, including CEO Joshua Bolten, who called Trump unfit for office in 2016, before he joined BRT in 2017, and donated to prominent Trump critic Liz Cheney in 2021 and 2022. 

Bolten also donated to Trump critic and former GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger in 2021 after he voted to impeach Trump. 

Kristen Silverberg, president and COO of BRT, signed a letter opposing Trump’s election in 2016, before she joined BRT in 2019, and donated several thousand dollars to Cheney’s re-election efforts after she voted to impeach Trump, FEC records show. 

Records also show that Silverberg donated multiple times to Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign against Trump in the Republican primary in 2023, as well as Chris Christie’s campaign in the same primary. 

BRT hosted President Trump twice during CEO Quarterly Meetings with Bolten and Silverberg at the helm, and the group also met with then-vice presidential candidate JD Vance during their Q3 2024 meeting with CEOs in September. 

The organization pointed to Bolten and Silverberg making no public anti-Trump statements since 2016 and said they have worked ‘closely’ with both Trump administrations on important policy initiatives. The organization also said that donations to Cheney, a former colleague, were for her reelection and not her anti-Trump efforts.

‘Business Roundtable worked with President Trump to advance tax reform and USMCA during his first term, and we look forward to working together in his second to continue advancing economic policies that expand opportunity for all Americans,’ BRT spokesperson Michael Steel told Fox News Digital. ‘Those policies include extending and strengthening the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, securing major regulatory and permitting reforms, and ensuring a skilled U.S. workforce.’

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) still employs more people than it did in 2019, despite ‘Democrat hysteria’ over recent cuts within the department’s agencies, Fox News Digital exclusively learned. 

A senior Trump administration official told Fox News Digital that there have been 6,000 departures from HHS since Jan. 20, Inauguration Day. The agency, however, still employs nearly 6,000 more people than it did in 2019, including more than 2,000 employees at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) relative to 2019 numbers, and 1,200 employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

Hiring at HHS ballooned between fiscal year 2019 and 2024, the senior Trump administration official said, with 17% more full-time employees by 2024. Fifty percent of overall jobs in the U.S. that were created in 2024 were indirect or direct government jobs, the official added. 

‘Democrat hysteria about essential offices in HHS being culled — again, every operating division has either more or roughly stagnant headcount relative to’ fiscal year 2019, a senior Trump administration official told Fox News Digital. 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed and sworn-in as the nation’s 26th secretary of Health and Human Services on Thursday, when President Donald Trump also signed an executive order creating the Make America Healthy Again Commission, which is ‘investigating and addressing the root causes of America’s escalating health crisis.’ The commission initially will focus its investigations into childhood chronic diseases, such as autism. 

News reports spread shortly after Kennedy’s confirmation that widespread layoffs were headed to HHS employees, including within the CDC and FDA. The Trump administration is in the midst of working to streamline the federal government by cutting overspending and stamping out potential fraud or mismanagement, which has included mass layoffs at various agencies. 

The head of the FDA’s food division, Jim Jones, submitted his resignation letter Monday, according to various news reports, arguing the administration’s ‘indiscriminate firing’ of staff in his division will be a ‘roadblock to achieving the Secretary’s stated objectives of making America healthy again.’

‘I was looking forward to working to pursue the Department’s agenda of improving the health of Americans by reducing diet-related chronic disease and risks from chemicals in food,’ Jones said. ‘It has been increasingly clear that with the Trump Administration’s disdain for the very people necessary to implement your agenda, however, it would have been fruitless for me to continue in this role.’

Federal employees also staged a protest outside HHS in Washington, D.C., on Friday, while a cohort of academic unions around the country are rallying the science community to join another protest outside HHS on Wednesday, billed as a ‘National Day of Action.’

The Trump administration explained to Fox News Digital that those who were terminated over the weekend included probationary employees — who are individuals recently hired by the agency and still under consideration for long-term employment. 

‘Not people carrying longtime essential ‘institutional’ knowledge,’ the admin official said of those terminated. 

The recent HHS culling over the weekend did not include key personnel focused on emergency preparedness and response within the Administration for Strategy Preparedness and Response (ASPR), the CDC and other divisions of HHS, nor did it cull research scientists at the CDC or National Institutes of Health, or frontline healthcare providers at the Indian Health Service, employees working on Medicare and Medicaid at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or those reviewing and approving drugs or conducting inspections at FDA. 

Additionally, employees working on refugee resettlement within the Administration of Children and Families were exempt from the weekend layoffs. 

‘Cuts we made at HHS over the weekend did not compromise health and safety of Americans,’ the admin official added.

Kennedy vowed during his Senate confirmation hearings that he would scrutinize the department’s previous modus operandi, remove potential financial conflicts and ensure tax dollars were spent on both bolstering healthy foods for Americans, and providing ‘unbiased’ scientific reports. 

‘We will make sure our tax dollars support healthy foods. We will scrutinize the chemical additives in our food supply. We will remove the financial conflicts of interest in our agencies,’ he told the Senate Finance Committee in describing his goals. ‘We will create an honest, unbiased, science-driven HHS, accountable to the president, to Congress, and to the American people.’

Both Kennedy and Trump pledged on the campaign trail to ‘Make America Healthy Again,’ including directing their focus on autism among youths in recent years. The recently minted MAHA commission will investigate chronic conditions for both adults and children, including those related to autism, which the White House said affects one in 36 children.

The commission is expected to publish ‘an assessment that summarizes what is known and what questions remain regarding the childhood chronic disease crisis, and include international comparisons,’ within 100 days of the commission’s founding. Within 180 days, it is expected to ‘produce a strategy, based on the findings of the assessment, to improve the health of America’s children,’ Fox Digital reported. 

Since Kennedy’s confirmation, state-level lawmakers have introduced a wave of bills aimed at advancing priorities championed by Kennedy and the MAHA movement, including prohibiting junk food like candy and soda from school lunches and other bills aimed at amending state vaccine rules. 

Fox News Digital’s Alec Schemmel contributed to this report. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy lashed out at President Donald Trump on Wednesday, suggesting that Trump is in a ‘disinformation space’ regarding peace talks with Russia.

Zelenskyy made the comments to reporters in Kyiv after canceling a trip to Saudi Arabia, where the U.S. and Russia held peace talks earlier in the week. 

‘Unfortunately, President Trump – I have great respect for him as a leader of a nation that we have great respect for, the American people who always support us – unfortunately lives in this disinformation space,’ Zelensky said.

Zelenskyy’s canceled trip to Saudi Arabia was widely seen as a rebuke of the agreements Trump’s team made with Russian counterparts during their Tuesday meeting there. Trump also followed up the meeting with aggressive criticism of Zelenskyy and Ukraine.

‘Today I heard, ‘Oh well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should’ve ended it after three years. You should’ve never started it. You could’ve made a deal,’ Trump said, appearing to suggest Ukraine was at fault in the war.

Trump envoy Keith Kellog, a retired 3-star general, arrived in Kyiv to hold talks with Zelenskyy on Wednesday. Ukrainian officials have emphasized that any peace deal will require U.S. security guarantees in order to ensure Russia does not continue the violence.

‘We understand the need for security guarantees,’ Kellog told Ukrainian media.

‘It’s very clear to us the importance of the sovereignty of this nation and the independence of this nation as well…. Part of my mission is to sit and listen,’ he added.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio led the U.S. delegation in Saudi Arabia, meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce also confirmed that Rubio’s team agreed to ‘lay the groundwork for cooperation’ with Russia on various issues in addition to Ukraine. They also agreed to appoint ‘high-level teams’ to begin working on a path to ending the conflict in Ukraine.

Their proposed framework for a peace agreement would see a ceasefire, followed by elections in Ukraine and the signing of a final agreement.

Reports from multiple foreign diplomatic sources say forcing Ukraine to hold new elections could be a key part of a peace deal. Both the U.S. and Russia believe Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has a low chance of winning re-election, the sources say.

‘Putin assesses the probability of electing a puppet president as quite high and is also convinced that any candidate other than the current President of Ukraine will be more flexible and ready for negotiations and concessions,’ the diplomatic sources said in a readout of the meeting.

Fox News’ Jacqui Heinrich and the Associated Press contributed to this report

In its first appeal of its second term to reach the Supreme Court, the Trump administration is arguing that the judiciary is attempting ‘to seize executive power’ as courts have blocked the president from firing certain federal employees. 

Experts say the high court will likely be sympathetic to that argument and point to the ferocious dissent from a lower court judge, Trump appointee Greg Katsas, which they said laid the groundwork for Trump’s potential victory.

‘I am of the strong opinion that the devastating dissent written by Judge Katsas will strongly influence the current justices on the Supreme Court,’ Hans von Spakovsky, Senior Legal Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital. 

The Justice Department filed an appeal to the Supreme Court in the case involving the firing of Hampton Dellinger, the head of the Special Counsel Office. Dellinger was fired from his role this month and shortly thereafter filed suit against the Trump administration, arguing that his termination was illegal and was ‘in direct conflict with nearly a century of precedent’ delineating proper removal of independent agency officials. 

A lower court judge initially issued an administrative stay that reinstated Dellinger to his position, to which he was appointed by former President Joe Biden. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit declined to block that decision. 

The lower court then issued a temporary restraining order that reinstated Dellinger for 14 days. The DOJ appealed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which declined to lift the order on Sunday.

The panel, which voted 2-1, was split along party lines, with Katsas dissenting.

The Trump-appointed judge wrote that the order ‘warrants immediate appellate review’ as the issue at hand ‘directs the President to recognize and work with an agency head whom he has already removed.’

‘Where a lower court allegedly impinges on the President’s core Article II powers, immediate appellate review should be generally available,’ Katsas wrote. 

Katsas said the order ‘controlling how [the president] performs his official duties’ is ‘virtually unheard of.’ Katsas also wrote that the order ‘usurped a core Article II power of the President.’

In its appeal to the Supreme Court, the DOJ said the case ‘involves an unprecedented assault on the separation of powers that warrants immediate relief.’

‘Until now, as far as we are aware, no court in American history has wielded an injunction to force the President to retain an agency head whom the President believes should not be entrusted with executive power and to prevent the President from relying on his preferred replacement,’ the appeal reads. 

The Trump administration referred back to Katsas’ dissent numerous times in its appeal, arguing that the Court cannot allow courts ‘to seize executive power by dictating to the President how long he must continue employing an agency head against his will.’

Von Spakovsky called the appellate court’s decision declining to lift the order ‘really outrageous and an unprecedented abuse of their judicial authority.’

‘The Supreme Court itself has said that the president has the unrestricted authority to remove the single head of an executive agency, as Katsas points out, and yet these courts are thumbing their noses at the Supreme Court and blithely violating those precedents,’ von Spakovsky said.

Likewise, constitutional law attorney and Fox News Contributor Jonathan Turley said he expects the justices to ‘resonate’ with the arguments made in Katsas’ dissent. 

‘While the panel ruled on a technical barrier to the review of a temporary restraining order, the dissent correctly points out that this is an extraordinary claim of authority by the district court,’ Turley said.

Von Spakovsky called the appellate court’s decision ‘one of the worst examples of judicial activism we have seen’ and said ‘it needs to be immediately and decisively stopped by the Supreme Court.’

He continued on to advise that the court ‘should forgo its usual politeness and collegiality and severely criticize the district court judge for her contemptuous behavior as well as the appellate court judges for not stopping it.’

Medicaid is quickly emerging as a political lightning rod as House Republicans negotiate on a massive bill to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda.

Some Republican lawmakers are worried about the level of spending cuts being sought by fiscal hawks to offset the cost of Trump’s policies, arguing the current deal could force potentially unworkable cuts on Medicaid and other federal safety net programs.

‘I’m concerned that $880 billion out of [the House Energy & Commerce Committee] is likely very steep cuts to Medicaid – and it’s the very thing President Trump asked us not to do,’ Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., told Fox News Digital on Tuesday.

GOP lawmakers are working to pass a broad swath of Trump policies – from investments in defense and border security to extending his 2017 tax cuts and eliminating taxes on tips – via the budget reconciliation process. The mechanism allows the party in control of both houses of Congress to pass a tax and budget bill without help from the opposing party.

But conservative spending hawks are looking for deep cuts in federal dollars to offset money going toward Trump’s priorities. The current resolution advancing through the House would aim to cut government spending by at least $1.5 trillion, while allocating $4.5 trillion toward Trump’s tax cuts.

An amendment added after conservatives balked at that deal would cut funding going toward Trump’s tax cuts by $500 billion if at least $2 trillion total spending cuts were not reached. 

Even before the additional cuts, however, some Republicans like Bacon are concerned that the $880 billion that the Energy & Commerce Committee is tasked with cutting will negatively impact their constituents.

Conservatives have pushed back, arguing that significant cuts could be found in Medicaid work requirements. But skeptics of that argument say that the level of spending cuts being sought go past what work requirements can cover.

‘We want to ensure that it’s not going to hurt… our hospitals, or our organizations that serve the developmentally disabled, and we’re asking for clarity on where the $880 billion in savings come from,’ Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., the only House Republican representing part of New York City, told Fox News Digital.

She did agree with GOP rebels that there was ‘mismanagement’ and waste to root out in those programs.

Malliotakis and other Republicans on the Ways & Means Committee tasked with writing tax policy are also uneasy about the new amendment that could cut funds allocated to their panel.

‘I don’t think that is doable without affecting beneficiaries, and I’ve expressed that concern to leadership and in talking to some of my colleagues,’ Malliotakis said.

Another House Republican who declined to be named told Fox News Digital that ‘there’s a bunch of us’ who think the proposed cuts ‘are too big.’

‘They’re trying to sell us $1.5 trillion, but in reality, there’s another $500 billion attached to it that they’re trying to cut. And it’s not going to pass,’ the GOP lawmaker said.

Meanwhile, Rep. Rob Bresnahan, R-Pa., who unseated a Democrat in a close race last year, wrote on X over the weekend, ‘I ran for Congress under a promise of always doing what is best for the people of Northeastern Pennsylvania. If a bill is put in front of me that guts the benefits my neighbors rely on, I will not vote for it.’

The budget reconciliation process allows legislation to advance with only GOP votes by lowering the threshold for Senate passage from two-thirds to a simple 51-seat majority. The House already operates on a simple majority.

But currently, Republicans can lose just one vote in the House to pass anything on party lines – meaning they can afford almost no dissent to get their reconciliation bill over the line.

Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., a conservative on the House Budget Committee who would not have supported the resolution last week without the last-minute amendment, told reporters last week, ‘Medicaid’s got to be in it. You don’t get to the [$1.5 trillion figure], much less two, without it.’

‘And it’s not cuts to Medicaid. Work requirements have an $800 billion savings on it… able-bodied 40-year-old men who can work don’t need to be on Medicaid,’ Norman said.

Democrats are waiting to pounce on the discord.

The House Majority PAC, which is aligned with House Democratic leadership, released a memo on Tuesday accusing Republicans of seeking to make ‘deep cuts’ to Medicaid ‘to fund $4.5 trillion in tax cuts to Elon Musk and other billionaires.’

‘In battleground congressional districts across the country, House Republicans are putting Medicaid on the chopping block – a move that would rip life-saving health care away from tens of thousands of their own constituents – roughly half of whom are children,’ the memo said.

But according to Ways & Means Republicans, the average American household could see taxes raised by over 20% if the Trump tax cuts expired.

Nearly everyone agrees that the federal government has become this bloated monster that needs to be cut down to size.

The massive bureaucracy, attacked by some as evil, is absurdly overstaffed and wastes massive amounts of money.

What President Trump is doing in trying to shrink the size of government is popular – even if his billionaire budget-slasher, Elon Musk, is not – and many of the court battles are likely to be resolved in his favor.

But the equation is turned on its head when actual people feel the impact. And the media start highlighting sad cases of devastated folks. And Republican lawmakers start objecting to the cutbacks that hit home.

That’s why it’s so hard to cut the federal budget. It’s not like going into SpaceX and firing a bunch of software engineers. The political pressures can be intense.

Virtually every program in the federal budget is there because some group, at some time, convinced Congress it was a good idea. There are noble-sounding causes – cancer research, aid to veterans, subsidies for farmers.

In fact, farmers are threatened by the near-abolition of USAID – while most people hate foreign aid, food programs provide a crucial market for American farmers, many of whom are now stuck with spoiling surpluses or loans they can’t repay.

Now there’s plenty of game-playing that goes on with government programs. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that agencies could cut one of every 10 employees without damaging their core functions. 

Anyone who’s looked at the endless cycle of conferences, conventions, training confabs, office renovations and the like knows how much fat there is in these budgets. When you throw in lucrative payments to well-connected contractors, that figure skyrockets.

But when agency officials come under fire, they immediately insist that any cutbacks will instantly hurt the poor and downtrodden, or working-class folks living paycheck to paycheck. It used to be called the Washington Monument defense, the notion that any attempt to reduce funding for the Interior Department would cause the memorial’s immediate shutdown.

NIH, for instance, does world-class research that benefits the country. But the battle between Musk’s DOGE and the institute centers on how much is spent on indirect costs.

Musk says his aim is ‘dropping the overhead charged on NIH grants from the outrageous 60 percent to a far more reasonable 15 percent.’

But an NBC story is headlined: ‘NIH Cuts Could Stall Medical Progress for Lifesaving Treatments, Experts Say.’

The piece quotes Theodore Iwashyna, a physician at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, as saying his ‘father had pancreatic cancer, and the care plan developed for him existed only because of research funded through organizations like the NIH.’

Iwashyna says the overhead is needed for ‘computers, whiteboards, microscopes, electricity, and janitors and staff who keep labs clean and organized.’

Alabama Sen. Katie Britt, whose state is getting $518 million in NIH grants, mainly to the University of Alabama at Birmingham, is raising objections. The conservative Republican told a reporter she wants the administration to take a ‘smart, targeted approach’ so as not to endanger ‘groundbreaking, lifesaving research.’

The examples are legion. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski has asked the administration not to restrict funding for diversity programs among American Indian tribes.

As the New York Times puts it, ‘some Republicans’ have sought ‘carve outs and special consideration for agriculture programs, scientific research and more, even as they cheered on Mr. Trump’s overall approach.’

Musk’s DOGE team seems to be using a meat-ax method. Why lay off hundreds of FAA technicians and engineers just weeks after the fatal plane crash at Reagan National Airport, when there’s already a major shortage of air traffic controllers?

FEMA, which is already stretched thin after the Los Angeles wildfires and the Kentucky flooding, is preparing to fire hundreds of probationary workers, reports the Washington Post. Such workers, who have been with the government for one or two years, basically have no rights. 

But there has been zero effort to assess them. Some were told their performance was the issue, but showed the Post their evaluations. ‘Above fully successful,’ said one, for a fired GSA worker. ‘An outstanding year, consistently exceeding expectations,’ said the review for a fired NIH staffer.

But viewed from a different angle, the hometown paper and other outlets buy into the notion that federal employees should have tenure for life. Everyone in Washington knows that before Trump it was virtually impossible to fire such employees, even for cause. 

By contrast, Southwest Airlines just announced a 15% cut of its corporate workforce. No one is rushing to interview those laid off, because this sort of downsizing is routine in the private sector. But the Beltway ethos is that federal workers are entitled to their jobs.

Now intellectual honesty requires the observation that even radical cuts to the federal payroll won’t have much impact on the $840 billion budget deficit or the $36 trillion federal debt. The bulk of the budget consists of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, defense spending and interest on the debt.

Can Elon Musk and DOGE at least make progress on rooting out waste, fraud and abuse? Maybe. But the level of pain being inflicted on ordinary Americans, including in red states, and the natural tendency of politicians to shield local residents from that pain, and the media’s relentless spotlight on those suffering, are going to be a giant obstacle.

DOGE’s Elon Musk opened up in an interview alongside President Trump with Fox News Sean Hannity about a dinner party where he said he realized how ‘real’ Democratic animosity toward Trump can be.

‘I happened to mention the president’s name and it was like they got shot with a dart in the jugular that contained like methamphetamine and rabies,’ Musk said in the Tuesday night interview while recounting a situation where he mentioned Trump’s name at a dinner party and quickly received pushback.

Musk imitated people at the party going crazy and questioned why they couldn’t have a normal conversation.

‘It’s like they’ve become completely irrational,’ Musk said, adding in the interview that he didn’t realize the severity of ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ was until he attended that dinner party.

During another point in the interview, Hannity asked if Musk would recuse himself from DOGE efforts if there was ever a conflict of interest.

‘If there’s a conflict he won’t be involved,’ Trump said. ‘I wouldn’t want that and he won’t want it.’

‘Right, and also I’m getting sort of a daily proctology exam,’ Musk added. ‘It’s not like I’ll be getting away for something in the dead of night.’

Musk and Trump sat down for a wide-ranging interview with Hannity where they discussed the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) work, the first 100 days of the Trump administration and more. It marks the duo’s first joint television interview.

‘He’s been so unfairly attacked,’ Musk said of Trump during the interview. ‘It’s really outrageous.’

‘I’ve spent a lot of time with the President, and not once have I seen him do anything mean or cruel or wrong.’