Marjorie Taylor Greene shares what’s next for House DOGE panel, whether Elon Musk would testify
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., is already planning future hearings for her new subcommittee panel, which was named to correspond with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Greene told reporters after her subcommittee’s first public event that the next two would examine the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and media outlets NPR and PBS. Musk has also targeted NPR and USAID since leading President Donald Trump’s DOGE advisory team. “We’re working on filling the calendar with many more important issues, departments, government programs that the American people deserve direct, hard transparency into,” Greene told reporters. “And then we’re going to be coming up with solutions.” BLACK CAUCUS CHAIR ACCUSES TRUMP OF ‘PURGE’ OF ‘MINORITY’ FEDERAL WORKERS When asked if one of those hearings could feature Musk himself, Greene suggested that was not in the works. “I think Democrats want Elon Musk in front of the committee so they can berate him, attack him and harass him,” Greene said. “Right now, President Trump, myself and many others really want Elon Musk to stay focused on what he’s doing, and that is rooting out the waste, fraud and abuse that has continued on for years within the federal government agencies.” She said her committee would release a report “in a matter of days” on its findings from its first hearing, which focused on government spending through the lens of the $36 trillion national debt. SCOOP: KEY CONSERVATIVE CAUCUS DRAWS RED LINE ON HOUSE BUDGET PLAN Greene said the report “is going to highlight what we found in this hearing and the solutions that we have to implement in Congress.” “I’ll be meeting with chairs of committees of jurisdiction, and I’ll be talking with the speaker, our leader and our whip and all of Congress to put these solutions into practice as soon as possible,” she said. The hearing, which ran roughly two hours, saw Democrats repeatedly try to shift the focus onto Musk and his activities, earning rebukes from Republican lawmakers in the room. “You’re having to defend all of this crazy spending, all of this crazy waste. So how do you do it? You do ad hominem attacks, you attack the messenger,” Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., said during the hearing. “Oh, Elon Musk, right? He’s rich. He must be evil, right? That’s the attacks. Really? You can’t do any better than that?” Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Texas, dismissed concerns after the hearing that Democrats’ focus on Musk would be a potent attack strategy. “I don’t think it’s going to win with the American people,” Cloud told Fox News Digital. “I think what they’ll see is that the American people voted for what is happening right now, and they want to see dramatic change. They know that the federal government is not working for their benefit, and want to see a major course correction.” The DOGE subcommittee operates under the House Oversight Committee. It’s the first committee gavel for Greene.
‘Clawed back’: DHS chief Noem secures eye-popping sum sent to NYC for migrant hotels
The Department of Homeland Security says it has taken back $59 million in FEMA funds earmarked for hotels housing migrants in New York City, a day after it fired those involved in making the payment. “Secretary 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. “There will not be a single penny spent that goes against the interest and safety of the American people,” they said. FEDERAL AGENCY IN DOGE’S CROSSHAIRS PLAYED KEY ROLE IN HARRIS’ STRATEGY TO CURB MIGRANT CRISIS The announcement came after the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) said it had uncovered $59 million in payments for luxury hotels for migrants who had flooded into the sanctuary city during the recent crisis at the southern border. Elon Musk said the payments had been sent in the last week. DHS announced Tuesday that it had fired four employees “for circumventing leadership” and making the payments unilaterally. The firings included FEMA’s CFO, two analysts and a grant specialist. The use of FEMA to make payments related to immigration has been a topic of controversy in recent months. The funding comes via the Shelter and Services Program (SSP). It is congressionally appropriated and requires FEMA to use funding shifted over from Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The Biden administration pushed back last year over claims that disaster funding was being diverted, noting that the funding is appropriated to CBP and administered by FEMA. A New York City Hall spokesperson confirmed to Fox News on Tuesday that the city had received funds “through the past week” that were allocated by the Biden administration for the purpose of housing and supporting illegal immigrants. TRUMP’S ICE LIMITS ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT RELEASES AMID MOVES TO SHAKE OFF BIDEN ‘HANGOVER’ Of the $59.3 million, $19 million was for direct hotel costs, while the balance funded other services such as food and security. According to NY City Hall, the funds were not part of a disaster relief grant. “The previous administration left New York City largely on its own to manage an international humanitarian crisis. At its height, we took swift emergency action to house thousands of migrants arriving in our city every week – including in completely vacant hotels – ensuring that no family slept on our streets and that the public safety of longtime New Yorkers was not compromised,” a spokesperson said. “Thanks to our smart management of the crisis, we have helped over 184,000 migrants leave the city’s shelter system since the spring of 2022. But, we are not out of the woods yet.” A spokesperson said that it never paid luxury hotel rates, that the city applied for funding in April and FEMA allocated the funding last year. CLICK HERE FOR MORE IMMIGRATION COVERAGE On Wednesday, NYC Comptroller Brad Lander responded to the revocation of funds by saying that NYC “cannot take this lying down.” “I call on the Mayor to immediately pursue legal action to ensure the tens of millions of dollars stolen by Trump and DOGE are rightfully returned. If instead Mayor Adams continues to be President Trump’s pawn, my Office will request to work in partnership with the New York City Law Department to pursue aggressive legal action,” he said, according to the New York Post. Mayor Eric Adams later said on X that his office “learned about the federal government clawing back more than $80 million in FEMA grants applied for and awarded under the last administration, but not disbursed until last week.” “While we conduct an internal investigation into how this occurred, our office has already engaged with the White House about recouping these funds and we’ve requested an emergency meeting with FEMA to try and resolve the matter as quickly as possible. The Corporation Counsel is already exploring various litigation options,” he said.
DRAIN THE SWAMP Act seeks to move DC bureaucracy ‘out of crazy town,’ House DOGE leader says
EXCLUSIVE: House DOGE Caucus founder Aaron Bean, R-Fla., will put forward the DRAIN THE SWAMP Act this week as part of continuing legislative attempts to target government waste. The bill aims to require that federal agency heads relocate about one-third of headquarters-based employees “outside the Beltway” while finding ways to save taxpayer money through moves like selling underused Washington, D.C., office space. Bean, who launched the bipartisan DOGE caucus in November, said his bill, which stands for the Decentralizing and Reorganizing Agency Infrastructure Nationwide To Harness Efficient Services, Workforce Administration and Management Priorities Act is what is needed to bring more accountability to Washington’s bureaucracy. “The swamp is thick and deep here in crazy town, and I’m here to drain it,” Bean told Fox News Digital Wednesday. DOGE MEETS CONGRESS: FL REP LAUNCHES CAUCUS TO HELP MUSK “It is time to remind Washington that our duty is to serve the American people,” the Fernandina Beach lawmaker added. Agencies exempt from the legislation include the Pentagon, DHS, CIA and NSA, which is based at Fort George G. Meade near Glen Burnie, Maryland. The remaining 70% of the federal workforce allowed to remain in and around the district would be required to work in person 100% of the time under the legislation. EDUCATION BILL WOULD REQUIRE PARENTAL NOTIFICATION TO TRACE FOREIGN FUNDING OF CURRICULUM AS CHINA LOOKS ON The Office of Management and Budget, an executive cabinet agency, would then be directed to work toward selling — or not renewing leases on — office space vacated by the relocated bureaucrats, saving taxpayer funds. Bean quipped that the DRAIN THE SWAMP Act will ensure the federal government works for the people “and not the other way around.” Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, Bean’s DOGE counterpart in the upper chamber, also put forward companion legislation, which helps speed up the process of reconciling House and Senate versions of a bill to make it to the president’s desk. “The federal workforce has shown they clearly don’t want to work in D.C., and I am going to make their dreams come true,” said Ernst, who previously highlighted waste, fraud and abuse through her “Squeal Awards” that root out government “pork.” Since founding the DOGE caucus, Bean has added two GOP co-chairmen to the ranks — representatives Pete Sessions of Texas and Blake Moore of Utah. Sessions, chairman of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Government Operations, previously highlighted the $2.7 trillion in reported fraud and improper government payments over the past 20 years. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP “This is an absolutely unacceptable misuse of taxpayer dollars. Hardworking Americans deserve a government that works efficiently and effectively,” Sessions said at the time. In that regard, the executive branch’s DOGE leader, Elon Musk, said Tuesday from the Oval Office that finding and ending improper and sometimes anonymous payments will save U.S. taxpayers a lot of money. Musk added DOGE oversight led to the discovery that, in at least one instance, Social Security payments were being made to people recorded to be 150 years old. Moore holds key roles on the Budget and Ways & Means Committee.
Treasury ‘mistakenly’ gave Musk DOGE worker ability to change payments system: court docs
Marko Elez — who before resigning from the Treasury Department had been a member of Treasury’s Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) team — was “mistakenly” given “read/write permissions” on the Secure Payment System rather than “read-only,” Joseph Gioeli III of the Bureau of the Fiscal Service declared in a court filing. The filing is connected to a case in which President Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent were slapped with restrictions regarding who they can grant access to Treasury Department systems that hold “personally identifiable information and/or confidential financial information of payees[.]” “On the morning of February 6, it was discovered that Mr. Elez’s database access to SPS on February 5 had mistakenly been configured with read/write permissions instead of read-only. A forensic investigation was immediately initiated by database administrators to review all activities performed on that server and database,” Gioeli noted in his filing. But he explained that the issue was quickly addressed after it was uncovered. TREASURY DEPARTMENT SAYS DOGE WILL HAVE ‘READ ONLY’ ACCESS TO PAYMENT SYSTEMS IN LETTER TO CONGRESS “His access was promptly corrected to read-only, and he did not log into the system again after his initial virtual over-the shoulder session on February 5,” Gioeli noted. “To the best of our knowledge, Mr. Elez never knew of the fact that he briefly had read/write permissions for the SPS database, and never took any action to exercise the ‘write’ privileges in order to modify anything within the SPS database – indeed, he never logged in during the time that he had read/write privileges, other than during the virtual walk-through – and forensic analysis is currently underway to confirm this.” Fox News Digital reached out on Wednesday to the Treasury Department, the White House, a DOGE spokesperson and the U.S. Digital Service — which Trump, in an executive order, declared to be “publicly renamed as the United States DOGE Service” — but did not receive any responses in time for publication. TRUMP ADMIN FILES MOTION TO VACATE RESTRAINING ORDER PROHIBITING DOGE ACCESS TO TREASURY PAYMENT SYSTEMS Thomas H. Krause, Jr. indicated in a court filing that he is “employed as the Senior Advisor for Technology and Modernization at the Department of the Treasury,” and that the post “is currently unpaid,” but that he is “not seeking compensation” for the job. “I am also designated as a Special Government Employee (SGE),” Krause wrote, noting that “the Treasury Secretary delegated the performance of duties of the Fiscal Assistant Secretary to me, although I have not yet assumed those duties.” Krause said that he is currently “the only Treasury DOGE team member,” and that he is not a U.S. DOGE Service employee. “Although I coordinate with officials at USDS/DOGE, provide them with regular updates on the team’s progress, and receive high-level policy direction from them, I am not an employee of USDS/DOGE,” Krause noted. “A second Treasury DOGE team member, Marko Elez, began working at the Treasury Department on Jan. 21, 2025, but resigned from his role on February 6, 2025,” Krause indicated. “Marko Elez is a highly qualified software engineer who previously worked at several of Elon Musk’s companies, including SpaceX and X (formerly Twitter).” Trump tasked business tycoon Elon Musk with spearheading the DOGE effort, which aims to root out government waste, fraud, and abuse. “As noted in the Gioeli Declaration, I understand from BFS that there was briefly an error that provided Mr. Elez read/write access to the SPS system, but that Mr. Elez did not access that system during that time, and was likely unaware that he had any such read/write access,” Krause stated in a footnote of his filing. TRUMP 100% DISAGREES WITH FEDERAL JUDGE’S ‘CRAZY’ RULING BLOCKING DOGE FROM TREASURY SYSTEM The Wall Street Journal reported that Elez was tied to a deleted social media account that made racist remarks, such as “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,” and “Normalize Indian hate.” But after Elez’s resignation, Vice President JD Vance advocated for reinstatement, noting in a post on X that he did not “think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life.” Musk responded, “He will be brought back. To err is human, to forgive divine.”
House Dems reintroduce reparations legislation: ‘We refuse to be silent’
House Democrats on Wednesday reintroduced legislation that aims to find ways to deliver reparations to Black Americans who are descendants of slaves. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., is co-leading the reintroduction of H.R.40, or the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act, to Congress with Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J. Pressley, a progressive member of the Squad, said during a news conference that “reparations are a necessary step in achieving justice.” “We are in a moment of anti-Blackness on steroids and we refuse to be silent,” Pressley said. “We will not back down in our pursuit of racial justice.” HOUSE, SENATE REPUBLICANS CLASH OVER MAMMOTH TRUMP BUDGET BILL SEEKING $1.5T IN CUTS The bill aims to create a federal commission charged with investigating the enduring impacts of slavery and its aftermath, along with developing concrete proposals for reparations to African Americans who are descendants of slaves, Pressley said. Reparations can take different forms but broadly refer to payments or other forms of recompense to the descendants of Black individuals affected by slavery or past racist policies. Democratic politicians in blue states, including California, in recent years have floated reparations as a way to atone for what proponents describe as a legacy of racist policies that created disparities for Black people in housing, education and health. HOUSE DEMS ORGANIZE RAPID RESPONSE TASK FORCE AND LITIGATION GROUP TO COMBAT TRUMP AGENDA Democrats on the Hill and in California have pushed for passage of reparations legislation, with other cities and states proposing ideas for reparations. In August, however, a pair of reparations-related bills for the descendants of enslaved Black Americans failed to pass in the California legislature after backers said the bills would not move forward and were at risk of being vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom. Booker’s office released a statement last month on the bill’s reintroduction, which 17 Democratic senators are cosponsoring. “We as a nation have not yet truly acknowledged and grappled with the ways slavery, racism, and white supremacy continue to disadvantage African Americans,” Booker said in a statement. “Commissioning a study to better understand where our country has fallen short will help lawmakers better address the racial disparities and inequalities that persist today as a result of generational injustices.” Fox News’ Joshua Q. Nelson and Jaime Joseph contributed to this report.
8 inspectors general fired by Trump sue to get jobs back
Eight former inspectors general fired by President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit to get their positions back. In the complaint, the inspectors general claimed that their “unlawful and unjustified purported termination” constituted interference with their “non-partisan oversight duties.” While President Trump has the authority to remove inspectors general, he did not give Congress the mandatory 30-day minimum notice ahead of removing those who launched the complaint. The eight former inspectors general say that the president also failed to provide a “substantive, case-specific rationale” for their removal. The complaint, which details the backgrounds of the former inspectors general, insists that “until and unless” President Trump “lawfully removes” the plaintiffs from their positions, they remain “duly appointed” inspectors general. President Trump removed inspectors general in his first term and gave Congress the required 30 days’ notice, which the complaint acknowledges. INSPECTOR GENERAL DISMISSED BY TRUMP CALLS MASS FIRINGS A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY The inspectors general dismissed by President Trump served in several departments, including the Defense Department, the State Department, the Energy Department, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Veteran Affairs. According to the complaint, each of the inspectors general were notified of their termination in what it classifies as “substantively identical” emails. The notices allegedly stated that they were terminated “effective immediately” due to “changing priorities.” The firings, which occurred last month, were met with criticism from both Democrats and Republicans. In a letter to President Trump signed by several Democrats and one Republican, lawmakers expressed “grave concern” over the firings, saying they were done “unlawfully and arbitrarily.” “Your actions violate the law, attack our democracy, and undermine the safety of the American people,” the letter reads. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Ia., a key player in the president’s party, called on Trump to provide a “lawfully-required substantive rationale” for the firings. Grassley, who serves as the Senate Judiciary Committee chair, and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Il., the committee’s Ranking Member, sent a letter to President Trump urging him to reveal the reasons behind the firings so Congress and the public could be sure that the action was taken due to “real concerns.” WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY DEFENDS TRUMP’S FIRING OF INSPECTORS GENERAL Shortly after his firing, Mike Ware, who served as the chair of the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, called the firings a “threat to democracy.” Ware is one of the former inspectors general who filed the complaint. “We’re looking at what amounts to a threat to democracy, a threat to independent oversight and a threat to transparency in government. This is no doubt. The statute isn’t just a technicality, it’s a key protection of IG independence is what it is,” Ware told MSNBC’s “Ana Cabrera Reports” back in January. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the mass firings last month, saying the Trump administration would “win in court” when asked if the actions would survive a legal challenge. President Trump said the firings were “a very common” and “a very standard” practice, which the former inspectors general deny in their complaint.
White House says ‘the real constitutional crisis is taking place within our judicial branch’
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt declared Wednesday that “the real constitutional crisis is taking place within our judicial branch, where district court judges in liberal districts across the country are abusing their power to unilaterally block President Trump’s basic executive authority.” Leavitt made the remarks as dozens of activist and legal groups, elected officials, local jurisdictions and individuals have launched more than 50 lawsuits against the Trump administration since Jan. 20 in response to his more than 60 executive orders, as well as executive proclamations and memos, Fox News Digital found. “We believe these judges are acting as judicial activists rather than honest arbiters of the law. And they have issued at least 12 injunctions against this administration in the past 14 days, often without citing any evidence or grounds for their lawsuits,” Leavitt said. “This is part of a larger concerted effort by Democrat activists, and nothing more than the continuation of the weaponization of justice against President Trump,” she added. LAWSUIT TRACKER: NEW RESISTANCE BATTLING TRUMP’S SECOND TERM THROUGH ONSLAUGHT OF LAWSUITS TAKING AIM AT EXECUTIVE ORDERS Just roughly three weeks back in the Oval Office, Trump’s administration has been hit with at least 54 lawsuits working to resist his policies. Leavitt alleged that an “extremely dishonest narrative” has been emerging in recent days with media outlets “fearmongering the American people into believing there is a constitutional crisis taking place here at the White House.” FEDERAL JUDGE ORDERS TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TO RESTORE PUBLIC HEALTH WEB PAGES “Quick news flash to these liberal judges who are supporting their obstructionist efforts: 77 million Americans voted to elect this president, and each injunction is an abuse of the rule of law and an attempt to thwart the will of the people,” Leavitt also said. “As the president clearly stated in the Oval Office yesterday, we will comply with the law in the courts, but we will also continue to seek every legal remedy to ultimately overturn these radical injunctions and ensure President Trump’s policies can be enacted,” she concluded. Fox News’ Emma Colton contributed to this report.
‘DEI activism’: Republican AGs praise Trump SEC move to reverse Biden climate rule they fought in court
FIRST ON FOX: Current and former state attorneys general are praising the Trump administration’s U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its “common sense” decision to roll back a Biden-era climate rule requiring companies to disclose their carbon emissions. “We’ve led multiple common letters over the years against this radical Biden climate fiasco, and we’ve taken multiple steps to try to ensure that all of the federal agencies act consistent with the law,” West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey told Fox News Digital on Wednesday. “So we’ve always had deep concerns about the legality of what the SEC was trying to do and the burdens that would it would impose on public companies. So this is a great day for the rule of law and against federal overreach, and I think it shows again, what happens when you have people in leadership positions that are willing to do the right things and not fall prey to the radical climate agenda.” As the then-West Virginia attorney general, Morrisey led a coalition of more than a dozen states — including Iowa, Georgia, Alabama and Alaska — in a lawsuit challenging the climate rule last year. Within 10 days of its passage, the rule faced over nine legal petitions. Among the challengers were Liberty Energy and Nomad Proppant Services. Liberty Energy was founded by Chris Wright, who now serves as President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Energy. TRUMP REVERSES BIDEN CRACKDOWN ON LIGHTBULBS AND DISHWASHERS, RETURNING TO ‘COMMON SENSE STANDARDS’ The SEC acting chairman, Mark Uyeda, issued a statement Tuesday calling the Enhancement and Standardization of Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors rule – which was implemented in March 2024 but immediately racked up multiple lawsuits that were eventually consolidated into Iowa v. SEC – “deeply flawed and could inflict significant harm on the capital markets and our economy.” Uyeda added that the “the proposed rules overstepped the SEC’s regulatory authority” and that the SEC’s filings “previously submitted in the cases consolidated in the Eighth Circuit do not reflect my views.” Because of recent changes in the SEC’s leadership and President Donald Trump’s directive to freeze new regulations, Uyeda instructed SEC staff to inform the court of these developments and request a delay in the case while the agency reconsiders its stance. However, Uyeda’s commissioner, Caroline A. Crenshaw, issued a scathing statement in opposition to his request to delay the scheduling for oral arguments in the Appeals Court, arguing he acted “without the input of the full Commission.” ENERGY EXPERTS BLAST FAILED BILLION-DOLLAR DOE PROJECT AS ‘FINANCIAL BOONDOGGLE,’ ‘DISASTER’ “I agree wholeheartedly with the acting Chairman that agencies and those who lead them must act within the boundaries of constitutional and statutory authority,” Crenshaw said in a statement. “Nonetheless, I dispute with equal vigor the notion that the agency acted outside of its remit. It did not. The only things that have changed since the Rule was passed have been matters of politics and not substance. As such, I disagree with the position unilaterally taken today by the acting Chairman.” Under then-Chairman Gary Gensler, appointed by former President Joe Biden in 2021, the climate rule mandated that publicly traded companies include detailed information about climate-related risks, greenhouse gas emissions and the potential financial impacts of climate change in their annual reports and registration statements. Several attorneys general who were part of the group lawsuit last year told Fox News Digital the move was a win for “common sense” returning to the federal government that would save companies from extreme financial burdens. PRESIDENT TRUMP’S PRO-ENERGY AGENDA WILL UNLEASH AMERICAN JOBS AND ENERGY SECURITY “Finally, common sense is prevailing,” Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr told Fox News Digital on Wednesday. “But cost of compliance, cost of missed opportunities, again, cost to rectify if the SEC had found a violation of what these companies were going to have to do – those are jobs and investment that would have been missed by these companies just because the federal government didn’t like the way somebody was doing it, and just because they turned client the climate agenda into their own religion.” Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, who was also a co-signer on the lawsuit led by Morrisey, told Fox News Digital in a statement that Uyeda’s push to roll back the climate rule “is another sign that common sense has returned to our nation.” He added in part that it was a “huge win” for taxpayers who “rightfully expect the SEC to be focused on protecting investors and financial markets rather than radical environmentalism.” NEW YORK ‘POLLUTERS PAY’ LAW BACKCHARGING OIL, GAS COMPANIES FACES REPUBLICAN AGS’ LAWSUIT: ‘DEVASTATING’ Morrisey and Carr both expect similar actions against the climate change agenda to occur under the current Trump administration, citing several executive orders issued last month dramatically reversing previous international climate commitments and promoting traditional energy sources, including withdrawing from the Paris Agreement for the second time. In a statement to Fox News Digital, White House spokesman Kush Desai said Trump “has vocally and consistently championed dismantling ideological chokeholds over America’s institutions, entrepreneurs, and consumers to unleash our country’s unparalleled potential.” “The Trump administration will continue to prioritize merit, competence, and innovation over ESG and DEI activism,” he said.
DOGE slashes millions more in ‘nonsense’ contracts across several federal agencies
FIRST ON FOX: Elon Musk’s DOGE team has successfully canceled millions of dollars of government contracts that the administration says were a waste of taxpayer dollars. A senior administration official told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that DOGE has worked with various agencies to cancel several contracts in the Social Security Administration, the Departments of Homeland Security and Labor, and several other areas. “Taxpayer dollars will no longer be wasted on nonsense,” the official told Fox News Digital. The canceled spending includes a $36,000 contract for DEI related workshops at Homeland Security and the cancellation of a $1 million contract that supports the “Gender X Initiative” and involves public-facing SSA applications that allow for the “non-binary” field. DOGE SLASHES OVER $100M IN DEI FUNDING AT EDUCATION DEPARTMENT: ‘WIN FOR EVERY STUDENT’ At the Department of Agriculture, a $1 million contract for a diversity communications campaign for agricultural professionals has been canceled. Contracts are also being canceled at the Forest Service, a branch of USDA, including one for $375,000 on DEI and onboarding services and another for $30,000 on a “Central America Gender Assessment Consultant.” SENATE DOGE CHAIR SAYS SHE SPEAKS WITH ELON MUSK ‘EVERY FEW DAYS’ AS TRUMP ADMIN SLASHES SPENDING The Department of Agriculture will also cancel a $230,000 contract for Brazil forest and gender consultant services. The Department of Labor, according to the official, will cancel a $4 million contract for DEI consultation services and training in its Jobs Corps program. Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency is canceling a $100,000 contract to purchase a two-year subscription with Gartner HR Leaders to “obtain research and advisory services covering employee experience, diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, and work-life integration.” The Trump administration has cut hundreds of millions of dollars of contracts across various departments in the government, with many related to DEI efforts that Trump railed against on the campaign trail as programs that make the United States weaker by focusing on gender and race rather than meritocracy. DOGE posted on Jan. 28 that the group is “saving the Federal Government approx. $1 billion/day, mostly from stopping the hiring of people into unnecessary positions, deletion of DEI and stopping improper payments to foreign organizations, all consistent with the President’s Executive Orders.” Many Democrats in Congress have rallied against DOGE arguing that it represents a “constitutional crisis” and making the case that the cuts are too drastic and are slashing vital government programs. Fox News Digital’s Eric Revell contributed to this report
American among 3 detainees released from Belarus
An American is one of three hostages released from Belarus, the White House has announced. The announcement comes just moments after President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke for around 90 minutes on the phone on Wednesday, Fox News has learned. Those discussions included the Russian leader agreeing to “immediately” begin negotiations over the war in Ukraine. It also comes the day after Marc Fogel, an American who had been detained in Russia since 2021, landed back in the U.S. on Tuesday. Belarus, formerly part of the Soviet Union, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe; it is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. This is a breaking news story and will be updated.