Editor’s note: This week, we’re reprinting some of our best stories from the past year. This piece, originally published in May, won Luke Rosiak the 2025 Dao Prize For Excellence In Journalism. It is reprinted here in its entirety along with a note from Daily Wire editor-in-chief Brent Scher, added to mark Rosiak&#8217;s Dao victory.
***
Earlier this year, we decided to put Luke Rosiak on full-time DOGE coverage. But his work on government efficiency started more than a decade ago. Luke was mentored by the late Tom Coburn, the senator who famously put out an annual “Wastebook” documenting government stupidity. None of the stupidity, however, ever got cut.
“For years, us waste-watchers saw that nothing got better under either party,” Luke said back in February. “We thought we had to accept it.”
But then DOGE came along, led by a confrontational billionaire empowered to take action as soon as he was alerted of government waste. The goal was never for Luke to cover what Elon Musk and DOGE were doing, any reporter could do that, but rather to spotlight as much waste, fraud, and abuse as he could while the government cared.
He’s done that, far more thoroughly than we could have imagined. He locked his investigative prowess in on waste and abuse of the federal food stamp program, figured out what was going on<a href="http://dailywire.com/news/this-foreign-aid-agency-locked-its-doors-to-keep-doge-out-now-we-know-why" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> inside the African Development Foundation</a>, where they shuttered the doors to keep DOGE from entering, and told the world the story of how the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/a-doge-origin-story-how-barack-obama-laid-the-groundwork-for-elon-musk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wokest office at the White House</a> really made DOGE possible. Elon was following — and literally responding with “Deleted” to Luke’s reporting on X.
This week Luke was recognized for his work spotlighting with the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/daily-wires-luke-rosiak-wins-investigative-journalism-award-for-best-doge-reporting" target="_blank" rel="noopener">prestigious Dao Prize</a>, awarded to “recognize excellence in investigative journalism.” It was for his work on the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, which thanks to reporting like Luke’s, no longer exists.
This piece was originally published on March 19, 2025, but we’re sharing the award-winning journalism again today. — Brent Scher
—
One of the seven small federal agencies that President Donald Trump ordered <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/continuing-the-reduction-of-the-federal-bureaucracy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">downsized or eliminated</a> on Friday was rife with corruption, with its employees hiring friends and relatives, commissioning paintings of themselves, and using government credit cards to indulge in constant luxuries.
The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) occupied a nine-story office tower on D.C.’s K Street for only 60 employees, many of whom actually worked from home, prior to the pandemic. Its managers had luxury suites with full bathrooms; one manager would often be “in the shower” when she was needed, while another used her bathroom as a cigarette lounge. FMCS recorded its director as being on a years-long business trip to D.C. so he could have all of his meals and living expenses covered by taxpayers, simply for showing up to the office.
FMCS is a 230-employee agency that exists to serve as a voluntary mediator between unions and businesses. As an “independent agency,” its director nominally reports to the president, but the agency is so small that in effect, there is no oversight at all — and it showed, becoming a real-life caricature of all the excesses that the Department of Government Efficiency has alleged take place in government.
This reporter spent a year <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/tag/watchdog-just-sign-here/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">investigating the agency</a> a decade ago, and I found egregious and self-serving violations of hiring, pay, contracting, and purchase card rules. One thing I could not discover is why the agency actually existed, other than to provide luxurious lifestyles for its employees. Endless junkets to resort destinations, which employees openly used to facilitate personal vacations, were justified as building awareness of the agency in the hopes that someone would actually want to use its voluntary services.
FMCS seemed, quite clearly, to exist for the benefit of those on its payroll, and not much else. One employee told me: “Let me give you the honest truth: A lot of FMCS employees don’t do a hell of a lot, including myself. Personally, the reason that I’ve stayed is that I just don’t feel like working that hard, plus the location on K Street is great, plus we all have these oversized offices with windows, plus management doesn’t seem to care if we stay out at lunch a long time. Can you blame me?”
<h3>“Recreation and reception fund.”</h3>
Top FMCS official George Cohen used a “recreation and reception fund” to order champagne and $200 coasters for his office, and to purchase artwork painted by his wife. The tiny agency commissioned paintings of its top employees — as one employee told me, “like they were reigning kings or something…I’ve never seen anything like it before.” It spent $2,402 retouching the portrait of someone who briefly held the top job in an acting capacity.
FMCS employees “unblocked” their government credit cards to turn off typical abuse protections, then used them to apparently fund personal expenses and simply bill anything they’d like to the government. One employee leased a BMW; another (IT director James Donnen) billed the government for his wife’s cell phone, cable TV at both his home and his vacation home, and even his subscription to USA Today.
Employee Dan W. Funkhouser used his FMCS card to rent a storage unit near his home in rural Virginia, two hours from the office he supposedly worked at, which was used to store personal possessions such as a photo album of his dog, Buster. Funkhouser also spent $18,000 at a jewelry store near his house, and “destroyed all purchase card records upon leaving the agency,” an audit said.
When Charles Burton retired from FMCS, he incorporated an LLC to which another FMCS employee paid $85,000 using his purchase card, listing it as a “Call Center Service,” even though the company had neither a website nor a working phone.
When an accountant, Carol Booth, blew the whistle on financial abuses to the General Services Administration, which manages purchase cards and contracting, Cohen forced her to send an email (which he wrote under her name) rescinding her statement.
Like something out of “The Office,” the employees spent an inordinate amount of time and money congratulating one another for being employed there and engaging in “work” that really amounted to pampering themselves.
One purchase was for $30,000 on trinkets marking employees’ anniversaries. The agency’s office was absurdly oversized, but it refused to move. It hired a consultant for a “Hallway Improvement Project” to decorate. It had an in-house gym for employees, and purchased a $1,000 TV for the gym, a $3,867 ice-maker, and a $560 stereo.
The expenses that were actually business-related were hardly better. It paid, for example, $895 “for Suzanne Nichter’s enrollment in the English Essentials: A Grammar Refresher course” and $735 “for Lakisha Steward to attend Listening and Memory Skills Development Course.”
<h3>All expenses paid lifestyle</h3>
FMCS used federal jobs as a spigot of cash for friends and relatives. Allison Beck, a former union lawyer who became a top FMCS official, employed her sister-in-law as a “special assistant,” and an inspector general found evidence that she tried to create a high-level job for a friend.
FMCS employees allegedly steered contracts to friends, allowing them to write the “statement of work” that would be used to choose the contract winner — resulting in, of course, their own selection. Such “trainers” were paid $1,500 per day per person to train FMCS’s staff, plus $163 an hour for travel. When a low-level employee eventually said the extra travel pay ran afoul of federal rules, a contractor made clear he viewed it as an entitlement, huffing: “Work we have successfully performed for the agency for more than a decade — at great personal sacrifice, I should add — will be taken away unless we comply in an unquestioning manner with your edict.”
Scot Beckenbaugh, a top agency official, was paid $174,000 a year, but that wasn’t enough: He had his “duty station” listed as Iowa so that he could have all of his living expenses and food paid for in D.C., where he lived and worked, as if he was on a <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/384045/fmcs-paid-senior-officials-rent-meals-other-living-expenses-for-six-years/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">six-year-long business trip</a>. When an employee raised the issue to an agency lawyer, the lawyer told him he “should not raise these issues … it would open a can of worms.”
FMCS hired a former mail carrier who lived in Pennsylvania, Lu-Ann Glaser, for a high-level, D.C.-based job, and agreed to pay for her to stay in a hotel for half of every month — even though it would have been easy to find someone better qualified who didn’t need to be put up in a hotel to simply do her job.
Paul Voight, a human resources official, was listed as living in D.C. even though he <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/359002/fmcs-oks-higher-locality-pay-for-employees-working-in-distant-low-tax-states/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">actually lived</a> in Wisconsin, in order to fraudulently obtain higher cost-of-living pay. Voight’s boss was Artur Pearlstein, who left the agency to become a law professor, and was then re-hired after his academic career imploded in a plagiarism scandal. His first move in his new job was terminating an independent investigation into FMCS staff abusing taxpayer funds for personal gain.
Cohen, for his part, <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/1450139/despite-ethics-pledge-fmcs-hired-directors-old-boss-to-do-legal-work/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">steered work</a> to his previous employer, despite signing ethics forms saying he would not.
<h3>Constant junkets</h3>
Many of the agency’s top employees lived outside of the typical Washington, D.C., commuting area, and only stopped in the area occasionally, in an era before telework was routine. Its CFO, Fran Leonard, would come to the office twice a week but leave by 2:00 p.m.
The agency had, inexplicably, an office in Honolulu.
It funded <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/875236/exography-globe-trotting-honchos-spend-big-on-fmcs-dime/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">constant travel of its employees to exotic locales</a>, on the pretext that it was drumming up business for the federal agency — an admission that there was little demand for the agency’s existence.
In one month, Beck traveled to Italy and Switzerland, where she conducted a business meeting — over video chat. Then she went to Tunisia and an island off the coast of Georgia. She flew first class and forced the agency to reimburse her for mileage when she drove to her vacation home in Maine.
The agency had three full-time media relations staffers, none of whom would speak to me, almost certainly one of the only reporters to ever call.
<h3>Cash grants for insiders</h3>
The agency’s existence is predicated on the idea that it is an impartial mediator, biased neither towards labor nor management. But its staff largely comes from a union background, and it gave out grants to promote union membership. But it was too incompetent to do much ideological damage; its employees’ comfort always came before helping unions.
Anyone could request cash grants from the agency, with the only requirement that they mention some nexus with unions, however tortured. It doled out a seemingly <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/2364087/exography-federal-agency-fmcs-gave-grants-to-promote-union-membership/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">random assortment of giveaways to private businesses</a>, perhaps because they were the only ones who knew the grants existed.
It gave $63,000 to a hospital that went bankrupt; $51,000 to a childcare company to help it pay government licensing fees; and $57,000 to a company to “strengthen of culture of continuous improvement to drive us to world class excellence!”
What surprised me most about my FMCS investigation was what happened afterward: nothing. An inspector general made a referral to the FBI, but there were no prosecutions. Instead, President Barack Obama nominated a chief subject of the investigation to the top job.
A decade later, Trump has done what even the agency’s own employees said should happen: shut it down.

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Best Of 2025: Inside The Now-Shuttered Agency Where Employees Lived ‘Like Reigning Kings’

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

Donald Trump

Luke Rosiak

Editor’s note: This week, we’re reprinting some of our best stories from the past year. This is the fourth and final installment Luke Rosiak&#8217;s series of investigative reports on the African Development Foundation, which gained notoriety for resisting a review by the Department of Government Efficiency. Links to the previous three parts are included throughout the piece, and below.
—
A small, USAID-like federal agency called the African Development Foundation refused to hire white people, and treated white employees who did slip through so poorly that one soiled herself because she was afraid to leave her desk to use the bathroom, employees told The Daily Wire.
The agency violated so many rules and laws that its general counsel was flabbergasted — but when he called attention to it, officials framed him for violent threats and removed him from his job with a bizarre manifesto that called him “grimy” and “unwholesome,” the general counsel, Mateo Dunne, who is white, said.
The agency attracted attention by locking the doors to prevent auditors from the Department of Government Efficiency from seeing its books, and suing Elon Musk to prevent a takeover. The lawsuit is pending, but all of its employees have been laid off after the Trump administration gained access to the office space using U.S. Marshals.
From 2021 until February, the agency was led by CEO Travis Adkins, who came to it after a short stint at USAID as a Joe Biden political appointee.
Adkins’ former assistant, who is black, said in a sworn affidavit that “On at least three occasions, Mr. Adkins told me that he wanted his entire team (to include the General Counsel) to consist only of Black people. He wanted all of his direct reports to be Black.”
“He was very adamant in only hiring African Americans, mainly female, and he told me many times he would not hire a white person or a veteran. I said that’s discrimination, and he said ‘I’m the president and CEO, I can do what I want,’” the assistant told The Daily Wire on condition of anonymity. Adkins is also a lecturer at Georgetown University.
The African Development Foundation was created by Congress in 1980 as a board whose members are appointed by the president of the United States to six-year terms, who in turn appoint a CEO to run day-to-day operations. The board chair was Jack Leslie, a white former staffer to former Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) who was appointed to the board by Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Adkins bragged about concealing operations from the board, saying “them white motherf—ers, they don’t need to know… I don’t think I should tell them sh–,” according to the assistant.
A junior employee disappeared a few months after she took complaints to the board, and the assistant asked what happened to her; Adkins replied, “I just put the white b—h on a contract and then the contract ended,” the assistant said.
The situation was the same under the prior CEO, C.D. Glin, a former Peace Corps DEI officer and later an Obama political appointee to the Peace Corps who led the agency from 2016 to 2021. “C.D. [Glin] literally said to me that he needed to hire black people,” another employee told The Daily Wire on condition of anonymity. “Virtually everyone he hired in programs was black.”
In 2021, the agency had to pay a settlement after it laid off a white senior executive without paying her severance or following federal rules, and she alleged it was because of her race. It conducted a “reduction in force” that was targeted at her, and falsely claimed she didn’t have the qualifications to shift into another job, even though many of those jobs had actually reported to her.
After publication of this article, a representative for Adkins disputed the allegations from his former assistant that he didn’t want to hire white people. The representative characterizes Dunne’s claims about Adkins as both “self-serving” and “discredited.”
In previous installments in this series, The Daily Wire reported how its agency’s CFO received payments to his personal bank account from a company to which he steered $1 million. The agency gave money to African grantees and then instructed them to re-route it to the agency’s employees and friends in America, and even pushed a for-profit multi-level marketing scheme run by a board member on poor Africans.
<blockquote>
<h1>“I think USADF deserved the fate that it received, because if it couldn’t be run correctly, then it shouldn’t be run at all.”</h1>
</blockquote>
<h3>Retaliation</h3>
In a government agency, the job of the general counsel is to ensure that rules and laws are followed. Glin ensured that the role was either empty or filled with junior lawyers with no experience in government, even though the agency engaged in complex international finance.
After he departed as CEO in May 2021, there was a brief period in which the agency had no permanent leader, and a traditional general counsel managed to slip through. When Mateo Dunne, a white former high-level Defense Department executive, took the job, he was appalled by how little the African Development Foundation seemed to care about laws and rules.
The lawyer set out to interview employees about conflicts of interest, purchase card abuse, contracting fraud, and a toxic workplace environment. In a matter of days, the evidence started stacking up. He told the acting CEO, Elisabeth Feleke, that outside lawyers would have to be brought in to document the full scope of the lawbreaking.
Instead, Feleke ordered him to stop the investigation, told him to change the preliminary findings, and falsely told the board the probe was complete, he told The Daily Wire. Dunne stopped investigating, but sent his preliminary report to the board.
He soon learned that despite nearly uniform agreement that Glin had been abusive, the organization wasn’t getting a fresh start. The board agreed to hire a decades-long friend of Glin’s, Travis Adkins, to replace him. When Adkins entered the office for the first time, Glin enveloped him in a bear hug.
Adkins later testified under oath that he was selected to lead the African Development Foundation without even applying for the job, and that he couldn’t recall when or how he managed to be selected.
As Adkins’ start date neared, Dunne prepared to show him the lawbreaking he had found so that Adkins could reform the agency. But it seemed that Adkins already knew, and his first priority was shutting Dunne’s investigation down.
Within hours of Adkins being sworn in as president and CEO in January 2022, he put Dunne on leave and cut off his access to evidence before he could even speak, video shows.
“You will be on administrative leave the very moment that we hang up this call. You will have a box mailed to your home to allow you to send back to us any USADF-issued equipment,” he told Dunne. “You are not to contact any of the members of the USADF staff. And again, your access to all of our data and systems will be closed down immediately.”
Dunne replied: “I had prepared this slide deck to introduce myself and what I’ve done at USADF. This conversation obviously went a different way … I guess I have a couple of questions.”
“We’re not going to do questions and answers,” Adkins said. “We’re not going to have a back and forth about this.” Dunne was never told why he was placed on paid leave, which Adkins acknowledged was the first step in a discipline process.
Internally, the agency sought to build a justification for firing the white lawyer, with chief of staff Brandi James compiling a 75-page manifesto that called Dunne “Adversarial, Belittling, Calculating, Combative, Condescending, Deceitful, Defensive, Grimy, Sinister, and Unwholesome.”
The report called Dunne a “danger to USADF’s mission and staff.” But the details made clear that the risk was not to anyone’s life, but rather the livelihoods of law-breaking bureaucrats. The dossier faulted him for his “insistence on tying up staff time on investigatory digs.”
The evidence of insubordination was that he had investigated apparent spending on luxuries and personal items by top staff, when Acting CEO Elisabeth Feleke said, “I have not given Mateo direction or mandate to investigate credit card fraud.”
<blockquote>
<h1>“Them white motherf—ers, they don’t need to know… I don’t think I should tell them sh–.”</h1>
</blockquote>
As evidence of Dunne “circumventing and breaching USADF protocols,” the dossier complained that Dunne notified Glin that he had not filed years’ worth of mandatory Office of Government Ethics conflict-of-interest forms, carrying a $600 penalty, even though Feleke told him not to raise the issue. As general counsel, Dunne was the agency’s “designated ethics officer” and required to do so by the government-wide ethics office. The forms would have revealed that the African group had paid money to a group associated with Glin, and refusal to file them can carry criminal penalties.
Adkins went as far as implying that Dunne had threatened to kill him, alluding to something “being sent to people regarding the death of government officials, as all of us are government officials.” This, it turned out, was a fantastical distortion of Dunne sharing a sentimental quote from a New York governor acknowledging the passing of a former legislator.
Then a new comment appeared on the agency’s profile on the employer-review site GlassDoor that said, under “Advice to Management”: “die.” The post was attributed to “General Counsel.” The African Development Foundation sicced four different law enforcement agencies on Dunne for making death threats.
The former Sunday school-teaching lawyer said he was framed. “If I was going to do an anonymous post I would obviously not put my job title in there,” he said.
Adkins was forthright with the board’s chair, Jack Leslie, about what was really going on. He wrote to Leslie that Dunne was placed on leave for his “efforts to damage USADF’s reputation via the Office of Inspector General…Dunne conducted an unauthorized, backward-focused investigation that unsettled staff. … He then began leveling accusations that USADF senior leadership was ‘interfering’ with his investigations and General Counsel functions.”
<h3>Lies </h3>
The African Development Foundation never told Dunne what he was being investigated for, or formally moved to fire him, which would require proving that he did something wrong. It simply left him on paid leave indefinitely, violating a <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/6329b" target="_blank" rel="noopener">law</a> that limits investigative leave to 90 days. After six months, in July 2022, he quit to take another job.
An agency’s top lawyer calling attention to rampant lawbreaking, only for him to be removed from duty, is as remarkable a case of whistleblower retaliation as the government has seen. Dunne provided documentation to the Office of Special Counsel, which exists to investigate whistleblower retaliation. But it closed his file when the employee he’d been working with left her job, he said.
He filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging discrimination on the basis of his race and retaliation. In August 2024, an administrative law judge dismissed his case, even though he had an affidavit from a black employee saying that Adkins had told her repeatedly that he did not want any white people working for him. Dunne is appealing in court.
Dunne deposed African Development Foundation staff in the course of that lawsuit. In his sworn testimony, Adkins denied saying he wouldn’t hire white people — but also claimed he didn’t know how many people worked for him, that he could only remember the names of two, and that he didn’t know what race various employees were.
<div id="attachment_918261" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-918261" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/adkins-dep-736x576.jpg" sizes=" (max-width: 736px) 100vw, 736px" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/adkins-dep-736x576.jpg 736w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/adkins-dep-300x235.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/adkins-dep-768x601.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/adkins-dep.jpg 1184w" alt="" width="736" height="576" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-918261" />
A typical exchange from Adkins’ deposition
</div>
Adkins’ sworn testimony was repeatedly contradicted by documents and the testimony of other employees.
Adkins had told the board that a government-wide human resource office had “recommended Mr. Dunne immediately be placed on Administrative Leave for misconduct and performance.” A representative of that office testified that it was not true.
He denied plotting to remove Dunne as general counsel before he even started as CEO in an effort to spare his friend Glin and officials like Mathieu Zahui, the chief financial officer, and a target of the investigation.
But discovery in the lawsuit showed that Zahui had written during that time period that “The board and the incoming president would like to explore the possibilities of a do-over” on the general counsel hire.
Adkins did not return a request for comment from The Daily Wire.
Dunne said it has been painful to watch some turn the African Development Foundation into a “martyr,” seemingly to avoid acknowledging that DOGE’s scrutiny was warranted, when no one cared to fix it, though signs were abundant that it was broken.
He said he left his job at the Defense Department to come to the African agency “because I wanted to help people,” but found that widespread rule-breaking was short-changing both Africans and low-level staff.
“I think USADF deserved the fate that it received, because if it couldn’t be run correctly, then it shouldn’t be run at all. If the leaders of that agency couldn’t act, and members of the foreign policy establishment wouldn’t act,” he said. “It’s an indictment of the entire system.”
Editor’s note: This piece has been updated with information sent after publication by a representative from Travis Adkins, who refutes claims about his spending and says that Mateo Dunne’s claims about him are “self-serving” and “discredited.”
READ MORE:
<ul>
<li aria-level="1"><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/foreign-aid-official-who-resisted-doge-took-secret-payments-after-steering-africa-money-to-friend?author=Luke+Rosiak&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Foreign+Aid+Official+Who+Resisted+DOGE+Took+Secret+Payments+After+Steering+Africa+Money+To+Friend%C2%A0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Foreign Aid Official Who Resisted DOGE Took Secret Payments After Steering Africa Money To Friend</a> </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li aria-level="1"><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/african-aid-agency-used-foreign-pass-throughs-to-hide-money-that-went-to-d-c-staff-friends" target="_blank" rel="noopener">African Aid Agency Used Foreign Pass-Throughs To Hide Money That Went To D.C. Staff</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li aria-level="1"><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/aid-agency-pushed-officials-for-profit-pyramid-scheme-on-poor-africans?author=Luke+Rosiak&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Aid+Agency+Pushed+Official%E2%80%99s+For-Profit+Pyramid+Scheme+On+Poor+Africans" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Aid Agency Pushed Official’s For-Profit Pyramid Scheme On Poor Africans</a></li>
</ul>

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Best Of 2025: Racist Agency Framed Its Lawyer After He Discovered Lawbreaking, He Says

Corruption

With the coming resignation of Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, the House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency will soon have an open chair. One Republican congressman isn&#8217;t wasting time vying for the seat.
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) pulled out his phone, hit record, and announced his bid to chair the DOGE subcommittee Wednesday on X.
&#8220;I sure would love an opportunity, and I know the cards are stacked against me,&#8221; Burchett <a href="https://x.com/timburchett/status/1996228120047735117?s=20">said</a>. &#8220;I don&#8217;t do a lot to endear myself to the leadership, but frankly, they don&#8217;t do a lot to endear themselves to me.&#8221;
The DOGE Subcommittee, part of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, is one of two congressional counterparts to President Donald Trump&#8217;s Department of Government Efficiency. Burchett currently serves on the committee and thinks he could help lead it into the future.
&#8220;I would get with folks like y&#8217;all out there on the social media and put some pressure on some of these gutless legislators to pass some of this stuff,&#8221; the congressman continued.
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Talking directly to his followers, Burchett said bluntly that he&#8217;s not very good when it comes to having to &#8220;kiss a lot of butt.&#8221;
&#8220;Y&#8217;all know how this game works, gotta raise a lot of money and kiss a lot of butt, and I don&#8217;t do a good job at either one of those.&#8221;
But his no-nonsense approach is why he said he would be an effective leader of the committee designed to eliminate government waste.
&#8220;I think I got the backbone and I guess the guts to go after this spending. I would propose some daggum legislation to do it. I think I know where a lot of it&#8217;s hidden.&#8221;
Burchett took office in 2019 after serving as a state senator and mayor of Knox County. He also serves on the House Transportation and Infrastructure and Foreign Affairs Committees.
Greene said the committee&#8217;s role is to identify and investigate waste and corruption in the federal government.
&#8220;Our subcommittee will provide transparency and truth to the American people through hearings,&#8221; she said when the subcommittee launched. &#8220;The goal of DOGE is to bring accountability and GUT useless government agencies.&#8221;
Greene announced on November 22 that she&#8217;s leaving Congress effective January 5, 2026, after a public fallout with Trump.
Burchett is a strong Trump ally and recently received the president&#8217;s <a href="https://x.com/timburchett/status/1985439493680160796?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">endorsement</a> for re-election.
&#8220;He will never let you down,&#8221; Trump said.
If appointed to chair the DOGE subcommittee, Burchett would start after the first of the year.

Tim Burchett

Tim Burchett Makes A Run At DOGE Subcommittee Chair

Tim Burchett Shoots His Shot At Becoming DOGE Subcommittee Chair

Elon Musk

Marjorie Taylor Greene

Tennessee

U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro announced on Monday charges against two teens allegedly involved in the attack against a Department of Government Efficiency staffer over the summer.
Federal prosecutors have charged Lawrence Cotton-Powell, 19, along with Anthony Taylor, 18, with robbery, assault, and carjacking in connection with the attack on a DOGE staffer, Edward Coristine, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-admin-staffer-big-balls-hailed-as-hero-after-musk-says-he-saved-woman-from-gang-in-d-c">known</a> as “Big Balls,” and another person in early August. Not long before Coristine was beaten while defending a woman, Cotton-Powell and Taylor were involved in the mugging of a victim named Ethan Levine, Pirro <a href="https://www.c-span.org/program/news-conference/us-attorney-pirro-news-conference-on-assault-of-doge-staffer/667476">said</a>.
In addition to the mugging prior to Coristine, Pirro said that both suspects are repeat offenders who should have been in jail for other offenses and never had the opportunity to attack the two men in August.
“Lawrence Cotton-Powell is 19 years of age. He is now charged with robbery, first-degree robbery for which he faces 15 years in prison. He also faces a charge of assault with intent to commit robbery, another 15 years, and robbery for Edward Coristine, 15 years, assault with intent to commit robbery, another 15 years, and attempted carjacking, five years,” Pirro said.
The U.S. attorney then went on to detail how judges ignored her office’s requests for jail time for Cotton-Powell, instead letting the teen loose on probation. A short time after he was released in each case, he allegedly committed other crimes that landed him back in the crosshairs of prosecutors.
“The codefendant in this case is an individual by the name of Anthony Taylor. He – charged also with the same arrest – he is fraught with the same crimes,” Pirro said.
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The attack on Coristine, which left the federal staffer bloodied, appeared to trigger President Donald Trump’s crackdown on crime in major American cities. The president has deployed National Guardsmen to areas such as Washington, D.C., and Memphis, Tennessee, to deter crime. He has attempted to deploy troops to other locations, such as Seattle, but has been blocked by the courts.
The charges against Cotton-Powell and Taylor come after two teens involved in the attack received probation, a punishment criticized by Pirro and Trump.
The president called the sentences of probation, handed down to a 15-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy, “terrible.” The president and Pirro have called for stricter penalties against youth in D.C. to deter crime that has exploded among the capital’s teens.
“I think the judge should be ashamed of himself,” <a href="https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/dc/president-trump-critical-punishment-two-teens-attacked-doge-worker-probation-jeanine-pirro-attorney-judge/65-f5b45029-3fee-4703-bbb1-f9738f279739">said</a> Trump.

Jeanine Pirro

Jeanine Pirro Announces Charges Against Two More DC Teens Over ‘Big Balls’ Attack

Crime

U.S.

Washington D.C.

The teenagers who brutally assaulted DOGE employee Edward “Big Balls” Coristine have walked away with nothing more than probation—no jail, no meaningful punishment, no accountability.
Coristine, a 19-year-old staffer with the Department of Government Efficiency project and a rising star in the effort to clean up Washington, D.C.’s bloated federal bureaucracy, was savagely attacked by a mob of teenagers during an attempted carjacking in early August. The crime occurred in the nation’s capital, just blocks from the seat of American power.
Only two of the estimated dozen assailants were arrested: a 15-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl. This week, in a D.C. courtroom, they pleaded guilty—not to attempted carjacking, not to robbery—but to simple assault, and were sentenced to the judicial equivalent of a participation trophy.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
This was a racist verdict by a racist judge. 
The simple test to apply is if the races has been reversed, the White kids would be in prison.
Equal justice for all! <a href="https://t.co/F8gZ8D3dg0">https://t.co/F8gZ8D3dg0</a>
&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1978506015281717272?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 15, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The boy received a one-year sentence of house arrest. The girl? A mere nine months&#8217; probation and transfer to a local youth shelter. The court emphasized rehabilitation over punishment, and the judge reportedly scolded the girl for drawing on her hand in the courtroom—as if doodling in court were the actual offense.
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The attack was a violent ambush that left Coristine bloodied and concussed. Coristine<a href="https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/big-balls-muggers-evade-prison-sentence-get-probation-for-beating-up-doge-employee/"> told</a> Jesse Watters of Fox News:
<blockquote>
As we get to the car and she begins to fumble for the keys, they begin to shout at us, and really quickly I knew something was really off about this situation. So she unlocks the car, I rush her into the driving seat. I close the door behind her and she’s able to lock the doors. Right as I turn around, they’re right up on me — just a few feet away. They slammed me against the car and started throwing a bunch of punches. I keep my hands up. I’m getting a lot of punches here and I’m just trying to protect my head the best way that I can.
</blockquote>
Footage of Coristine’s bruised face and torn clothes went viral. So egregious was the crime that President Donald Trump personally intervened, deploying the National Guard to D.C. and threatening to revoke the city’s home rule. “Crime is totally out of control,” he <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114977985620971126">wrote</a> on Truth Social. “Time to federalize D.C.” Elon Musk, former DOGE head, praised Coristine’s courage and called for urgent reform, saying, “It’s time to federalize D.C.”
But instead of consequences for the attackers, D.C.’s soft-on-crime system delivered a clear message: attack a federal employee in broad daylight and you’ll get a curfew and counseling.
The D.C. Attorney General and prosecutor objected to the light sentences—but their opposition was ignored. Instead, the court took pains to <a href="https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/legal/teens-accused-of-attacking-doge-employee-sentenced-to-probation/65-66070bc1-a384-4c0c-a961-7bcc619706a3">explain</a> that juvenile justice is about rehabilitation, not punishment.
Even more galling: both teens are free to roam D.C.—so long as they claim it’s for school or “family obligations.”
Coristine, ever gracious, told one attacker via video, “I hope you can figure things out and be ready for the consequences.”
There were no consequences. Not for the criminals. Only for the city.

White House US President Donald Trump

Outrage In D.C.: Teens Who Savagely Beat ‘Big Balls’ Walk Free With Slap On The Wrist

Assault

Courts

A Trump administration staffer is receiving warm words and calls for recognition after he was reportedly beaten in Washington, D.C., while protecting a woman from an attempted carjacking.
The staffer, Ed Coristine, 19, who once went by the moniker “Big Balls” online, works at the Social Security Administration and began his government service as a member of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project. President Donald Trump shared a photo on Tuesday of Coristine covered in blood after the attack and threatened to “federalize” D.C. over rampant crime.
“I have to say that somebody from DOGE was very badly hurt last night. You saw that – a young man who was beat up by a bunch of thugs in DC,” said Trump on Tuesday. “Either they&#8217;re going to straighten their act out in terms of government and in terms of protection, or we&#8217;re going to have to federalize and run it the way it&#8217;s supposed to be run.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/POTUS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@POTUS</a>: &#8220;Somebody from <a href="https://twitter.com/DOGE?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DOGE</a> was very badly hurt last night&#8230; a young man who was beat up by a bunch of thugs in D.C. Either they&#8217;re going to straighten their act out&#8230; or we&#8217;re going to have to federalize and run it the way it&#8217;s supposed to be run.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/Z6Ywr9oYYX">https://t.co/Z6Ywr9oYYX</a> <a href="https://t.co/yhg9mRfDaF">pic.twitter.com/yhg9mRfDaF</a>
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) <a href="https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/1952840166458195972?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 5, 2025</a></blockquote>
<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ex-doge-staffer-edward-coristine-injured-in-attempted-carjacking-trump-federal-takeover-of-d-c/">According</a> to CBS News, the woman was Coristine&#8217;s &#8220;significant other.&#8221; The outlet reported that they were surrounded by about 10 teenagers, and the suspects made a comment about taking their vehicle. Coristine then pushed his significant other into the vehicle and turned to deal with the alleged attackers, the report said.
In a Truth Social <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114977985620971126">post</a>, the president said that crime in the nation’s capital is “totally out of control” and that the attack on Coristine was carried out by “local ‘youths’ and gang members.” Criminal teens are operating with impunity, “knowing that they will be almost immediately released.”
“The Law in D.C. must be changed to prosecute these ‘minors’ as adults, and lock them up for a long time, starting at age 14,” said Trump. &#8220;Washington, D.C., must be safe, clean, and beautiful for all Americans and, importantly, for the World to see.”
The attack reportedly happened on Sunday morning around 3 a.m. near Dupont Circle. Police arrested two 15-year-olds at the scene and charged them with unarmored carjacking, according to CBS News. Most of the teens fled when law enforcement arrived. A black iPhone 16 was stolen, according to the police report.
Tech titan Elon Musk, the former head of DOGE, backed the president’s call to take over Washington, D.C. Musk also said Coristine was attacked trying to assist a woman who was the initial target of “a gang of about a dozen young men.”
“A few days ago, a gang of about a dozen young men tried to assault a woman in her car at night in DC. A [DOGE] team member saw what was happening, ran to defend her and was severely beaten to the point of concussion, but he saved her. It is time to federalize DC,” Musk posted.
Coristine has been hailed for his bravery. GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah floated the idea of rewarding Coristine with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor.
“Big Balls for the Medal of Freedom. Who agrees?” Lee <a href="https://x.com/BasedMikeLee/status/1952877203919913290">posted</a> to X.
“WOW. The [DOGE] employee who was brutally beaten in DC for defending a woman has been identified as none other than ‘BIG BALLS,’” the popular account Libs of TikTok <a href="https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1952869965742158269">posted</a>. “Big Balls is a HERO!”

Police lights

Trump Admin Staffer ‘Big Balls’ Hailed As Hero After Musk Says He Saved Woman From ‘Gang’ In D.C.

Mike Lee

White House

The GOP-led Senate narrowly passed a $9 billion rescissions package early on Thursday morning that seeks to eliminate <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dei-insect-powder-and-trans-resilience-trump-unveils-woke-spending-cuts-request" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&#8220;waste, fraud, and abuse&#8221;</a> identified by the Trump administration and its Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative.
Senators voted <a href="https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1191/vote_119_1_00411.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">51-48</a> in favor of the measure, which aims to claw back funds allocated to foreign aid projects and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a funding source for NPR and PBS programs that many Republicans deem wasteful and ideologically driven. Now the rescissions package heads back to the House, which has only until Friday to pass it.
&#8220;This isn&#8217;t just about saving money. It&#8217;s about taking back control,&#8221; Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO), who spearheaded the effort to pass the package, <a href="https://x.com/Eric_Schmitt/status/1945556733230772231" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> on X. &#8220;It&#8217;s time to remind the NGOs, the foreign lobbyists and their friends in the media that America is not a tax farm for global leftism. We&#8217;re a sovereign nation — and it&#8217;s time to start acting like one again.&#8221;
Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Susan Collins (R-ME) broke ranks and voted against the package along with Democrats and independents. They raised <a href="https://x.com/bresreports/status/1945297767649435793" target="_blank" rel="noopener">concerns</a> about how defunding public broadcasting could <a href="https://x.com/lisamurkowski/status/1945637668479479894" target="_blank" rel="noopener">diminish</a> helpful services to Americans and lamented the lack of clarity on the Trump administration&#8217;s plan to implement the cuts.
&#8220;The rescissions package has a big problem – nobody really knows what program reductions are in it,&#8221; Collins said in a <a href="https://x.com/AndrewDesiderio/status/1945292034920607994" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a> on Tuesday evening. She added later, &#8220;To carry out our Constitutional responsibility, we should know exactly what programs are affected and the consequences of rescissions.&#8221;
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who had <a href="https://x.com/bresreports/status/1945297767649435793" target="_blank" rel="noopener">joined</a> Murkowski and Collins in voting against advancing the rescissions package on Tuesday, ultimately supported it. Passage came after the Senate worked through a lengthy &#8220;vote-a-rama&#8221; that included a flurry of amendments, mostly from Democrats.
The sole lawmaker to miss the final vote series was Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN). Her office <a href="https://x.com/SenTinaSmith/status/1945597468357329093" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> the Democrat would be staying overnight at George Washington University Hospital after she began to feel unwell at the Capitol.
Next, the rescissions package heads back to the House, which had already <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/house-passes-doge-cuts-targeting-foreign-aid-npr-and-pbs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">passed</a> a $9.4 billion measure in mid-June. The lower chamber must vote again on the package after the Senate Republicans opted to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/senate-republicans-drop-aids-relief-cuts-from-rescissions-package" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pull</a> $400 million in cuts to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program.
The White House <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5402273-white-house-accepts-pepfar-exemption/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reportedly</a> gave its blessing to remove the part of the package that defunded PEPFAR, as some members had voiced dismay with that part of the proposal.
Under the Impoundment Control Act, Congress was given 45 days to act on the Trump administration&#8217;s rescissions request in early June, and it requires only a simple majority in the House and Senate, meaning the filibuster threshold can be ignored.
Both chambers of Congress must pass a single version of the package by Friday, the deadline.
The Office of Management and Budget <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dei-insect-powder-and-trans-resilience-trump-unveils-woke-spending-cuts-request" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> that its rescissions wishlist included getting rid of $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which Trump singled out in a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/ending-taxpayer-subsidization-of-biased-media/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">executive order</a> seeking to defund NPR and PBS amid claims they were biased, as well as money for various foreign aid programs such as “net zero cities” in Mexico, Iraqi “Sesame Street,” and global LGBTQ+ initiatives.
While sources on Capitol Hill and the White House have said they expect more requests to implement so-called DOGE cuts to follow, that is assuming the first package manages to pass through Congress.
Trump has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-warns-republican-senators-defund-npr-and-pbs-or-lose-my-endorsement" target="_blank" rel="noopener">warned</a> GOP lawmakers that there will be political consequences for opposing the effort.
“It is very important that all Republicans adhere to my Recissions [sic] Bill and, in particular, DEFUND THE CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING (PBS and NPR), which is worse than CNN &amp; MSDNC put together,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social last week. “Any Republican that votes to allow this monstrosity to continue broadcasting will not have my support or Endorsement. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

WASHINGTON, DC – JULY 17: Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-

‘Taking Back Control’: Senate Votes To Claw Back $9B From Foreign Aid, Public Broadcasting

Congress

Politics

Spending Bill

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

The Senate voted 51-50 on Tuesday to move forward a White House-backed $9 billion spending cut bill that would slash foreign aid and funding for the parent entity of NPR and PBS. 
The procedural vote moves the recissions package to the last debate and amendment stage before it receives a final vote. Vice President JD Vance broke the tie in the chamber after Republican Senators Mitch McConnell (KY), Lisa Murkowski (AK), and Susan Collins (ME) joined the Democrats to vote against the bill. 
The proposal will cut previously approved funding for international organizations, the Democracy Fund, migration and refugee assistance, the Clean Technology Fund, the U.S. Institute of Peace, USAID, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR and PBS. The cuts were first proposed by the White House and the Department of Government Efficiency project in May. 
After meeting with Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, Senate Republicans <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/senate-republicans-drop-aids-relief-cuts-from-rescissions-package?author=Daniel+Chaitin&amp;category=undefined&amp;elementPosition=7&amp;row=3&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+News&amp;rowType=Vertical+Carousel&amp;title=Senate+Republicans+Drop+%E2%80%98AIDS+Relief%E2%80%99+Cuts+From+Rescissions+Package">are planning</a> to remove a provision from the House-backed version of the bill that cuts $400 million in funding for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). 
&#8220;There was a lot of interest among our members in doing something on the PEPFAR issue, and so that’s reflected in the substitute,&#8221; Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senate-republicans-shrink-trumps-spending-cut-package-ahead-key-vote-rcna218962">said</a>. &#8220;And we hope that if we can get this across the finish line in the Senate, that the House would accept that one small modification that ends up making the package still about a $9 billion rescissions package. A little less than what was sent over the House, but nonetheless a significant down payment on getting rid of waste, fraud, abuse in our government.&#8221;
The White House <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/white-house-says-media-pushing-fake-news-about-global-hiv-aids-funding?author=Leif+Le+Mahieu&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=White+House+Says+Media+Pushing+Fake+News+About+Global+HIV%2FAIDS+Funding">also said</a> Tuesday that it would not be making wide-scale cuts to global AIDS/HIV funding. 
The recissions package has until Friday to make it to President Donald Trump’s desk, or the previously approved spending will begin to be distributed. Trump has threatened not to support or endorse any senator who votes against the spending cuts. 
“It is very important that all Republicans adhere to my Recissions Bill and, in particular, DEFUND THE CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING (PBS and NPR), which is worse than CNN &amp; MSDNC put together,” he posted on Truth Social last week. “Any Republican that votes to allow this monstrosity to continue broadcasting will not have my support or Endorsement. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD), who was initially reported to be unsupportive of the bill due to concerns that American Indian public radio stations would lose funding, stated that he had reached an agreement with the Trump administration. He voted to advance the bill on Tuesday. 
&#8220;This is a direct agreement with OMB that they would transfer the funds over to the Department of the Interior. The Department of the Interior has agreed to accept it and to issue the grants,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We&#8217;ve told them very clearly what we want is those resources to be made available to these Native American radio stations.&#8221;

Republican Lawmakers Work To Pass Trump’s “One, Big, Beautiful Bill” On Capitol Hill

Senate Republicans Move Closer To Finalizing $9B DOGE Cuts Ahead Of Friday Deadline

JD Vance

John Thune

Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)

Russ Vought

Senate

Trump Administration

Senate Republicans are removing $400 million in proposed funding cuts to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program from a rescissions package ahead of a deadline at the end of this week.
The decision was announced after GOP senators met on Tuesday with White House Director Russell Vought regarding the measure designed to codify spending reductions in line with recommendations from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) <a href="https://x.com/cspan/status/1945193756086378516" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> reporters there was &#8220;a lot of interest among our members in doing something on the PEPFAR issue,&#8221; resulting in a &#8220;small modification&#8221; that leaves the rescissions package, which seeks to slash funds for programs Republicans deem to be wasteful and ideologically driven, at roughly $9 billion.
The GOP-led House narrowly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/house-passes-doge-cuts-targeting-foreign-aid-npr-and-pbs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">passed</a> the rescissions package in June following a request by the Trump administration. It sought to claw back $9.4 billion in &#8220;reckless spending,&#8221; as House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) told The Daily Wire, by targeting foreign aid projects and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides funds to NPR and PBS.
Under the Impoundment Control Act, lawmakers in Congress were given 45 days to act on the request, and it requires only a simple majority in the House and Senate — meaning the filibuster threshold can be ignored. The deadline is Friday, meaning the Senate and the House must both pass the revised measure in the next couple of days.
House Republicans had been urging the Senate not to make any changes, but they could end up approving the slimmer version, particularly after the White House <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5402273-white-house-accepts-pepfar-exemption/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reportedly</a> gave the Senate its blessing to remove the PEPFAR section.
Rep. Mark Harris (R-NC) responded in particular to Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who said she wanted to strike the PEPFAR cuts from the rescissions package, contending the program was a success in saving millions of lives.
&#8220;All of that spending” is a far cry from PEPFAR’s original mission, to combat &#8220;the AIDS epidemic in Africa when it first started,&#8221; Harris <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/house-republicans-urge-senate-colleagues-to-pass-rescissions-package-with-sense-of-urgency" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> The Daily Wire.
In addition, a senior Trump administration official told The Daily Wire on Tuesday that &#8220;limited&#8221; program cuts to PEPFAR took aim at &#8220;LGBTQ education and capacity building — not core life-saving care.&#8221;
Democrat senators and the independents who caucus with them are likely to vote in unison against passing the measure, leaving Republicans and their <a href="https://www.senate.gov/history/partydiv.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">slim</a> majority unable to afford more than a couple GOP defectors. Vice President JD Vance might be needed for a tie-breaker.
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) <a href="https://x.com/SenatorRounds/status/1945145431916233064" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> on Monday that he came around on the rescissions package after the Trump administration helped find money that could be reallocated to continue grants for tribal broadcast services that offer &#8220;potentially lifesaving emergency alerts&#8221; in his state.

Senate Majority Leader Sen. John Thune

Senate Republicans Drop ‘AIDS Relief’ Cuts From Rescissions Package

AIDS

Foreign Funding

National Public Radio (NPR)

WASHINGTON—As Congress gears up for a fight over the rescissions package that would make permanent many of the Department of Government Efficiency&#8217;s cuts, House Republicans are encouraging their colleagues to seize the moment.
“If we can pass this with some sense of urgency, then that invites the White House to send more rescission packages up to Capitol Hill,” Congressman Mark Harris (R-NC) Harris told The Daily Wire on Monday. “That&#8217;s the way I&#8217;ve been describing it back in the Eighth District of North Carolina to my people, because they want to see some action, and this is the way we&#8217;re going to see it done.”
The bill, which the Office of Management and Budget <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dei-insect-powder-and-trans-resilience-trump-unveils-woke-spending-cuts-request">sent</a> to Congress in early June, contains many of the cuts that were revealed by Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative. Examples highlighted by the OMB include funding for NPR and PBS, “Being LGBTI in the Caribbean,” and “training women in gender equity.”
The rescissions package also includes cuts to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program, which OMB reported hid payments for programs like “transgender people, sex workers and their clients and sexual networks” in Nepal, “resilience of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans gender, intersex, and queer global movements,” and circumcision, vasectomies, and condoms in Zambia.
Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) has spoken out against cutting PEPFAR from the budget, which was intended to assist those affected by HIV and AIDS.
“I want to strike the rescission of funds for PEPFAR, which has an enormous record of success, having saved some 26 million lives over the course of the program, as well as preventing nearly 8 million infants from receiving AIDS from their infected mothers,” Collins <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5399409-senate-to-vote-on-rescissions-package/">said</a>. “So I can’t imagine why we would want to terminate that program.”
Harris, who voted to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/house-passes-doge-cuts-targeting-foreign-aid-npr-and-pbs">pass</a> the rescissions package through the House, commented about Collins’ gripes about the bill.
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<div class="p-rich_text_section">Harris said “all of that spending” is a far cry from PEPFAR’s original mission, to combat “the AIDS epidemic in Africa when it first started.”</div>
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“We&#8217;ve got to remember we are $37 trillion in debt,” Harris continued. “We have got to take care of America first. … And if we&#8217;re not maintaining our own economic health — if we&#8217;re not maintaining our own economic future &#8212; we&#8217;re not going to be any good to anybody on any continent.”
Holdout Republican members are not only in the crosshairs of the Senate whips, but of the president as well.
Recently, President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-warns-republican-senators-defund-npr-and-pbs-or-lose-my-endorsement?author=Leif+Le+Mahieu&amp;category=undefined&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=3&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+News&amp;rowType=Vertical+Carousel&amp;title=Trump+Warns+Republican+Senators%3A+Defund+NPR+And+PBS+Or+Lose+My+Endorsement">posted</a> about the rescissions package that “any Republican that votes to allow this monstrosity to continue broadcasting will not have my support or Endorsement.&#8221;
It is unclear how Collins, who is expected to campaign to keep her seat during the midterm elections, would be affected by Trump’s lack of endorsement.
The rescissions package must arrive on Trump’s desk by Friday, or it would expire, causing the payments exposed by DOGE to continue.
“We&#8217;ve all been supportive of the work that DOGE has done, and this has been just the start,&#8221; Harris said. &#8220;It&#8217;s time for us to make sure that we are taking the congressional action that we need to take.”

US-POLITICS-TRUMP-CONGRESS

House Republicans Urge Senate Colleagues To Pass Rescissions Package With ‘Sense Of Urgency’

A PBS affiliate appears to be running political ads targeting Senate Republicans, and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr wants answers.
PBS Kansas recently ran an ad urging viewers to &#8220;call your senators today&#8221; and &#8220;tell them to vote no&#8221; on the Trump administration&#8217;s rescissions bill, which <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/white-house-rescissions-package-would-end-billions-in-woke-wasteful-spending-congressman-says">targets</a> funding for PBS and NPR.
The ad included photos of the state&#8217;s two Republican senators, Roger Marshall and Jerry Moran, along with their office phone numbers.
The PBS channel also asked viewers to &#8220;donate today!&#8221; to PBS Kansas.
The FCC chairman stated that the agency is investigating the situation, since PBS is barred from airing certain political ads.
&#8220;Federal law prohibits noncommercial stations — including PBS ones — from accepting money in exchange for airing political issue ads,&#8221; Carr wrote in a post on X. &#8220;I’ve asked the FCC’s enforcement team to determine whether or not that happened here.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Federal law prohibits noncommercial stations—including PBS ones—from accepting money in exchange for airing political issue ads.
I’ve asked the FCC’s enforcement team to determine whether or not that happened here.
I would encourage PBS &amp; NPR to focus more on how they managed… <a href="https://t.co/hRhm3IGeED">pic.twitter.com/hRhm3IGeED</a>
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) <a href="https://twitter.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/1943466263100997826?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 11, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;I would encourage PBS &amp; NPR to focus more on how they managed to lose America’s trust. That is their problem, not Congress’s work to ensure good stewardship of taxpayer dollars,&#8221; Carr said.
Brendan Jaspers, political director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which works to elect Senate Republicans, also slammed the ads.
&#8220;The Progressive Bias Syndicate (PBS) is running issue ads against Senate Republicans using taxpayer dollars — to request MORE taxpayer dollars,&#8221; Jaspers posted on X.
&#8220;It’s an egregious effort by PBS to prop up the failed Democrats who fund their propaganda. Pull the ads immediately,&#8221; Jaspers said.
The Trump administration&#8217;s recessions bill would codify the Department of Government Efficiency project&#8217;s proposed roughly $9 billion in spending cuts.
Besides PBS and NPR, the spending cuts package also targets funding for USAID, which has disbursed tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid, and the U.S. Institute of Peace, which is supposed to promote conflict resolution worldwide.
On Thursday, President Donald Trump warned that he would withhold his endorsement from any Republican who votes against the cuts.
He emphasized defunding PBS.
&#8220;It is very important that all Republicans adhere to my Recissions Bill and, in particular, DEFUND THE CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING (PBS and NPR), which is worse than CNN &amp; MSDNC put together,&#8221; Trump posted on Truth Social.
&#8220;Any Republican that votes to allow this monstrosity to continue broadcasting will not have my support or Endorsement,&#8221; Trump said.

US-POLITICS-MEDIA-PROTEST

PBS Runs Ads Targeting Republicans, FCC Chairman Demands Answers

PBS Runs Political Ads Targeting Republicans, FCC Chairman Demands Answers

DOGE

Media

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way on Tuesday for President Donald Trump to resume his plans to cut the federal workforce and restructure agencies, a key promise he made on the campaign trail to hack away at the size of the federal government.
The justices lifted San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Susan Illston&#8217;s May 22 order that had blocked large-scale federal layoffs called &#8220;reductions in force&#8221; affecting potentially hundreds of thousands of jobs, while litigation in the case proceeds.
Trump in February announced &#8220;a critical transformation of the federal bureaucracy&#8221; in an executive order directing agencies to prepare for a government overhaul aimed at significantly reducing the federal workforce and gutting offices and programs opposed by the administration.
Workforce reductions were planned at the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, State, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, and more than a dozen other agencies.
The Supreme Court, in a brief unsigned order, said Trump&#8217;s administration was &#8220;likely to succeed on its argument that the executive order&#8221; and a memorandum implementing his order were lawful. The court said it was not assessing the legality of any specific plans for layoffs at federal agencies.
Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the sole member of the nine-person court to publicly dissent from the decision. Jackson wrote that Illston&#8217;s &#8220;temporary, practical, harm-reducing preservation of the status quo was no match for this court&#8217;s demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this president’s legally dubious actions in an emergency posture.&#8221;
Illston wrote in her ruling that Trump had exceeded his authority in ordering the downsizing, siding with a group of unions, non-profits, and local governments that challenged the administration.
&#8220;As history demonstrates, the president may broadly restructure federal agencies only when authorized by Congress,&#8221; Illston wrote.
The judge blocked the agencies from carrying out mass layoffs and limited their ability to cut or overhaul federal programs. Illston also ordered the reinstatement of workers who had lost their jobs, though she delayed implementing this portion of her ruling while the appeals process plays out.
Illston&#8217;s ruling was the broadest of its kind against the government overhaul being pursued by Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency, a key player in the Republican president&#8217;s drive to slash the federal workforce.
Formerly spearheaded by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, DOGE has sought to eliminate federal jobs, shrink and reshape the U.S. government, and root out wasteful spending and fraud. Musk formally ended his government work on May 30 and subsequently had a public falling out with Trump.
The Left-leaning San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 ruling on May 30, denied the administration&#8217;s request to halt the judge&#8217;s ruling.
The 9th Circuit said the administration had not shown that it would suffer an irreparable injury if the judge&#8217;s order remained in place and that the plaintiffs were likely to prevail in their lawsuit.
&#8220;The executive order at issue here far exceeds the president&#8217;s supervisory powers under the Constitution,&#8221; the 9th Circuit wrote, calling the administration&#8217;s actions &#8220;an unprecedented attempted restructuring of the federal government and its operations.&#8221;
The 9th Circuit&#8217;s ruling prompted the Justice Department&#8217;s June 2 emergency request to the Supreme Court to halt Illston&#8217;s order.
Controlling the personnel of federal agencies &#8220;lies at the heartland&#8221; of the president&#8217;s executive branch authority, the Justice Department said in its filing to the Supreme Court.
&#8220;The Constitution does not erect a presumption against presidential control of agency staffing, and the president does not need special permission from Congress to exercise core Article II powers,&#8221; the filing said, referring to the constitution&#8217;s section delineating presidential authority.
The plaintiffs urged the Supreme Court to deny the Justice Department&#8217;s request. Allowing the Trump administration to move forward with its &#8220;breakneck reorganization,&#8221; they wrote, would mean that &#8220;programs, offices and functions across the federal government will be abolished, agencies will be radically downsized from what Congress authorized, critical government services will be lost and hundreds of thousands of federal employees will lose their jobs.&#8221;
The Supreme Court in recent months has sided with Trump in some major cases that were acted upon on an emergency basis since he returned to office in January.
It cleared the way for Trump&#8217;s administration to resume deporting migrants to countries other than their own. In two cases, it let the administration end temporary legal status previously granted on humanitarian grounds to hundreds of thousands of migrants.
It also allowed Trump to implement his ban on trans-identifying people in the U.S. military, blocked a judge&#8217;s order for the administration to rehire thousands of fired employees, and twice sided with his Department of Government Efficiency.
In addition, the court curbed the power of federal judges to impose nationwide rulings impeding presidential policies.
(Reporting by John Kruzel; Additional reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)

Trump Wins At SCOTUS Again: Court Says Admin Can Resume Mass Layoffs Of Federal Workers

Federal Government

Supreme Court

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