New York City Democratic Mayor Zohran Mamdani is moving to cut third-party consulting contracts as he works to implement his socialist agenda and close a $5.4 billion budget deficit, adopting a cost-cutting approach similar to that of President Donald Trump&#8217;s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative.
In 2025, as part of Trump&#8217;s effort, DOGE canceled $5.1 billion in consulting services from private contractors, including Deloitte, which had more than <a href="https://fortune.com/2025/04/03/doge-private-contract-crackdown-deloitte-consultancies/">120</a> contracts eliminated. 
Mamdani <a href="https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/03/mayor-mamdani-releases-update-on-savings-plan">said</a> the city will eliminate consulting agreements across several agencies, including the Department of Corrections, NYC Aging, the Department of Social Services, and the Office of Technology and Innovation.
&#8220;The city was paying for a lot of work from outside contractors that was costing us far too much,&#8221; he said in a <a href="https://x.com/NYCMayor/status/2036801229322412378">post</a> on X. &#8220;So we&#8217;re bringing a lot of that work in-house and saving our budget millions.&#8221;
The cuts are expected to save roughly $15 million, a small fraction of the overall deficit.
Mamdani&#8217;s move comes as he continues grappling with the city&#8217;s growing fiscal challenges. He has blamed the current fiscal crisis on financial mismanagement by the Adams administration, which came under fire for consulting spending. The city paid elite consulting firm McKinsey <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-hired-mckinsey-to-assess-the-citys-waste-needs-2024-7">$1.6</a> million to study, design, and plan a new system to keep trash off the sidewalks. Critics mocked the result, saying the firm effectively produced a redesigned trash can under the label “containerization.” 
If Mamdani is unable to secure additional revenue through Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul, he has said the city may turn to a last resort: raising property taxes by 9.5% and drawing down its “rainy day fund.”
Mamdani points in part to the roughly <a href="https://www.cityandstateny.com/policy/2024/12/following-asylum-seeker-odyssey/382850/">$4.3</a> billion cost of housing and supporting more than <a href="https://www.cityandstateny.com/policy/2024/12/following-asylum-seeker-odyssey/382850/">210,000 migrants</a> who arrived in the city under his predecessor in 2022. He has argued that the situation is worse than the 2008 financial crisis.
That claim is debatable. During the financial crisis, roughly <a href="https://medium.com/@jmk9857/gfc-nyc-a-look-at-the-2008-global-financial-crisis-and-its-impact-on-new-york-city-e594402f3302">55,000</a> New Yorkers lost their jobs, and city deficits averaged about $5 billion, equivalent to about $7.6 billion today. Even as he warns of a &#8220;generational fiscal crisis,&#8221; Mamdani has downplayed recent credit outlook downgrades, calling them premature as negotiations for additional revenue continue.

NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani Interview

Mamdani Steals Move From Trump’s Playbook To Try To Fund His Socialist Agenda

DOGE

New York

Zohran Mamdani

WASHINGTON—Daily Wire investigative journalist Luke Rosiak was awarded the prestigious Dao Prize on Wednesday night for his work covering extraordinary government waste. 
Rosiak is the winner in the Best Reporting on Government Waste category, a special category at this year’s awards that was created due to the exceptional reporting done around Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. His prize-winning <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/fmcs-slush-fund-abolished-by-trump">investigation</a>, “Inside The Now-Shuttered Federal Agency Where Employees Lived ‘Like Reigning Kings,’” detailed the unchecked spending that went on for decades at an agency that most Americans never knew existed.
“I want to issue a hearty congratulations to an amazing reporter who shuttered an agency that I’ve never heard of,” said conservative radio host Vince Coglianese, who presented the award at the event sponsored by the Young America Foundation’s National Journalism Center. “And boy were these people wasting your money like it was their job.”
Rosiak’s story took readers inside the little-known Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, which occupied some of the priciest real estate in Washington, D.C., but did little to nothing of value for taxpayers. Employees spent taxpayer money on exotic vacations, portraits of themselves, and even to boost their own side-projects. 
It was just one of Rosiak’s eye-opening investigations this year on the topic of government waste, which became his main focus after Donald Trump announced that he would give DOGE the power to do something about the sort of waste that Rosiak has been exposing for more than a decade.
Other investigations by Rosiak this year uncovered massive abuse of the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/why-can-food-stamps-buy-junk-food-how-doge-could-save-billions-and-maha">federal food stamp system</a>, a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/this-foreign-aid-agency-locked-its-doors-to-keep-doge-out-now-we-know-why">three-part series on mismanagement of the USAID-linked African Development Foundation</a>, and the origin story of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/a-doge-origin-story-how-barack-obama-laid-the-groundwork-for-elon-musk">how a woke White House office created by Barack Obama was transformed into DOGE</a>.
The Dao Prize was established in 2023 to “recognize excellence in investigative journalism,” and set out to put a spotlight on “courageous journalists” who for years have been ignored by the legacy media. This was the first year it recognized reporters in the field of government waste. 
“Luke is one of the most tenacious reporters in the business, and he’s ultimately motivated by shining a light where few other reporters are looking,” said Brent Scher, The Daily Wire’s Editor-in-Chief. “When he set out last year to put his full focus on government waste, we all knew it would have an impact. It’s great to see it recognized with this prestigious award.”
Rosiak’s work was regularly spotlighted by Musk as he drove DOGE, and in some cases, provided the investigative backbone for its work cutting government spending. 
“Investigative reporters never write happy stories, and at times our work can be emotionally draining,” Rosiak said. “It’s easy to feel outnumbered. But nights like tonight remind all of us here that we’re not alone.”
He said he hopes his reporting inspires other journalists to stick to their instincts, even when it feels like nobody’s paying attention.
“We don’t always see the impact of our work right away. Do the right thing for the right reasons, trust yourself, and keep persevering, and the reward will come eventually.”

IMG_3502

Daily Wire’s Luke Rosiak Wins Investigative Journalism Award For Best ‘DOGE’ Reporting

Daily Wire

Donald Trump

Investigation

Luke Rosiak

WASHINGTON—In the parking lot of the Smithsonian&#8217;s smallest museum, 18 of 29 spots were full. But inside, there were no couples on first dates or hordes of tourists milling about the exhibits.
In fact, there were no visitors there at all. Just 18 employees waiting for something to do.
On a sunny, late-summer day, this reporter stood outside the museum — located in a Washington, D.C., slum, far from any tourists — from noon to 3:00 p.m., ready to count visitors. But there was no one to count. At 12:28 p.m., one woman entered while screaming into her cell phone, &#8220;You ain&#8217;t sh*t.&#8221; She stayed for just long enough to use the bathroom, and left lecturing whoever was on the other end of her call about his or her &#8220;motherf***ing ghetto ass.&#8221;
Welcome to the Anacostia Community Museum, a six-room exhibit hall that receives $3 million each year in federal funding. The museum opened in 1967 to focus on &#8220;African American history, community issues, local history, and the arts.&#8221; Since then, the Smithsonian has added two separate, much larger museums focused on African art and African American history, making it largely redundant. Yet it remains, as if someone simply forgot to close it down.
Now, the government is finally weighing whether to do just that. Ten years after the massive African American History and Culture Museum supplanted it, there&#8217;s little reason for the Anacostia Community Museum to spend millions to welcome a handful of visitors a day.  The Trump administration&#8217;s 2026 budget proposes zeroing out funding for the Anacostia Museum, saying its exhibits should be moved to the larger one. Congress is yet to act on that proposal.
But it may soon. Smithsonian museums have <a href="https://x.com/smithsonian/status/1973136401920065572">enough funding</a> to remain open through October 6. But as the government shutdown continues — and the Trump administration leverages the funding freeze to slash nonessential programs and personnel — this little museum could soon find its taxpayer-funded endowment on the chopping block.
<h3>A Day At The Museum</h3>
At 1:39 p.m., a van pulled up with the only other attendees that showed up during this reporter&#8217;s three-hour stakeout. The visitors were there only partly of their own volition: four elderly residents from a nursing home in the wealthy section of D.C. were carted in by three nursing home staff. They ended their field trip at 2:30 p.m.
When this reporter finally entered, 10 employees were standing in the lobby, staring at the front door. They greeted me enthusiastically and offered me a Starbucks coffee from a fancy kiosk — an amenity that primarily serves employees, since coffee isn&#8217;t allowed in the main section. In a break room adorned with a big-screen TV and mahogany furniture, four black female employees and one white, green-haired employee of uncertain gender relaxed.
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Even with the paltry amount of space to fill, the slogan out front, &#8220;Powered by the People,&#8221; isn&#8217;t just a nod to communism; it&#8217;s an acknowledgment that a large portion of the content is simply coloring book pages scribbled on by visitors that have been affixed to the walls. It&#8217;s as much of a museum gallery as the grocery store community bulletin board.
In one of these &#8220;Visitor Galleries,&#8221; guests take a printed-out piece of paper containing the silhouette of a head with an Afro, color in the hair using provided crayons, and pin it to a large bulletin board. Some added messages on them, such as &#8220;Gay Rights Matter.&#8221; Another wall is dedicated to pages that visitors colored in using stencils of musical instruments.
<div id="attachment_977089" style="width: 442px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-977089" class="size-large wp-image-977089" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_3022-432x576.jpeg" alt="" width="432" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_3022-432x576.jpeg 432w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_3022-225x300.jpeg 225w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_3022-768x1024.jpeg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_3022-1152x1536.jpeg 1152w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_3022-1536x2048.jpeg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_3022-scaled.jpeg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 432px) 100vw, 432px" />With no visitors to attend to, a Smithsonian employee peruses the art.</div>
Nearly half of the museum, including a section named &#8220;A Century of Black Arts Education in Washington, DC,&#8221; is dedicated to knick-knacks pertaining to local high schools, memorabilia that might be better suited in the schools themselves rather than a national museum. According to a plaque: &#8220;It would be difficult to name a high school, the graduates or former pupils of which have achieved success in such numbers and of such brilliancy as have those trained in [Dunbar] High School.&#8221;
(According to D.C.&#8217;s most recent <a href="https://app.box.com/s/sqqkkz8jrwrqqqxxsij3p65t3xco47u2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">standardized test scores</a>, only 1% of Dunbar students are proficient in math.)
One section is dedicated to children&#8217;s posters promoting government spending and political activism. There are posters celebrating teachers&#8217; unions, demanding increased pay for teachers that state, &#8220;No funds, no arts, no future.&#8221; One poster implores D.C.&#8217;s high school students to skip school — something Dunbar&#8217;s students might not need much persuading to do — for a &#8220;walkout&#8221; to &#8220;show the D.C. city council&#8221; that &#8220;funding matters!!!&#8221;
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-977091" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_2997-432x576.jpeg" alt="" width="432" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_2997-432x576.jpeg 432w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_2997-225x300.jpeg 225w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_2997-768x1024.jpeg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_2997-1152x1536.jpeg 1152w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_2997-1536x2048.jpeg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_2997-scaled.jpeg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 432px) 100vw, 432px" /></div>
A section dedicated to jazz consists of TVs playing videos, one of which <a href="https://drumcenternh.com/blogs/news/history-of-drums-a-brief-history-lesson-for-drummers">inaccurately claims</a> that the drum was invented in Africa. An exhibit invites visitors to &#8220;Give Music a Try&#8221; using a DJ machine that allows them to make wicka-wicka record-scratch noises. It wasn&#8217;t plugged in.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-977093" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_3038-768x576.jpeg" alt="" width="768" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_3038-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_3038-300x225.jpeg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_3038-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_3038-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /></div>
The museum contains only a few pieces of artwork, all of which look like they were made by small children, or were an accident involving spilled paint that the 18 staffers had not gotten around to cleaning up.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-977095" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_3036-369x576.jpeg" alt="" width="369" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_3036-369x576.jpeg 369w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_3036-192x300.jpeg 192w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_3036-768x1198.jpeg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_3036-985x1536.jpeg 985w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_3036-1313x2048.jpeg 1313w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_3036-scaled.jpeg 1641w" sizes=" (max-width: 369px) 100vw, 369px" /></div>
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-977101" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_3011-781x576.jpeg" alt="" width="781" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_3011-781x576.jpeg 781w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_3011-300x221.jpeg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_3011-768x566.jpeg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_3011-1536x1133.jpeg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/IMG_3011-2048x1510.jpeg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 781px) 100vw, 781px" /></div>
One room is dedicated to photography, which seems like a dump of someone&#8217;s iPhone gallery. A photo features a D.C. high school marching band from 2018, while another simply depicts people in the museum itself, looking at one of its exhibits. It&#8217;s as if someone wanted to create content for the museum without having to leave it, or wanted proof that, at one time, someone actually visited.
Information board exhibits outside continue the struggle to fill space, like a student padding out an essay to meet the teacher&#8217;s three-page requirement. One explains how the purpose of the museum is to &#8220;answer critical questions, such as: Where do we come from? Who are we as a people?&#8221; It seems to run out of ideas before answering, shifting to a picture of an oak leaf and noting that more than 500 species of caterpillars live in oak trees.
Another sign tells residents that there is a river nearby, and says the museum highlights the Anacostia watershed &#8220;through the lenses of faith [and] race.&#8221;
<h3>&#8216;Collective work to build a more equitable future&#8217;</h3>
Most facilities whose budget is difficult to justify based on purely practical considerations might avoid personally antagonizing their funders. But the Anacostia Community Museum is nakedly partisan, thumbing its nose at the administration that will determine whether it has a future.
The museum&#8217;s <a href="https://anacostia.si.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">website</a>, for example, invites visitors &#8220;to join us in our collective work to build a more equitable future for all.&#8221; It calls for &#8220;reckoning with our racial past,&#8221; and &#8220;environmental justice.&#8221; An exhibit touts &#8220;the rise of Black Power.&#8221;
That&#8217;s despite the fact that in March, President Donald Trump signed an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/restoring-truth-and-sanity-to-american-history/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">executive order</a> calling to remove &#8220;improper ideology&#8221; from the Smithsonian. Vice President JD Vance is on the Smithsonian&#8217;s Board of Regents, which is helmed by Chief Justice John Roberts. The order barred exhibits that &#8220;divide Americans based on race&#8221; or that cast the United States as &#8220;inherently racist, sexist, oppressive.&#8221;
Some Smithsonian officials have resisted, saying it is an independent institution, even though 70% of its funding comes from the federal government. This month, the institution was <a href="https://www.cnn.com/politics/smithsonian-white-house-independence-race" target="_blank" rel="noopener">required</a> to turn over information about its content to the White House.
One of the Anacostia museum&#8217;s exhibits, called &#8220;We Shall Not Be Moved,&#8221; illustrates the fatalism that the Trump executive order seeks to remove from the museums, which serve as the front door of America for visitors, foreign and domestic.
The exhibit is about a crime-ridden subsidized housing complex in Southeast D.C. that was torn down in 2019. The government replaced the rundown housing projects with a development that is home to people of all incomes and races, yet the museum says this is &#8220;just one example of a historical African American community&#8221; engaging in &#8220;struggle across the U.S.&#8221; It shows visitors a map of majority-black areas across the country and asks a leading question to which only one answer is acceptable: &#8220;Why do you think they were targeted?&#8221;
The museum complains that the housing project was a place of &#8220;oppression and depression,&#8221; yet somehow simultaneously laments that it was later &#8220;destroyed.&#8221; That sort of clinically depressed, all-roads-lead-to-racism cynicism and shortsightedness mirrors how the museum may finally meet its own end.
<h3>&#8216;A ghetto operation as it were.&#8217;</h3>
The Smithsonian exists to run museums of national importance, not neighborhood bulletin boards. The Anacostia outpost was justified as a marker of black culture, a half-measure towards advocates&#8217; ultimate goal of a larger African American museum on the National Mall. In 1989, the Anacostia museum&#8217;s then-director, John Kinard, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1989/07/19/lion-of-the-anacostia-museum/09f0e494-e925-46b2-8b51-dcf8f175741d/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> just that, casting doubt that we&#8217;d ever see the larger museum.
&#8220;It was convenient to start something off in a ghetto,&#8221; Kinard said. &#8220;A ghetto operation, as it were. But a ghetto operation for 20 long years?&#8221; He called then-Smithsonian Secretary Robert Adams a &#8220;closet racist&#8221; who &#8220;would never agree to an African American museum on the Mall.&#8221;
But in 2016, Kinard got his way. The massive African American History and Culture Museum opened on the National Mall. Now, the people who complained about the lack of that museum also complain about the predictable result of its opening: the smaller museum&#8217;s likely shuttering.
<div id="attachment_979297" style="width: 810px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-979297" class="size-full wp-image-979297" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/https___www.si_.edu_sites_default_files_images_nmaahc-1000x675.jpg.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="540" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/https___www.si_.edu_sites_default_files_images_nmaahc-1000x675.jpg.jpg 800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/https___www.si_.edu_sites_default_files_images_nmaahc-1000x675.jpg-300x203.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/https___www.si_.edu_sites_default_files_images_nmaahc-1000x675.jpg-768x518.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />African American History and Culture Museum / Smithsonian</div>
Congress&#8217;s Committee on House Administration, which oversees the Smithsonian, didn&#8217;t return a request for comment.
According to the Smithsonian&#8217;s <a href="https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/about/stats" target="_blank" rel="noopener">official statistics</a>, in 2019, after the larger museum was in full swing, the Anacostia museum saw only 8,034 visitors, or five per day. In 2021, the figure was still five per day (COVID affected the attendance of all museums that year, but the Smithsonian&#8217;s American Art Museum nonetheless saw 420,000 visitors).
For 2024, the official statistics claimed 14,076, or about 38 a day. But, its website includes the caveat, &#8220;the counts sometimes include staff.&#8221; Its federal <a href="https://www.si.edu/sites/default/files/about/fy2025-budgetrequestcongress.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">budget provides</a> 17 full-time employees (the 18th employee we identified was a Metropolitan Police officer). The Daily Wire&#8217;s experience suggests that the official numbers are either inflated or count all employees. Even counting the bathroom user and the nursing home aides, the number I saw over three hours would work out to 18 over the seven hours the museum is open.
In the end, the museum seems to exist as a multi-million dollar jobs program and not much else — and its oversized staff may have actually obscured the fact that there is little demand for its offerings. But visitors may learn at least one thing, thanks to the fact that it has persisted for nearly a decade even after it was replaced by a larger museum: There is no such thing as a temporary government program.

Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum

A Day At The Multi-Million Dollar Government Museum With No Visitors

Smithsonian Museum

Washington D.C.

Staff at the African Development Foundation, a USAID-affiliated federal agency, have returned to work after a D.C. judge overturned the Trump administration&#8217;s abolition of the agency — even as a new inspector general&#8217;s report blasted the agency for misleading Congress.
A USAID inspector general&#8217;s report released Thursday lists Mathieu Zahui as one of the agency&#8217;s current top employees, even though the IG told a D.C. judge last year that it had seized Zahui&#8217;s phone and found evidence that he took secret payments from a company to which he steered suspicious contracts.
Early in the Trump administration, Zahui told the White House that the agency would not recognize Trump&#8217;s appointment of Peter Marocco, who successfully disbanded USAID, as acting chairman of the African agency. Staff subsequently locked the doors to physically prevent DOGE auditors from entering.
The Trump administration ultimately took control of the building with the assistance of U.S. Marshals and laid everyone off. But after an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/judge-orders-foreign-aid-agency-resurrected-after-african-company-sues" target="_blank" rel="noopener">African company sued</a> on the basis that all of its profits came from the U.S. agency, complaining that shutting down the agency would cause it irreparable harm, a D.C. judge granted an injunction temporarily invalidating Marocco&#8217;s moves. D.C.- and Africa-based staff and contractors were all immediately reinstated to their jobs and canceled grants were restored, despite the fact that a ban on new foreign grants remains in effect, significantly reducing the amount of work for them to do.
Thursday&#8217;s <a href="https://oig.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/2025-08/Final%20OIG%20Report%20-%20Evaluation%20of%20USADF%20Partnerships%20and%20Grants%20Administration.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">IG report</a> made that reversal all the more remarkable, finding that the agency had only raised a quarter of the money from African partners that it publicly took credit for, that nearly half of its grants had insufficient documentation, and that the agency did not conduct any &#8220;due diligence&#8221; before entering into financial agreements with African entities.
The African Development Foundation is funded by about $50 million a year in taxpayer money, but it is supposed to leverage that with funds raised from African governments and other groups, giving them skin in the game. The agency never actually collected three-quarters of the money that it implied to Congress it had raised between 2022 and 2024, according to the IG probe.
In its 2023 Annual Report, the African Development Foundation, or USADF, reported that &#8220;$45.6 million in leveraged partner funds was secured,&#8221; but in reality, it only received $9 million that year, the IG report said. &#8220;Similarly, in its FY 2024 Congressional Budget Justification, USADF reported that it anticipated leveraging more than $15 million in external funding that year. Yet, by the end of FY 2024, USADF had received just $2.5 million in partnership funding.&#8221;
In all, records showed that &#8220;32 partners pledged up to $69 million between FYs 2022 and 2024. However, of these pledges, USADF only received $17 million,&#8221; the IG found. African governments only actually &#8220;provided about $8.2 million of $41 million (20 percent) pledged.&#8221;
The agency told the IG that it had no mechanism to force African governments and other groups to follow through on their commitments. The IG said this was because it drafted agreements that &#8220;were not legally binding,&#8221; and &#8220;did not conduct any pre-award assessments or due diligence on prospective partners.&#8221;
For some partnerships, it had no documentation at all, the report found: &#8220;Based on our reviews of USADF’s website, partner funding receipts, and other public reporting, we determined that USADF may have had up to 17 additional active partnerships. For example, USADF’s website identified a payment card company foundation, a clean energy investment company, and a development nonprofit as strategic partners. However, USADF could not provide MoUs or any other documentation to confirm the status of these partnerships.&#8221;
A <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/this-foreign-aid-agency-locked-its-doors-to-keep-doge-out-now-we-know-why" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Daily Wire investigation</a> previously reported that one such partnership was with Herbalife, a multi-level marketing scheme whose then-CEO sat on the government agency&#8217;s board. The partnership involved providing Africans with “product donations, and Herbalife Nutrition staff as global volunteers in their businesses,” marketing materials said. It came two months after Herbalife paid $122 million to the Department of Justice to settle charges that it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The Daily Wire&#8217;s investigation also showed that the agency misled Congress and the public about how much money went to Africa as opposed to administrative costs by having African grantees and contractors re-route money back to D.C.
The IG report said &#8220;we discovered that USADF officials knew of suspected misuse of Foundation funds and equipment purchased from Foundation grants but failed to report this information to OIG as required.&#8221; It said that the agency failed to keep track of where its money was going: Forty percent of grants had incomplete project development documentation and the same number lacked evidence that it had trained the grantee on keeping track of finances. The agency pays African &#8220;partners&#8221; to inspect grantees on the ground, but for most grants, the agency&#8217;s database was missing these site visit reports.
Thursday&#8217;s inspector general report was limited to certain aspects of the agency&#8217;s business and its methodology was established last year, before the dramatic changes at the agency. But USAID OIG confirmed that its investigations into matters relating to the foundation are active and ongoing. That raises the prospect that although CFO Zahui was reinstated after being laid off, the back-and-forth might end in his being hauled out of the office in handcuffs.
A November 2024 <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/foreign-aid-official-who-resisted-doge-took-secret-payments-after-steering-africa-money-to-friend" target="_blank" rel="noopener">search warrant application</a> unearthed by The Daily Wire laid bare a criminal probe involving the agency&#8217;s mysterious payments to Ganiam Ltd., a company owned by Zahui&#8217;s friend Maina Gakure. In February 2024, agents seized Zahui’s work phone and found “text messages showing at least eight instances of wire transfers or electronic payments from Gakure to Zahui’s Bank of America account, totaling over $10,000. These payments coincide with USADF’s awarding of sole-source contracts to Ganiam,” they wrote. As of now, Zahui has not been charged with a crime.
The agency&#8217;s other top current employee, according to the report, is Elisabeth Feleke. Feleke was accused by former general counsel Mateo Dunne of ordering him to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/this-foreign-aid-agency-locked-its-doors-to-keep-doge-out-now-we-know-why" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stop an investigation</a> into rulebreaking at the agency. Dunne filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging retaliation and anti-white racial discrimination, but an EEO judge dismissed it, and he is appealing.
A former official with the USAID inspector general&#8217;s official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Daily Wire that the African Development Foundation &#8220;treated federal dollars like Monopoly money&#8230; it was a culture of reckless indifference to accountability and oversight.&#8221;
Included in the report is an acknowledgment of the IG&#8217;s findings by the foundation.
&#8220;USADF appreciates the work of the USAID Office of Inspector General in conducting this evaluation of our strategic partnerships and grants administration,&#8221; says a management response to the findings. &#8220;We concur with the overall findings and recommendations and acknowledge the opportunities to strengthen our internal 
policies, procedures, and reporting practices.&#8221;
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch (R-ID) <a href="https://x.com/senateforeign/status/1961164384535024077" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> on X that the new report provides further evidence that the agency &#8220;is beyond repair&#8221; and should be abolished.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/this-foreign-aid-agency-locked-its-doors-to-keep-doge-out-now-we-know-why" target="_blank" rel="noopener">This Foreign Aid Agency Locked Its Doors To Keep DOGE Out. Now We Know Why.</a>
PART ONE: <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" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Foreign Aid Official Who Resisted DOGE Took Secret Payments After Steering Africa Money To Friend </a>
PART TWO: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/african-aid-agency-used-foreign-pass-throughs-to-hide-money-that-went-to-d-c-staff-friends?author=Luke+Rosiak&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=African+Aid+Agency+Used+Foreign+Pass-Throughs+To+Hide+Money+That+Went+To+D.C.+Staff%2C+Friends" target="_blank" rel="noopener">African Aid Agency Used Foreign Pass-Throughs To Hide Money That Went To D.C. Staff</a>
PART THREE: <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>
PART FOUR: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/them-white-motherf-ers-racist-agency-framed-its-lawyer-after-he-discovered-lawbreaking-he-says?topStoryPosition=undefined&amp;author=Luke+Rosiak&amp;category=Investigation&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=1&amp;rowHeadline=Top+Stories&amp;rowType=Top+Stories&amp;title=%E2%80%98Them+White+Motherf-ers%E2%80%99%3A+Racist+Agency+Framed+Its+Lawyer+After+He+Discovered+Lawbreaking%2C+He+Says" target="_blank" rel="noopener">‘Them White Motherf-ers’: Racist Agency Framed Its Lawyer After He Discovered Lawbreaking, He Says</a>

Mathieu Zahui, chief financial officer of the African Development Foundation

Foreign Aid Official Suspected Of Bribery Is Back At Work After Court Ruling

USAID

Let’s take a moment to examine how despicable the legacy media is.
Let’s contrast an actual heroic human being, the kind we need more of in America, the kind the media hates, with a person who&#8217;s awful, a person the media continue to tout.
First, the hero. His name is Edward Coristine and he was ripped up and down by the media when he first came onto the public scene. Why? Because he was working for Elon Musk&#8217;s Department of Governmental Efficiency and he was known as “Big Balls.’
According to the Left-wing media, the idea that you would have a young man who calls himself with this moniker, looking over the American budgetary system and saying, “This doesn&#8217;t belong and this does belong,” was the end of the world.
That was terrible. That was awful. We couldn&#8217;t have somebody like that working in our system.
But it turns out that Edward Coristine isn&#8217;t just a young genius who is capable of looking at budgetary numbers and figuring out where the waste, fraud, and abuse are. It turns out he is an amazing dude.
According to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/05/trump-administration-staffer-known-as-big-balls-assaulted-in-dc-00494990">Politico</a>:
<blockquote>A 19-year-old man known as “Big Balls” who played a key role in the DOGE initiative to shrink the size of government was assaulted over the weekend in Washington, according to city police. Edward Coristine, who still works for the government, was assaulted by approximately 10 juveniles near Dupont Circle about 3 a.m. Sunday, according to a police report obtained by POLITICO. Police arrested two 15-year olds as they attempted to flee the scene. 
A black iPhone 16 valued at $1,000 was also reported stolen during the incident, according to the report. President Donald Trump posted a photo on his social media platform showing a shirtless Coristine with what appeared to be blood spattered on his face, body and pants. He called for a change in the law so that the juveniles who attacked him could be charged as adults.</blockquote>
Trump <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114977985620971126">wrote</a>: 
<blockquote>Crime in Washington, D.C., is totally out of control. Local “youths” and gang members, some only 14, 15, and 16-years-old, are randomly attacking, mugging, maiming, and shooting innocent Citizens, at the same time knowing that they will be almost immediately released. They are not afraid of Law Enforcement because they know nothing ever happens to them, but it’s going to happen now! 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. The most recent victim was beaten mercilessly by local thugs.  
Washington, D.C., must be safe, clean, and beautiful for all Americans and, importantly, for the World to see. If D.C. doesn’t get its act together, and quickly, we will have no choice but to take Federal control of the City, and run this City how it should be run, and put criminals on notice that they’re not going to get away with it anymore. Perhaps it should have been done a long time ago, then this incredible young man, and so many others, would not have had to go through the horrors of Violent Crime. If this continues, I am going to exert my powers, and FEDERALIZE this City. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!</blockquote>
What exactly happened here?
Apparently, Coristine said that the assailants approached him outside his vehicle while he was with a woman identified in the report as his significant other. He told police officers he got the other person into the vehicle just before he was attacked.
This young man made sure that the woman was not attacked. Elon Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1952836498971344926">wrote</a> on X, “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.”
Remember, the media thought that this kid, this young man, was bad. He was bad because he was very online and he was young and he was smart, and he wanted to go through the governmental records. This was the kind of person we needed fewer of in America. According to our legacy media, “Big Balls” was the problem with America.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2255-the-ben-shapiro-show?elementPosition=6&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
Meanwhile, the media was championing another young man, claiming that he is the kind of person America needs.
That would be Mahmoud Khalil.
Mahmoud Khalil, of course, was the import from abroad; an activist who hates America, who hates the West, who hates Israel, who is not only complicit in anti-Semitism, but is an anti-Semitic provocateur. He was imported to Columbia University to essentially act as an activist against the West, against America, against Israel and against Jews.
When the Trump administration looked at his participation in the violent student protests at Columbia, they decided to deport him. But a court stopped that deportation, and the entire Left rallied to his cause. He was a victim; America needed more Mahmoud Khalils.
Mahmoud Khalil is now out there on the talk circuit, and he sat with Ezra Klein over at the New York Times, where he promptly explained to Ezra Klein that essentially, October 7 was justified, that Israel had it coming, that there was no actual anti-Semitism at Columbia University or anything of the like.
According to the Left, this is the person, this Mahmoud Khalil, whom we need more of, and fewer of the “Big Balls” type of young men. We need more imports from third-world countries who hate America and hate Jews and make our country worse.
If you actually watch the entire interview with Ezra Klein, some of the things that Khalil said were astonishingly pro-terrorism.
At one point, he said, “Having lived in the Middle East most of my life” — he lived in Syria — “The only Jew you hear about is someone who&#8217;s trying to kill you. For those in Gaza and the West Bank, that&#8217;s the only Jewish person they encounter, the one at checkpoints, the one raiding their homes.”
Khalil didn&#8217;t grow up around Jews. He grew up in Syria. And yet he is openly stating that he grew up hating Jews.
And so he came to the United States. He found a bunch of Left-wing Jews like Jewish Voice for Peace — which is not Jewish or a voice for peace — and according to him, that&#8217;s what real Judaism is, which is an absurdity.
Khalil told Klein there was no anti-Semitism at Columbia. He said, “It&#8217;s not like anti-Semitism is happening at Columbia because of the Palestine movement,” which is, of course, a lie. And then he said, “From the river to the sea, from the Palestinian perspective, no one ever said it&#8217;s a violent call.” And then, of course, he defended “globalize the intifada.” He said October 7 was not an aggressive attack. He said it was just to break the cycle, that Palestinians were not being heard.
This Left-wing martyr is a pro-terror show. That&#8217;s always what he was.
But the Left insists that he be allowed into the country, and that not only that, we need more of these people in our country.
The contrast between the media vilification of this young white man who was working for the federal government to cut waste, fraud and abuse, the kind of person who will rush to a woman&#8217;s side to save her from being assaulted by thugs, and the absolutely kid-glove glowing treatment given to Mahmoud Khalil by Ezra Klein and the rest of the legacy media is astonishing and disgusting.
It speaks to not only what the media are, but what the Left has become. I will say it over and over and over again. The Left-wing is Zohran Mamdani. The Left-wing is not some moderate senator from Minnesota like Amy Klobuchar, who&#8217;s bad enough. It&#8217;s all Mamdani, period. It’s people like Khalil, who champions terrorism. That’s what the Left thinks is right for America.
But a genius kid who saves a woman from thugs and has a nickname they hate? He’s not right for America.
Their agenda could not be any more obvious. Or vicious.

US-POLITICS-MIGRANTS-KHALIL-EDUCATION-MIGRATION

America Needs ‘Big Balls,’ Not Mahmoud Khalil

America Needs 'Big Balls,' Not Mahmoud Khalil

Ben Shapiro

gangs

Hamas

Israel

Mahmoud Khalil

New York Times

October 7

Opinion

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

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

Media

National Public Radio (NPR)

Politics

Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)

President Donald Trump said Thursday that he would not support any Republican who voted against defunding the parent company of NPR and PBS in an upcoming bill that would enshrine DOGE cuts into law. 
Trump urged Republicans in the Senate to back a $9.4 billion rescission package already passed by the House, which would include more than $1 billion in reductions for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the nonprofit that was created by Congress and is funded by the federal government but is not a governmental agency. The House passed the White House&#8217;s proposed package 214-212 last month, and the Senate is expected to vote next week. 
“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,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “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!”
The legislation <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/house-passes-doge-cuts-targeting-foreign-aid-npr-and-pbs">would cut</a> $8.3 billion in foreign spending, including funding for “Net Zero Cities” in Mexico, Iraqi “Sesame Street,” and global LGBTQ+ initiatives, as well as $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. In May, Trump signed an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/ending-taxpayer-subsidization-of-biased-media/">executive order</a> directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to stop funding NPR and PBS, saying the entities were deeply infected with leftwing bias. 
“The [Corporation for Public Broadcasting]’s governing statute reflects principles of impartiality: the CPB may not ‘contribute to or otherwise support any political party,’” the order says. “The CPB fails to abide by these principles to the extent it subsidizes NPR and PBS.  Which viewpoints NPR and PBS promote does not matter. What does matter is that neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.”
NPR and several smaller publicly funded networks have challenged the order in court, <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.280953/gov.uscourts.dcd.280953.1.0_1.pdf">arguing</a> that it contradicts previous funding allocations made by Congress and violates the First Amendment. The courts have yet to issue a ruling on the suit, but parts of the argument could become moot if the Senate votes to pull the previously authorized spending. 
Some Republicans, including Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, have already voiced opposition to the proposed cuts. The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-threatens-gop-senators-over-vote-on-doge-cuts-f5a86c19?utm_source=chatgpt.com">reported</a> that Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota also indicated he was seeking an exemption for the funding of American Indian public radio stations.

Trump departs for Texas, calls deadly flooding ‘a horrible thing’

Trump Warns Republican Senators: Defund NPR And PBS Or Lose My Endorsement

Congress

Corporation for Public Broadcasting

Lisa Murkowski

Senate

spending

Susan Collins

WASHINGTON— The State Department will inform employees on Thursday evening that it will soon begin mass layoffs, a document obtained by The Daily Wire shows.
Over 1500 employees will receive &#8220;Reduction in Force&#8221; (RIF) notices, a State Department official shared with The Daily Wire on Thursday.
The move comes after the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a1174_h3ci.pdf">lifted a lower court order</a> on Tuesday blocking President Donald Trump from laying off federal workers at almost two dozen agencies, clearing the way for the president to move forward with his plans for reorganizing and downsizing federal agencies.
The State Department email, sent Thursday evening from Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources Michael Rigas to State Department staff, says that once employees have received their RIF notices, State will enter its final stage of reorganization and focus its attention on delivering &#8220;results-driven diplomacy.&#8221;
<div id="attachment_945573" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/?attachment_id=945573" rel="attachment wp-att-945573"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-945573" class="wp-image-945573 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2223713664-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2223713664-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2223713664-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2223713664-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2223713664.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" /></a>US Secretary of State Marco Rubio deplanes upon arrival at Subang Air Base, outside of Kuala Lumpur, on July 10, 2025.  (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)</div>
“Secretary Rubio, at the direction of President Trump, has undertaken a historic reorganization of the State Department, which was thoughtfully and deliberately executed by department leadership,&#8221; a senior State Department official told The Daily Wire. &#8220;The America First State Department will better serve the American people.”
More communications and guidance will be distributed in the coming weeks, Rigas told the State Department employees.
&#8220;On behalf of Department leadership, we extend our gratitude for your hard work and commitment to executing this reorganization and for your ongoing dedication to advancing U.S. national interests across the world,&#8221; he concluded.
The move is part of Secretary Marco Rubio&#8217;s effort to conduct the largest reorganization of the State Department in decades, focusing resources on policy priorities and eliminating &#8220;redundant functions,&#8221; as Rigas noted. Rubio had reviewed and approved plans to target reduction in the department&#8217;s domestic workforce in May.
Rubio said at the time that State&#8217;s domestic operations had grown exponentially, &#8220;resulting in more bureaucracy, higher costs, and fewer results for the American people.&#8221; He elaborated on the plan submitted to Congress, saying it was the result of thoughtful and deliberative work by senior State Department leadership.
&#8220;Since my first day as Secretary, I have said that this Department must move at the speed of relevancy and, in April, announced a broad reorganization of the Department to better achieve that goal,&#8221; he noted. &#8220;Today, we took the next step in that process by notifying Congress of how we plan to do that.&#8221;
&#8220;The reorganization plan will result in a more agile Department, better equipped to promote America’s interests and keep Americans safe across the world,&#8221; he promised.

President Trump Holds Cabinet Meeting At White House

Following SCOTUS Win, State Department Informs Employees That Mass Layoffs Will Begin Soon

Marco Rubio

State Department

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump raised eyebrows Tuesday by suggesting that he could have the Department of Government Efficiency look into Elon Musk, and entertaining a question about deporting the high-profile businessman.
“DOGE is the monster that might have to go back and eat Elon,” the president said outside the White House on Tuesday as he prepared to depart for “Alligator Alcatraz,” a new immigration detention center in Florida.
Asked by a reporter if he would consider deporting Musk to South Africa, his home country, the president responded: “I don’t know, we’ll have to take a look.”
Late Monday night, the president criticized Musk on Truth Social, slamming his erstwhile ally and former head of DOGE for his opposition to Trump&#8217;s One Big Beautiful Bill.
<a class="c-link c-link--focus-visible" href="https://get.dailywire.com/freedom/?utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial&amp;utm_campaign=freedom&amp;utm_content=freedomeditorial&amp;_gl=1*r8odly*_gcl_au*MTQ5MDUzNjQ0NC4xNzQ1ODQ0MzMyLjEwNDAyMzM0NDQuMTc0NzY1MzIxNy4xNzQ3NjUzMjE3*_ga*MTM1OTk4Njg2NS4xNzA2NzE2NTAy*_ga_CZKR9ZYKJP*czE3NTEyOTIzMDQkbzMyJGcxJHQxNzUxMjkyOTI5JGo1NyRsMCRoMA.." target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-stringify-link="https://get.dailywire.com/freedom/?utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial&amp;utm_campaign=freedom&amp;utm_content=freedomeditorial" data-sk="tooltip_parent" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-75638">JULY 4 SALE: Get Six Months Of DW+ Free</a>
Musk, who went so far as to publicly suggest last month that the president had unsavory ties to Jeffrey Epstein and was repressing the release of the Epstein Files to protect himself, said later that he regretted his avalanche of attacks on the president and that some of them &#8220;went too far.&#8221;
<div id="attachment_941633" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-doge-is-the-monster-that-might-have-to-go-back-and-eat-elon/president-trump-holds-press-conference-with-elon-musk-in-white-houses-oval-office-9" rel="attachment wp-att-941633"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-941633" class="wp-image-941633 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2217852297-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2217852297-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2217852297-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2217852297-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2217852297.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" /></a>(Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)</div>
&#8220;Elon Musk knew, long before he so strongly Endorsed me for President, that I was strongly against the EV Mandate,&#8221; Trump wrote on TruthSocial. &#8220;It is ridiculous, and was always a major part of my campaign. Electric cars are fine, but not everyone should be forced to own one.&#8221;
&#8220;Elon may get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far, and without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa,&#8221; the president added. &#8220;No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE. Perhaps we should have DOGE take a good, hard, look at this? BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED!!!&#8221;
Trump&#8217;s comments came as Musk called for the formation of a new political party on Monday, called the &#8220;America Party.&#8221; Musk, who has been very vocal in opposing the president&#8217;s reconciliation bill, suggested that he would back challengers to almost &#8220;every&#8221; Republican in Congress.
&#8220;Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their head in shame,&#8221; Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1939776586989150590">said</a> in an X post, adding, &#8220;And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.&#8221;
“If this insane spending bill passes, the America Party will be formed the next day,” Musk said in another &#8220;X&#8221; post on Monday. “Our country needs an alternative to the Democrat-Republican uniparty so that the people actually have a VOICE.”

President Trump Departs White House For Florida On Tuesday Morning

Trump: ‘DOGE Is The Monster That Might Have To Go Back And Eat Elon’

Elon Musk

White House

Members of the House and Senate DOGE Caucuses on Thursday introduced a bill that would require all government agencies to use the kind of database checks espoused by Elon Musk — such as checking a Social Security number against a list of dead people — before issuing payments.
The bill could eliminate much of the $162 billion that the Government Accountability Office estimates the federal government pays improperly each year, they said — an amount <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/doge-says-it-saved-more-than-200-billion-in-trumps-first-100-days?author=Luke+Rosiak&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=12&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=100+Days+Of+DOGE%3A+Elon+Musk’s+Initiative+Says+It+Cut+%24200+Billion.+What’s+Next%3F">equal to</a> all savings DOGE says it has achieved by cutting contracts, grants, and leases.
It also represents an effort to codify President Donald Trump&#8217;s executive orders, as some conservatives grumble that Congress has not done enough to slash spending.
The “Delivering On Government Efficiency (DOGE) in Spending Act” is likely to pass with widespread support, as it essentially requires transparency and modern good-governance practices. If Democrats oppose it, they would essentially be opposing an effort to stop fraudulent payments.
The bill puts into law one of Musk’s findings, also captured in a Trump executive order: that the Treasury Department, which cuts the checks that other agencies authorize, is well situated to verify whether proposed payments are proper, and stop payment if information from one agency contradicts information from another.
&#8220;Prior to DOGE, Treasury did not put even the most essential information into its computer disbursement systems, which led to hundreds of billions of dollars of spending with no ability to account for basic things like why the payments were made,&#8221; Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) said in a statement. &#8220;The Treasury Department was also not empowered to double-check agencies’ work, leading to hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of fraud and improper payments.&#8221;
Ernst, who chairs the Senate DOGE Caucus, introduced the bill alongside Rep. Aaron Bean (R-FL), who chairs the House DOGE Caucus. The bill has 13 Senate co-sponsors.
The bill comes the same week that the government&#8217;s COVID watchdog released a report titled &#8220;Pre-Award Vetting Using Data Analytics Could Have Prevented Over <a href="https://pandemicoversight.gov/Fraud-Prevention-Alert-Pre-Award-Vetting-Using-Data-Analytics-Could-Have-Prevented-Over-79-Billion-in-Potentially-Fraudulent-Pandemic-Relief-Payments#" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$79 Billion</a> in Potentially Fraudulent Pandemic Relief Payments.&#8221; That number is entirely based on people using Social Security numbers that were either nonexistent or tied to the wrong names to collect Paycheck Protection Program loans, but which were paid out anyway.
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It &#8220;gives Treasury the ability to check relevant databases throughout the government for purposes of confirming eligibility to prevent fraudulent and improper payments. This will break the existing stovepiping that enables fraudsters to defraud multiple programs with the same information because government databases do not talk to one another,&#8221; Ernst said.
Agencies would be required to give Treasury’s “Do Not Pay” system access to relevant data before Treasury could approve their payments, allowing Treasury to automatically check across government agencies for information indicating a payment is improper. For example, Ernst previously exposed how thousands were receiving unemployment checks without the government realizing that they <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/thousands-of-pandemic-unemployment-claims-listed-the-names-of-still-employed-government-workers-senator-says" target="_blank" rel="noopener">were employed</a>&#8230;by the government.
Do Not Pay does not currently have access to people’s Social Security numbers, which would serve as an obvious source of truth to verify people’s ages and identities, even though the agency provides a similar tool to private banks.
Treasury would use the National Directory of New Hires to flag whether someone was still unemployed before approving welfare or unemployment payments. It would access Fair Credit Reporting Act information, the data used by credit score agencies, to confirm residency and income.
It would also have access to certain IRS data, including gross income and total Schedule C income, bank account number, and whether a tax return was filed in a particular year. Ernst said tax data would not be provided to Treasury, but rather the computer system would be able to ask the IRS system to answer yes-or-no questions, such as whether a particular person’s income was above a certain amount.
The Government Accountability Office has long warned that some government programs have massive fraud, such as tax returns filed using others&#8217; Social Security numbers to extract Earned Income Tax Credit welfare payments.
Inspectors general estimated in 2023 that fraud and improper payments in COVID bailouts totaled $400 billion. Coronavirus stimulus payments highlighted how the government has paid out billions of dollars without even attempting to verify claims using information that is in the hands of the government itself. For example, a USAID employee received a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/usaid-contracting-officer-charged-with-pandemic-bailout-fraud?author=Luke+Rosiak&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=7&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=USAID+Contracting+Officer+Charged+With+Pandemic+Bailout+Fraud">PPP loan for a fake business</a>, even though state corporation records would have shown the LLC was nonexistent, IRS records would have shown it didn&#8217;t make money in previous years, and Office of Personnel Management data would have shown that the person was employed by the government, not a company.
The bill would also require basic information about the purpose of payments to be filled in, instead of left blank, and for the information to be published publicly on the USASpending website.

Joni Ernst

DOGE Caucus Introduces Bill Aimed At $162 Billion In ‘Improper Payments’

Treasury Department

The most radical thing Washington can do right now is stop spending. President Trump’s proposed $9.4 billion rescissions package won’t accomplish that on its own, but it at least, finally, moves us in the right direction.
For decades, members of both parties have treated spending growth as a measure of success. The assumption has been that government must grow, and that any program, once funded, must be permanent. That mindset has left us with a bloated federal bureaucracy that has replaced free-market policy and individual freedom with centralized control and pushed the country to <a href="https://www.usdebtclock.org/">nearly $37 trillion in debt</a>.
Still, most sitting lawmakers have never voted to cut a single dollar of federal spending. This package gives them that chance. More than that, it gives them an opening to start restoring the habits of a functioning legislature.
It’s also the first time the Department of Government Efficiency has had its work put into legislative form. Elon Musk built and led DOGE under the simple premise to stop wasting taxpayer money. Musk has since returned to the private sector, but he and the president have made clear that the mission remains. The rescissions package, which would codify spending cuts proposed by DOGE, reflects that mission. It targets corrupt USAID programs, taxpayer subsidies for ideologically biased public broadcasters NPR and PBS, and other programs that fail even a basic test of necessity in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/05/02/us/trump-budget-2026">$1.7 trillion discretionary budget</a>.
Fiscal conservatives, especially those complaining this package doesn’t go far enough, should not let the perfect be the enemy of the essential. Fiscal discipline, like any discipline, requires a starting point. You don’t run a marathon by starting with 20 miles, you start with one. This bill is that first mile.
Congress should treat it as such: start small, bank the win, and keep cutting wherever the rules allow. That means more rescissions, which require only a simple majority to pass. It also means using the appropriations process and, when necessary, continuing resolutions, to keep pushing the issue. Not every tool requires a supermajority, but even the ones that do are worth using to force the debate. Progress in this fight can come steadily if congressional Republicans stay united and focused.
It also means that if passed, this package should be the first of a longer series of cuts. Each one can go further, targeting programs that stray from constitutional purpose or national interest. Repetition in this case can build momentum and credibility.
It can also build legislative muscle memory. Too many lawmakers now assume the only way forward is through bipartisan overspending. A successful rescission would challenge that assumption. It would remind Congress that not every federal dollar is sacred and that cutting even a fraction of the budget is still possible with political will.
Moreover, follow-through matters just as much as passage. House and Senate Republicans must ensure these cuts aren’t restored elsewhere. Cuts that DOGE has made or proposed shouldn’t be backfilled through continuing resolutions or omnibus bills, especially those that are widely popular across America. What gets cut should stay cut. The goal is a permanent shift in direction.
DOGE’s broader purpose has always been to realign government toward greater efficiency and accountability. That vision reflects a basic expectation of public service – that government should function effectively, that leaders should make responsible decisions rather than defer them, and that taxpayers should have confidence their money is being used with care, not lost to inefficiency or corruption.
Congressional Republicans should also keep in mind that a win here sets the tone for the 2026 midterm elections. It signals that the Trump administration’s second-term agenda, as well as the party’s broader movement, is not just about executive action but real, legislative reform. Therefore, they should view these cuts not as the finish line, but as the starting point.
The stakes are about whether the federal government serves the American people or the other way around; whether Congress retains the capacity to exercise restraint, or whether inertia has become the default; and whether a new generation of lawmakers can relearn the forgotten skill of saying no.
This rescissions bill offers the chance to begin answering those questions. Conservatives should take it, and then keep going.
* * *
Paul Teller is the Executive Vice President of Advancing American Freedom.
John Shelton is a policy director for Advancing American Freedom. 
The views expressed in this piece are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

House Republicans

Why The First Spending Cut Is Worth Making

National Debt

President Trump

Republicans

Spending Bill

Taxes

U.S. House of Representatives

The Department of Labor said Thursday that it will “begin a phased pause&#8221; of an almost $2 billion federal job training program that has persisted since 1964 despite a dubious record.
The Job Corps houses a mix of runaway teens and 20-something ex-cons in residential campuses, where 16- to 24-year-olds are paid to receive their GED diplomas and training in several trades. 
For decades, there has been evidence that monetary incentives have led to fraud, with contractors — who get paid bonuses for recruiting students and for having positive job-placement statistics — cooking the books to misrepresent post-graduation job outcomes, and tolerating criminal behavior on campus to avoid the loss of federal dollars that would come from expulsions.
Contractors, including large for-profit companies, operate 99 of the Job Corps’ 131 facilities, which collectively house 25,000 students. Those contracts were “terminated for convenience” on Thursday, with the contractors beginning to “mobilize students safely to their home of record” by June 30, the Labor Department said. Campuses operated by government entities, such as the Department of Agriculture, are not affected by the pause.
&#8220;Job Corps was created to help young adults build a pathway to a better life through education, training, and community,” Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said in a statement. “However, a startling number of serious incident reports and our in-depth fiscal analysis reveal the program is no longer achieving the intended outcomes that students deserve. We remain committed to ensuring all participants are supported through this transition and connected with the resources they need to succeed as we evaluate the program’s possibilities.”
The Daily Wire reported in April that the Job Corps spends up to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/job-corps-spends-764k-per-graduate" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$764,000 per graduate</a>, while participants go on to earn $17,000 annually. One-third of students typically simply disappear, one-third are expelled for serious misconduct, and the remaining third graduate. 
The Labor Department said it is not eliminating the Job Corps, which only Congress can do, but that finances dictated ending the contracts. It said the program was operating at a $140 million deficit in 2024, and that the Biden administration paused operations at two campuses as a result. The deficit was projected to grow to $213 million in 2025.
It also said the program is “failing students,” with the post-program wages of participants hovering barely above the poverty line, despite an average cost per student higher than Harvard’s.
“Considering only two out of every five participants actually graduate from the program, this is a massive amount of money being spent with little results,” it said in a statement.
Job Corps critics have long pointed out that GEDs and vocational training are available for free in most locations through public school systems and unions, and that many people who signed up for Job Corps were simply looking for a $1,200 stipend and free room and board. The Department of Labor said it will cover costs for students to return home, and connect them with other existing job and training opportunities.
The department also said the model of housing 16- to 24-year-olds — many of whom had criminal records — together was harming children. &#8220;Our nation&#8217;s vulnerable young adults deserve better,&#8221; it said.
According to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/multi-billion-dollar-federal-job-corps-breeding-ground-rape-crime">data</a> obtained by The Daily Wire, more than 500 sexual assaults have been reported at Job Corps facilities in the last three years, including a male student climbing through a female student’s window and raping her as she slept, according to a source with knowledge of the program.
Last year, a 16-year-old girl who identified as a transgender boy, and whom the Job Corps apparently enabled to be separated from her parents, was assigned to room with a 23-year-old man at the Glenmont Job Corps near Albany, New York. <a href="https://spotlightnews.com/news/crime/2024/08/27/student-charged-with-raping-transgender-male-at-glenmont-job-corps/">Demetrius Fair</a> allegedly intimidated his “roommate” into performing oral sex on him before pinning her to the bed and raping her.
Then there were 4,600 reported violent assaults and 8,000 drug-related incidents over the past three years. Those numbers likely significantly understate the reality, since only the most severe incidents are recorded. Democrats have introduced legislation in recent years to further tolerate bad behavior at Job Corps centers by making it more difficult to expel people.
<div id="attachment_900761" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-900761" class="wp-image-900761 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/jobcorps1200-1024x573.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="573" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/jobcorps1200-1024x573.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/jobcorps1200-300x168.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/jobcorps1200-768x430.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/jobcorps1200.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Job Corps participants brawl / YouTube</div>
<a href="https://prh.jobcorps.gov/Exhibits/Exhibit%201-1%20Job%20Corps%20Eligibility%20Requirements.pdf">Eligibility requirements</a> say that only people on welfare or living in poverty are eligible for the Job Corps, that refugees and non-citizen parolees are eligible, and that “no individual shall be denied enrollment in Job Corps solely on the basis of contact with the criminal justice system, except for the disqualifying felony convictions of murder…child abuse, or a crime involving rape or sexual assault.”
The program requires that applicants not be able to read at higher than an eighth grade level, saying they must be “unable to compute or solve problems…at a level necessary to function on the job, in the individual’s family, or in society,” or he must be homeless, a runaway, a high school dropout, or a victim of sex trafficking.
Staff are trained to tell applicants, “I see that you have (describe gang-related behavior, symbol, activity). Do you agree that if you are admitted to Job Corps, you will not (use/wear/display) (list behavior or symbols, etc.)?”
Although the program&#8217;s intent was to take youth from the margins of society and get them on the straight and narrow, over time, the dominant culture of Job Corps campuses became so heavily gang-ridden that, participants told The Daily Wire, it was more likely to turn a good kid bad than the reverse.
The program has been combatting a reputation as a dysfunctional inner city program since soon after its inception. In 1966, the New York Times ran a piece with the<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1966/04/18/archives/job-corps-seeks-racial-balance-acts-to-halt-trend-toward-allnegro.html"> headline</a> “Job Corps Seeks Racial Balance; Acts to Halt Trend Toward All-Negro Enrollment.”
In the 2010s, the Job Corps became a YouTube sensation, where the program&#8217;s “students” would post videos of them viciously fighting each other on their “campuses,” often while other participants stood by cheering.
A <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3GgBICeO5A">CBS investigation</a> from that time period obtained video of a student cutting lines of white powder on a textbook during class. The head of security at a Job Corps facility told CBS he was pressured not to report crimes, because doing so could jeopardize the contractor’s funding. A Job Corps “career adviser” told CBS that 85% of the “job placements” reported by the contractor were fake, existing only to trick Congress about the efficacy of the program, and to get bonuses for staff who hit targets. Another teacher said students wouldn’t show up to class, but were certified as welders anyway, potentially creating safety issues for anyone who hired the person.
An inspector general report found that Job Corps graduates often wound up in fast food jobs that did not require any “training.”
<div id="attachment_900793" style="width: 934px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-900793" class="wp-image-900793 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/jobcorps3.jpg" alt="" width="924" height="560" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/jobcorps3.jpg 924w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/jobcorps3-300x182.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/jobcorps3-768x465.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 924px) 100vw, 924px" />Job Corps fight / Youtube</div>

Job Corps campus

Trump Administration To ‘Pause’ Scandal-Plagued, $2 Billion ‘Job Corps’

Department of Labor

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