Nine states allow food stamps to be spent in restaurants, and two more are in the process of allowing it. The fact that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is buying taxpayer-funded meals at establishments like McDonald&#8217;s has triggered one Republican senator to introduce a bill to stop it.
More than half a billion dollars in taxpayer money went to paying for the indigent to dine out through the Restaurant Meals Program between June 2023 and May 2025, a new investigation by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) found.
&#8220;While franchises like McDonald’s are making McMillions off of SNAP RMP, allowing fast food to be purchased with food stamps is an idea that is a few fries short of a Happy Meal,&#8221; she wrote. &#8220;The &#8216;N&#8217; in SNAP stands for &#8216;Nutrition,&#8217; and we all know fast food isn’t exactly nutritious,&#8221; she continued, alongside photos of Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and KFC locations advertising that they accept government benefit cards.
&#8220;McSCUSE ME?&#8221; Ernst <a href="https://x.com/SenJoniErnst/status/1991604757841203254">added on X</a>. &#8220;The amount of SNAP being spent at fast food should be $0 not McMillions.&#8221;
The Federal Agriculture Department, which funds the food stamp program, <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/retailer/restaurant-meals-program" target="_blank" rel="noopener">allows</a> states to optionally allow food stamp recipients to spend their money at restaurants if they are 60 years or older, disabled, the spouse of such a person, or homeless.
Ernst has introduced the &#8220;McStopping Chains from Using SNAP EBT to Make Entrees Act,&#8221; or the <a href="https://www.ernst.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/mcscuse_me_act.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">McSCUSE ME Act</a>, that would allow the elderly or disabled to get hot, prepared meals from deli counters and hot bars of grocery stores, but not from fast food chains. It would also remove spouses of qualified people from eligibility.
The SNAP program was already under scrutiny for allowing the indigent to purchase nearly anything edible, such as candy and soda, even as poor people are more likely to be obese than starving, leading to expensive medical care that is also paid for by taxpayers. Nearly 5,000 stores with words related to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/food-stamps-accepted-at-thousands-of-liquor-and-tobacco-stores-contributing-to-healthcare-fiasco" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“liquor” or “tobacco”</a> in their names accept food stamps, a Daily Wire review of government data found.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1006147" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Unknown.png" alt="" width="837" height="610" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Unknown.png 837w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Unknown-300x219.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Unknown-790x576.png 790w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Unknown-768x560.png 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 837px) 100vw, 837px" /></div>
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In the last year, conservative states have initiated bans on the purchase of soda — a move that states like New York have also pursued over the years, only to be blocked by the federal government, which must issue a waiver. Yet liberal states are moving in the opposite direction, with some newly adding fast food to the menu.
Oregon is running a <a href="https://www.oregon.gov/odhs/agency/pages/ssp-rmp.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&#8220;SNAP Restaurant Meals Program&#8221;</a> pilot based on a bill its legislature passed in 2024. It will apply to anyone 60 or older or who has a disability, as well as the homeless. <a href="https://www.dhs.state.il.us/page.aspx?item=136655" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Illinois</a> is piloting a restaurant meals program with the same criteria, except that it also extends eligibility to the spouses of people who are disabled or over 60. Restaurants must sign up with the state to accept food stamps.
Other states allowing food stamps at restaurants are Arizona, California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia, though the vast majority of the spending is in California.
The move to curtail free soda was met with a lobbying campaign by lobbying groups representing soda and candy manufacturers, who rake in billions of dollars from the program. Ernst&#8217;s bill could be met by a similar move from fast food chains.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/more-maha-wins-12-states-cutting-soda-candy-from-food-stamps" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Twelve</a> conservative states have announced plans to ban taxpayer-funded soda, while Kansas&#8217;s Democrat governor <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/kansas-governor-laura-kelly-flip-flops-on-snap-soda-ban-vetoes-bill" target="_blank" rel="noopener">vetoed</a> a bill passed by the state legislature to do so.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/why-can-food-stamps-buy-junk-food-how-doge-could-save-billions-and-maha" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Why Can Food Stamps Buy Junk Food? How DOGE Could Save Billions And MAHA</a>

The Hamburglar

‘McSCUSE ME?’: 11 States Allow ‘Nutritional’ Food Stamps To Be Spent At Fast Food Restaurants

Food Stamps

Joni Ernst

McDonald’s

Welfare

A looming House vote on the Epstein files launches a political knife fight on the Right, a bipartisan cohort of Congressmen call out Chinese tech on American military bases, and the Trump administration brings its immigration blitz to North Carolina.
It’s Monday, November 17, 2025, and this is the news you need to know to start your day. Today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below, and the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mrn-251117-member-exclusive">video version can be seen on The Daily Wire</a>:
<iframe style="width: 100%; max-width: 660px; overflow: hidden; border-radius: 10px;" src="https://embed.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/epstein-files-fallout-chinas-intel-tentacles-11-17-25/id1576594336?i=1000737065752" height="175" frameborder="0" sandbox="allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation"></iframe>
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Trump Rips Greene</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1001441" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Trump-Greene-and-Epstein-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Trump-Greene-and-Epstein-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Trump-Greene-and-Epstein-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Trump-Greene-and-Epstein-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Trump-Greene-and-Epstein-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Trump-Greene-and-Epstein.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: President Donald Trump dramatically withdrew his backing of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) over the weekend amid a national debate over the Epstein files.
A few years ago, Greene was considered one of the president&#8217;s closest allies in Congress, including during the Biden era. Over the past few weeks, Greene has broken prominently with the president on some policies, including how best to handle healthcare and foreign policy. 
Last week appeared to be the final straw for the president, when he referred to the Georgia congresswoman as Marjorie “Traitor” Greene. Trump essentially said Greene was acting out of line because of her desire to run for the U.S. Senate or Georgia governor.
“I understand that wonderful, Conservative people are thinking about primarying Marjorie in her District of Georgia, that they too are fed up with her and her antics and, if the right person runs, they will have my Complete and Unyielding Support,” Trump said in a social media <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115551127714537339">post</a>. “She has gone Far Left, even doing The View, with their Low IQ Republican hating Anchors. Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Greene media blitz: Greene has appeared on the Left-leaning talk show The View and has given interviews to CNN and other outlets, where she has criticized the administration and other Republicans.
In a Sunday morning appearance on CNN, Greene <a href="https://x.com/CNNSOTU/status/1990068687055851867">apologized</a> for “taking part in toxic politics” when asked why she never spoke out against Trump’s rhetorical style for attacking people until those attacks were directed at her.
Epstein files: Greene has pointed to the administration’s handling of the Epstein files as one of the main reasons that she and the president seem to have had a falling out. Notably, the president has disagreed with this assessment, citing policy differences.
The Epstein files are under debate in Congress right now, as a petition signed by Greene, a few other Republicans, and House Democrats seeks to force a vote on Tuesday to release more evidence. The bill is expected to pass, potentially with more GOP votes than signed on to the petition to get the vote.
For some time, Trump has called the Epstein files a “hoax” and said the supposed files have been weaponized by the Democrats to distract from his agenda. But on Sunday night, Trump reversed course and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/16/us/politics/trump-epstein-files-release-vote.html">called on</a> House Republicans to back the bill that would compel the DOJ to release the files. 
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Chinese Espionage</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1001443" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/The-Enemy-Within-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/The-Enemy-Within-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/The-Enemy-Within-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/The-Enemy-Within-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/The-Enemy-Within-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/The-Enemy-Within.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: U.S. lawmakers in both parties are ramping up warnings of Chinese spying efforts on U.S. military bases and personnel. 
In recent years, Chinese companies were found to have gobbled up farmland near roughly 20 military installations nationwide, prompting warnings from the Pentagon that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could use that land to film weapons and troop movements, intercept communications, and hack into software.
Congress recently passed new laws requiring federal approval for foreign land purchases within 100 miles of most military sites. But it appears Beijing is circumventing those laws and continuing to purchase land.
Whiteman under watch? In the last few days, the Daily Caller <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2025/11/10/exclusive-us-nuclear-bomber-fleet-shares-fence-trailer-park-linked-chinese-intel-miles-guo/">reported</a> on a trailer park in Missouri that’s owned by a married couple living in Canada with ties to a Chinese business tycoon. That trailer park directly borders Whiteman Air Force Base, home to the U.S. military’s only nuclear-capable stealth bomber fleet. The land shares a fence with the base and sits just a mile from the runway, offering unobscured views of stealth bombers taking off and landing.
The Canadian couple are Chinese immigrants with direct business ties to Miles Guo, a “disgraced Chinese tycoon and self-described former CCP intelligence affiliate.”
As one former CIA operations officer said, “This trailer park would hypothetically give Xi Jinping a range of options to wreak havoc.” According to Rep. Mark Alford (R-MO), the commander of this base had <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2025/11/11/former-military-base-commander-allegedly-knew-nothing-of-nearby-trailer-park-linked-to-ccp/">no idea</a> his next-door neighbors were potential Chinese spies. 
Chinese spy tech: Last week, 23 lawmakers from both parties, led by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), sent a letter to the White House urging an investigation into TP-Link, a major online retailer that sells Wi-Fi routers, home security cameras, baby monitors, etc.
Ernst says those devices are easily accessed by the CCP and, most concerning, “are sold through the Army, Air Force, and Navy Exchanges, placing these devices in proximity to U.S. military installations and providing a vehicle for Beijing to spy on America.”
TP-Link strongly denies any wrongdoing, saying its data for American users is housed on the Amazon cloud in Virginia, and that “TP-Link does not enable foreign surveillance of U.S. networks or users.”
Lawmakers say even if Chinese businesses aren’t intentionally taking part in espionage against the United States, they can often be used for those purposes by the CCP. Beijing passed new laws in recent years that require “any organization or citizen [to] support, assist and cooperate with state intelligence work.”
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Operation Charlotte’s Web</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1001445" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Operation-Charlottes-Web-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Operation-Charlottes-Web-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Operation-Charlottes-Web-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Operation-Charlottes-Web-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Operation-Charlottes-Web-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Operation-Charlottes-Web.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: Federal immigration agents flooded Charlotte, North Carolina, over the weekend in the next major operation under President Trump’s immigration enforcement surge.
Charlotte’s Web: Immigration officials from ICE and the Border Patrol launched Operation Charlotte’s Web over the weekend, continuing Trump&#8217;s immigration crackdown across major American cities. According to administration officials, immigration operations continue to focus on dangerous illegal aliens. Quite a few non-violent aliens tend to be swept up in immigration raids, as well. 
Democrat backlash: This operation has caused predictable backlash among local Democratic politicians and activists.
“We have a little man sitting in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, who really believes that Hitler was the greatest man ever on earth,” <a href="https://grabien.com/story?id=556130">said</a> Corine Mack, the president of the Charlotte chapter of the NAACP. “He&#8217;s trying to create a 1940 Germany right here in the United States. And like then, many people said, &#8216;Well, it’s them, not me.&#8217; Until it eventually was them. We can no longer be silent.”
Catholic bishops join resistance: The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops waded into the immigration debate, slamming President Trump’s enforcement policies. 
“We are disturbed when we see among our people a climate of fear and anxiety around questions of profiling and immigration enforcement,” the bishops <a href="https://x.com/ArchbishpSample/status/1989041086808133664">said</a> in a video statement. “We are saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants. We are concerned about the conditions in detention centers and the lack of access to pastoral care.”
The bishops’ message drew pushback from border czar Tom Homan.
“Secure border saves lives and, you know, one of the reasons no one talks about why we have the most secure border in the history of this nation. [It’s] because of exactly what ICE is doing,” <a href="https://x.com/cspan/status/1989387853697265891">said</a> Homan on Friday. “I&#8217;ll say it as a Catholic, I think they need to spend time fixing the Catholic Church, in my opinion.”

MRN_251117_V1

Morning Brief: Trump Dumps Former Ally, China’s Intel Tentacles, & Operation Charlotte’s Web

Morning Brief: Trump Rips MTG, Chinese Spying In America, And Operation Charlotte’s Web

Border Patrol

China

Donald Trump

Immigration

Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Marjorie Taylor Greene

Media

Mike Johnson

Morning Wire

North Carolina

Politics

United States

For decades, a portion of all federal contracts has been &#8220;set aside&#8221; for minority- and women-owned businesses, which can be awarded millions of dollars with little or no competition.
The 8(a) program, operated by the Small Business Administration, is meant to help &#8220;socially and economically disadvantaged businesses.&#8221; But in practice, the program has led to open corruption and the waste of hundreds of billions of dollars, with &#8220;disadvantaged&#8221; firms often simply &#8220;partnering&#8221; with a non-minority firm that owns 49% of the company, but does much of the work.
Take ATI Government Solutions, a firm that claimed Native American ownership to get 8(a) status. Its website focuses on its &#8220;Tribal Advantage: <a href="https://atisolutions.us/tribal-advantage/">Procurement Advantages</a> for Government and Industry by Partnering with ATI,&#8221; even though all the executives listed on its <a href="https://atisolutions.us/team/">leadership page</a> appear to be white.
Last month, <a href="https://x.com/JamesOKeefeIII/status/1981042870460252398" target="_blank" rel="noopener">O’Keefe Media Group</a> published an undercover video in which Anish Abraham, senior director at ATI Government Solutions, acknowledged that his company was a “pass-through” that got a $100 million contract, kept $65 million, and paid another firm $45 million to do the work.
Melayne Cromwell, a black woman who previously worked as director of contracts at ATI, was also captured saying the firm only does 20% of the work. “A lot of our subcontractors bid on contracts that were perfect in their industry, but because they weren’t Native American, they wouldn’t win it, so we bid on it for them, and they became our subcontractor,” she said.
Now, top officials say set-aside contracting, a mainstay of the Washington swamp, could be changing for good.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), the chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business, wrote to SBA&#8217;s inspector general October 30, saying &#8220;over the years an egregious pattern has emerged where a special subset of 8(a) participants, the &#8216;Super 8(a)’s,&#8217; may be taking undue advantage of their ability to obtain sole-source awards in unlimited amounts.&#8221;
&#8220;I request the SBA OIG immediately investigate ATI, its Super 8(a) parent entity Susanville Indian Rancheria, and its network of 8(a) subsidiaries,&#8221; she wrote in a letter obtained by The Daily Wire.
On Saturday, SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler said that &#8220;As part of our ongoing investigation into ATI Government Solutions, SBA has uncovered and now suspended a network of SEVEN additional companies connected to its CEO Firmadge Crutchfield.&#8221;
&#8220;Their names have been provided to law enforcement. Thank you to every federal agency that has joined us in the effort to crack down on fraud in the 8(a) Program for &#8216;socially and economically disadvantaged&#8217; small businesses.&#8221;
Ernst told The Daily Wire &#8220;I will not rest until every last fraudster is held accountable and the program is reformed. Administrator Loeffler has done a tremendous job and I am confident that she will ensure that exploitation of the SBA’s small business programs is no longer excused or overlooked.”
Ernst said in her letter that the Biden administration &#8220;tripled the 8(a) contracting goals from 5 percent to 15 percent,&#8221; but when she requested reports that are required to be filed with the SBA by certain minority-contracting firms to monitor for fraud, she found that &#8220;Biden’s SBA failed to track and retain them.&#8221;
&#8220;It is obvious that the Biden Administration’s indifference toward meaningful oversight in the 8(a) program allowed swindlers and fraudsters to treat federal contracting programs like personal piggy banks&#8230; Small business contracting programs were never intended to function as welfare systems for favored classes or give no-bid contracts to do-nothing companies,&#8221; she wrote.
&#8220;Penalties against rulebreakers have not been swiftly and resolutely imposed. Deterrence has completely failed&#8230; This stops now,&#8221; she continued.
She requested &#8220;All documents and communications related to any disciplinary or corrective actions SBA has taken on 8(a) firms over the last 5 years, including suspensions, disbarments, and removals from the 8(a) Program initiated by the SBA,&#8221; and asked:
<ul class="ul-list" data-mark="*">
<li class="md-list-item">When would a contractor be suspected of violating the limitations on subcontracting?</li>
</ul>
<ul class="ul-list" data-mark="*">
<li class="md-list-item">What is the specific process that occurs when a prime contractor is suspected of having violated the limitations on subcontracting, up to and including resolution?</li>
</ul>
<ul class="ul-list" data-mark="*">
<li class="md-list-item">Have any contractors been found to have violated the limitations on subcontracting over the last 5 years?</li>
</ul>
Ernst also wrote to the SBA&#8217;s Inspector General, who has found abuse of minority contracting programs for decades.
She said there is little reason to believe anyone is actually tracking whether the minority-owned company actually does at least half of the work, as required, rather than having their &#8220;partner&#8221; or subcontractors do it.
&#8220;While this requirement is designed to restrict small businesses from acting as pass-through companies for ineligible firms, in practice, weak enforcement of this rule leaves the door open for abuse,&#8221; she wrote. &#8220;In the coming days and months, I expect to see significant 8(a)-related accountability actions and investigations initiated.&#8221;
In June, Walter Barnes III, the founder of contractor Vistant (previously known as PM Consulting Group, or PMCG), pleaded guilty to paying bribes in exchange for <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/usaid-800m-migration-feds-bribes" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$544 million</a> in USAID contracts. The court documents established that Barnes&#8217; firm got contracts through being a black-owned firm; then, when it earned so many millions of dollars that it &#8220;graduated&#8221; from the 8(a) program, it would enter into 49%-51% &#8220;partnerships&#8221; with other firms that still had disadvantaged status. A USAID contracting official was able to ensure that contracts went to the people who paid him bribes because his minority status gave him the power to &#8220;sole-source&#8221; awards, instead of being obligated to give it to the lowest-price firm.
This year, the Justice Department stated that Vistant, as a corporation, was guilty, but granted it a deferred prosecution agreement. Despite more than a half-billion dollars going to a firm that was involved in massive fraud, the company is still eligible for contracts, and the government has continued to send it work through partnerships with &#8220;disadvantaged&#8221; firms.
The Daily Wire reported in June that the government allowed Vistant to tap into potential contracts amounting to as much as $800 million through a partnership with CollaborateUp, a &#8220;small business&#8221; <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/usaid-800m-migration-feds-bribes">operating out of a house</a>.

SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler and Senate Small Business Chair Joni Ernst

Feds Crack Down On Minority Contracting Schemes, D.C.’s Worst-Kept Secret

Fraud

Kelly Loeffler

Small Business Administration

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Republican Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa has told confidants she will not run for re-election next year, CBS News reported, which could complicate her party&#8217;s efforts to retain control of the chamber.
Ernst&#8217;s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ernst, 55, was first elected to the Senate in 2014. Before that she served as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserves and was deployed to Iraq.
Republicans currently control the Senate by a 53-47 margin and nonpartisan analysts say they are favored to retain control of the chamber in next year&#8217;s midterm elections at this point.
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_campaign=summer&amp;utm_content=editorialsummersale&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial" target="_blank" rel="noopener">End of Summer Sale – Get 40% off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships</a>
Iowa, once a competitive state in presidential elections, has trended increasingly Republican over the past decade. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates Ernst&#8217;s seat &#8220;Likely Republican,&#8221; making it less competitive than several other Senate races next year.
At least five Democratic candidates have announced they will run for the seat.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Nolan D. McCaskill and Andy Sullivan in Washington; Editing by Mark Porter and Matthew Lewis)

Weekly Senate caucus luncheons on Capitol Hill in Washington

Veteran Republican Senator Will Not Seek Re-Election: Report

Congress

Iowa

A USAID employee in charge of managing contracts for the agency created a fake company to fraudulently secure coronavirus benefits for himself, federal prosecutors said Friday.
“Yusuf Akoll worked as a Senior Procurement Contract Specialist at the U.S. Agency for International Development,” according to a previously unreported <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.280449/gov.uscourts.dcd.280449.2.0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">court document</a>. “From at least in or around March 2021, and continuing through at least in or around August 2021, Akoll [made] materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements…that resulted in Akoll receiving two [Paycheck Protection Program] loans totaling approximately $16,666 that he was not entitled to receive.”
Prosecutors said that in November 2020, Akoll registered a company in Virginia called Naagode Consulting LLC, then applied for a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan under the coronavirus bailout package, claiming he worked at Naagode and the money was necessary to prevent job losses.
Only companies in operation in February 2020 were eligible, so he falsely said it was established in January 2020. To establish a loss of income, he said the company had $40,000 in income in 2019 when it actually had no income, prosecutors said.
Akoll was accused of making false statements in Washington, D.C., federal court via an “information,” which typically signals a plea deal.
The fact that the money was paid out highlights how carelessly the government disbursed massive sums during coronavirus. The claim that the company had $40,000 in revenue in 2019 contradicts his own claim that it didn’t exist until January 2020.
The fact that Small Business Administration officials didn’t check state corporation records and catch the fact that it was actually established in November 2020 — or federal tax returns to verify the $40,000 — indicate that the government wasn’t doing basic database cross-referencing, the kind of thing the Department of Government Efficiency has made its bread and butter.
USAID was shuttered, with its remnants folded into the State Department, amidst concern by Republicans and the Department of Government Efficiency that the money was mismanaged. Akoll was in charge of hundreds of thousands of dollars flowing to foreign countries, where the money could be difficult to monitor, records <a href="https://www.highergov.com/people/yakoll-usaid-dot-gov/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">show</a>.
Coronavirus payments were disbursed with little vetting under a “pay and chase” model, where fraudulent claims would ostensibly be recovered later. But the Biden administration quickly gave up on chasing.
The Biden administration said in 2023 that it <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/sba-wont-even-try-to-collect-on-ppp-loans-that-are-supposed-to-be-paid-back-citing-equity" target="_blank" rel="noopener">would not seek to collect</a> on loans of less than $100,000 that were required to be paid back, citing “equity.” Most of the loans were designed to be forgiven, but those who did not meet the requirements were supposed to repay them.
That’s despite the Small Business Administration’s inspector general saying the move “is not in compliance with applicable criteria,” and that not even attempting to stop people from cheating the government encouraged future fraud.  
Congress nearly let the Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery, which was set up to police fraud in the pandemic bailout, expire in March 2025, which would have quickly closed the book on the government’s largest and most chaotic payment frenzy ever.
Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) said the Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery had only recovered three dollars for every dollar spent on its staff, which should have been higher. <a href="https://www.courtwatch.news/p/court-watch-112-you-re-about-to-lose-577-billion-dollars" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CourtWatch</a>, which advocated for its continuance, said the Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery had meager resources of only a few dozen employees, and that shutting it down could lead to even less recovery. CourtWatch said the Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery had open investigations into $577 million in suspected fraud.
 Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), the head of the Senate DOGE Caucus, fought to keep the inspector general, saying, “I will not allow fraudsters to get away with stealing hundreds of billions of dollars from taxpayers.”
The head of Lexis Nexis Risk Solutions testified to Congress that criminals stole <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/news/witness-at-first-doge-hearing-confronts-lawmakers-with-scale-of-covid-fraud-they-stole-1-trillion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$1 trillion</a> in COVID money, most of which went overseas.

Trump And Musk’s USAID ‘Shut Down’ Threat Opens Door For China

USAID Contracting Officer Charged With Pandemic Bailout Fraud

Coronavirus

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)

USAID

According to Iowa GOP senator Joni Ernst, some federal employees who were forced to go back to work rather than work from home showed up at work only to protest being there.
“We actually had workers that showed up at the office to protest having to come back to work at the office,” she told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo. “So we’re finding all kinds of things with the DOGE work, the SQUEAL work that I have done for ten years, and thank goodness we have President Trump and DOGE, the Office of Government Efficiency, that’s finally cracking down on these types of activities.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
You can’t make this up…
Federal employees showed up to the office — not to work — but to protest returning to work.<a href="https://twitter.com/DOGE?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DOGE</a> and I are fighting to get Washington working for YOU! <a href="https://t.co/qrriphp0Fn">pic.twitter.com/qrriphp0Fn</a>
&mdash; Joni Ernst (@SenJoniErnst) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenJoniErnst/status/1910000000177758594?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&nbsp;
The day President Trump was inaugurated, he issued a presidential <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/return-to-in-person-work/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">memo</a> that stated:
<blockquote>
Heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch of Government shall, as soon as practicable, take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis, provided that the department and agency heads shall make exemptions they deem necessary.
</blockquote>
Last Thursday, Ernst delineated some of the shocking remote-work abuses she had been made aware of, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PelATbSTI8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">telling</a> a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing:
<blockquote>
A Veterans Affairs manager responsible for scheduling veterans appointments posted on social media that he was “phoning it in from a bubble bath” while calls to the VA have gone unanswered. An Army veteran gave up on getting mental healthcare from the VA because after years of trying to get an appointment, he met with a therapist who “spent the appointment singing the praises of remote work with a cat draped around her neck.” He said that it was such a disaster that “now I’m just on my meds doing my best.” A HUD employee was arrested for drunk driving at 3:30 in the afternoon on a Friday and may have been paid for time spent sitting in jail, HUD had no idea until I told them.  For more than three years, a Social Security employee was running a home inspection business. Meanwhile, his mother was responding to his emails.
</blockquote>

Senators Meet For Their Policy Luncheons On Capitol Hill

‘You Can’t Make This Up’: Ernst Says Remote Workers Came Back Only To Protest Returning To Office

Remote Work

The Biden administration reportedly hid a 2022 report from the Defense Department that stated seven military members might have contracted COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, as early as October 2019.
The <a href="https://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/2019-World-Military-Games-Report-1.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">December 2022 report</a> from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness examined “the number of United States athletes and staff who attended the 2019 World Military Games and became ill with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-like symptoms during or shortly after their return to the United States.”
It added, “The Department of Defense (DoD) has concluded through correspondence with the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and United States of America Medical Director in charge of the safety and health of the participants in the 2019 World Military Games, that 7 Service members who attended the games exhibited COVID-19- like signs and/or symptoms during the timeframe of October 18, 2019 through January 21, 2020. The COVID-19-like symptoms could have been caused by other respiratory infections. All 7 Service members&#8217; symptoms resolved within 6 days.”
“The December 2022 report, which the Biden administration was required by law to release to the public over two years ago but didn’t, reveals for the first time that seven U.S. military service members contracted COVID-19-like symptoms during or after their participation in the World Military Games in Wuhan in October 2019—contradicting the Biden administration’s public claims in 2021 that there was no evidence that any American participants contracted the virus at those games,” <a href="https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/biden-administration-concealed-congressionally-mandated-report-on-earliest-suspected-american-covid-cases/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Washington Free Beacon</a>, which broke the story, noted, adding, “The revelation adds to a mounting body of evidence that the virus was circulating in Wuhan for months before China disclosed it to the world in December 2019 and further bolsters the growing consensus that it could have leaked into the human population from a Chinese lab.”
The report was not made public until last month when the Trump administration uploaded it to the Department of Defense website.
“The U.S. team used chartered flights to and from the games via Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Washington was one of the earliest states to show a spike in COVID-19,” The American Prospect<a href="https://prospect.org/coronavirus/did-the-military-world-games-spread-covid-19/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> reported</a> in June 2020.
In May 2020, The Daily Mail <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8327047/More-competitors-reveal-ill-World-Military-Games.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> that athletes from different countries suspected they might have contracted COVID-19 at the 2019 World Military Games. French pentathlete Elodie Clouvel said she and her partner Valentin Belaud contracted COVID-19 at the Games. Italian fencer Matteo Tagliariol claimed everyone in his Wuhan apartment got “symptoms that looked like those of Covid-19.” Jacqueline Bock of the German volleyball team said, “After a few days, some athletes from my team got ill. I got sick in the last two days. I have never felt so sick. Either it was a very bad cold or Covid-19. I think it was Covid-19.”
“Taxpayers deserve to know the truth about COVID-19 origins, but the Biden administration concealed this information from the American people for years,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) told the Free Beacon. “This report should have been made public immediately and not restricted to Washington insiders. If Americans visiting Wuhan were potentially infected with the COVID-19 virus in October 2019, those claiming the pandemic began in a wet market just two months later would be completely off base.”

7th CISM Military World Games

Biden Admin Reportedly Hid Report That Service Members May Have Gotten COVID In Wuhan — In Oct 2019

Athlete

Biden Administration

COVID

COVID-19

World

Wuhan

Wuhan Institute of Virology

The now-shuttered U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) paid Ukrainian models and designers to go to Paris Fashion Week and other frivolous luxuries, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said Wednesday.
Ernst revealed that USAID did not report the expenditures in public databases and tried to block her staff from seeing them, claiming they were classified. In reality, she said, they were not classified, merely embarrassing for how wasteful they were.
Ukraine&#8217;s leader Volodymyr Zelensky has demanded billions from American taxpayers, raising the specter of gruesome deaths and suffering. But &#8220;staff learned that the aid intended to alleviate economic distress in the war-torn nation was spent on such frivolous activities as sending Ukrainian models and designers on junkets to New York City, London Fashion Week, Paris Fashion Week, and South by Southwest in Austin, Texas,&#8221; a memo obtained by The Daily Wire said.
Ukrainian recipients of &#8220;Competitive Economy Program (CEP)&#8221; funds included, the memo said:
• A modern women’s attire company ($150,000) 
• A trade mission for a fashion design house ($128,000) 
• A photographer for fashion design publications ($126,000) 
• A purveyor of contemporary knitwear ($161,000) 
• A luxury bridal brand ($84,000) 
• Marketplace for designer artisanal pieces inspired by folk crafts ($84,000)
Money going to Ukraine also went to a vineyard ($89,000), an &#8220;artisanal fruit tea company&#8221; ($104,000), a &#8220;custom carpet manufacturer&#8221; ($2 million), a confectionary company ($678,000), a dog collar manufacturer, and a designer of upscale furniture.
Ernst said that for years, USIAD had treated her efforts at congressional oversight with open hostility. She <a href="https://www.ernst.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/senator_ernst_letter_to_secretary_rubio.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> to Secretary of State Marco Rubio this month that the agency &#8220;has engaged in a demonstrated pattern of obstructionism&#8221; in which they refused to say how they were spending money. When they begrudgingly let congressional overseers see their finances, bureaucrats watched the investigators and not only barred them from copying the records, but even restricted their note-taking.
Ernst, the chair of the Senate Small Business Committee, said USAID would only allow her staff to review documents &#8220;in a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF) at USAID headquarters. These requirements were all presented to my staff under the false pretense that this data was classified.&#8221;
&#8220;From my staff’s review of the data on USAID assistance to businesses in Ukraine thus far, it seems clear why USAID is trying to withhold information from Congress. Based on the in-camera review, it appears that over 5,000 Ukrainian businesses received U.S. taxpayer funded assistance through the Competitive Economy Program (CEP), Investment for Business Resilience (IBR), Credit for Agricultural Producers (CAP), and Agriculture Growing Rural Opportunities (AGRO) programs with awards of up to $2 million each.&#8221;
She found that USAID was also allowing NGOs to keep more than 25% of grants for themselves, to pay for &#8220;indirect costs&#8221; such as office rent, and that it claimed it would be against the law for it to provide her information necessary to evaluate whether that was appropriate.
Zelensky is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/zelensky-to-visit-white-house-to-sign-new-mineral-deal-with-u-s">set to visit</a> the White House Friday to sign a new mineral deal with the United States.

Ukraine President Zelensky

USAID Secretly Funded Luxuries For Ukrainian Models, Senate Probe Finds

Ukraine

Elon Musk said early Monday morning that he had received President <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/donald-trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump</a>’s approval to eliminate the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
Musk made the comments during a discussion on X with Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) as they talked about the work of what Trump has called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The website for USAID, which spends tens of billions of dollars every year on various programs around the world, appears to have been shut down on Saturday. 
“It became apparent that it&#8217;s not an apple with a worm in it,” Musk said. “What we have is just a ball of worms. You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair.”
Musk said that he discussed USAID, which he referred to as a &#8220;hornet&#8217;s nest,&#8221; with Trump multiple times “in detail and he agreed that we should shut it down,&#8221; saying that none of the reforms he was pushing for “could be done without the full support of the president.”
Musk added that Trump said &#8220;yes&#8221; several times after being asked if he was certain he wanted to shut down USAID. 
“So we’re shutting it down,” Musk said. 
“It is also incredibly politically partisan and has been supporting radical Left causes throughout the world, including things that are anti-American which is insane,” he added. 
In recent years, USAID has pushed programs like &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/usaid-introduces-new-framework-to-promote-comprehensive-sexuality-education-abroad" target="_blank" rel="noopener">comprehensive sexuality education</a>&#8221; abroad and spent nearly $2 billion <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-report-shows-how-much-money-u-s-government-spent-on-promoting-covid-vaccine-abroad" target="_blank" rel="noopener">promoting</a> the COVID vaccine around the world.
Ernst said that any program administered by USAID that may actually benefit America should be moved under the jurisdiction of the State Department. 
During the same discussion, Musk said that the unelected bureaucracy entrenched throughout the federal government was the fourth branch of government, and the most powerful.
After the discussion with Ernst, Musk made several posts on X continuing to attack USAID.
“We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper. Could [have] gone to some great parties. Did that instead,” Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886307316804263979">said</a>.
In another post, Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886102414194835755">said</a> the agency was a “criminal organization” and that it was “time for it to die.”    
Trump told reporters Sunday night that his administration was working on getting political radicals out of the organization. 
“It’s been run by a bunch of radical lunatics. And we’re getting them out,” he said. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
President Donald Trump: “It has been run by a bunch of radical lunatics and we&#8217;re getting them out… USAID, run by radical lunatics&#8230; and then we&#8217;ll make a decision”
<a href="https://t.co/jppmfxAOp9">pic.twitter.com/jppmfxAOp9</a>
— America (@america) <a href="https://twitter.com/america/status/1886212598036598900?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 3, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
USAID workers <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/02/usaid-trump-musk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">were told</a> Monday to work from home unless their job required them to be at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. 
“Agency personnel normally assigned to work at USAID headquarters will work remotely … with the exception of personnel with essential on-site and building maintenance functions individually contacted by senior leadership,” an email to staff read. 
The email came after two top security officials were reportedly placed on leave after they refused to cooperate with DOGE over the weekend.

Donald Trump Watches SpaceX Launch Its Sixth Test Flight Of Starship Spacecraft

‘Beyond Repair’: Musk Says Trump Has Given The Go-Ahead To ‘Get Rid Of’ USAID

Elon Musk

Executive

General

State Department

Sen. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/joni-ernst" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Joni Ernst</a> (R-IA) said Tuesday evening that she has decided to vote to confirm Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense following his confirmation hearing earlier in the day.
Ernst made the remarks during an interview with Simon Conway on NEWSRADIO 1040 WHO.
&#8220;He was adequately able to answer all of my questions, he pointed out the woke issues at the Pentagon, and I think we are [at] a point where now we can start moving forward,&#8221; Ernst said. &#8220;People know where he stands on these issues, so I felt it was a good hearing.&#8221;
When asked if she would now vote to confirm Hegseth, Ernst responded: &#8220;Yes, I will be supporting President Trump&#8217;s pick for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.&#8221;
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/">JOIN THE MOVEMENT IN ’25 WITH 25% OFF DAILYWIRE+ ANNUAL MEMBERSHIPS WITH CODE DW25</a>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
BREAKING: Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) announces that she is now voting to confirm Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense. <a href="https://t.co/wHsI4YVnNI">pic.twitter.com/wHsI4YVnNI</a>
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1879310328540139565?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 14, 2025</a></blockquote>
Ernst was the main hurdle that Hegseth faced on the road to being confirmed as he first had to get voted out of the Senate Armed Services Committee before the full Senate could vote on whether to confirm him. 
Hegseth has faced scrutiny after a past misconduct, some of which he has owned up to while he has vigorously denied allegations made in anonymously sourced reports.

Screen Shot 2022-07-14 at 10.39.30 AM

Joni Ernst Announces She Will Now Vote To Confirm Pete Hegseth

Department of Defense

Pete Hegseth

Republicans will head into 2025 with the White House, control of both the U.S. House and Senate, and big expectations from voters to do something with it. Influential conservative activist Charlie Kirk says the party should make lawmakers that get in the way of the Trump agenda pay the price, but warned that the base will have to carefully pick its spots.
Kirk, 31, sat down with The Daily Wire at Turning Point USA’s America Fest in Phoenix, Arizona where he candidly broke down which Republicans are on his primary list. The Turning Point USA founder is a staunch Trump supporter who often speaks with the president-elect, and he is one of the top high profile conservative voices arguing that Republicans owe it to the American people to fall in line with Trump&#8217;s agenda.
&#8220;I find it very perplexing that Joe Biden gets all of his nominees and Republicans are happy to vote for many of them,&#8221; he told The Daily Wire. &#8220;Some Republicans give a harder time to Donald Trump&#8217;s nominees than Joe Biden&#8217;s nominees. There are Republicans that voted for Merrick Garland. There are Republicans that voted for [Alejandro] Mayorkas. There&#8217;s Republicans that voted for Lloyd Austin. No questions. And yet when it comes to Donald Trump&#8217;s nominees, it&#8217;s like the most challenging thing.&#8221;
Kirk said he has an exact &#8220;criteria&#8221; for Republicans that should be challenged through a primary in a way that won&#8217;t be &#8220;reckless or irresponsible&#8221; for the party.
&#8220;We&#8217;re gonna find Republican senators that have the following criteria. Number one, they&#8217;re in deep, deep, deep red states. So if we were to replace them, there will not be a general election issue, right? So we don&#8217;t want to try to go after someone like Thom Tillis, who I&#8217;m not a huge fan of, who might be in a razor thin race in North Carolina which would lose us a senate seat.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/charliekirk11?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@charliekirk11</a> says he has a criteria for which Republicans should face a serious primary challenge.
1) They represent a &#8220;deep, deep red state&#8221; 
2) A pattern of not listening to voters on core issues 
3) They don&#8217;t support Trump&#8217;s cabinet nominees <a href="https://t.co/IRXDBua9bM">pic.twitter.com/IRXDBua9bM</a>
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDailyWire/status/1873774698066248154?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 30, 2024</a></blockquote>
&#8220;Number two, we&#8217;re gonna find people that have a repeated pattern of not listening to the will of their voters on very core issues that matter to them, border, immigration, foreign aid, size and scope of government, and then of course, whether or not they voted for Trump&#8217;s impeachment and also Trump&#8217;s cabinet,&#8221; Kirk continued. &#8220;And the final thing is this: we want to try to create, not a lesson, but I guess that&#8217;s one way to say it, where senators get out of line, they will be removed.&#8221; 
One senator on his list is Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who was first elected in 2014.
&#8220;He voted for the impeachment of Donald Trump,&#8221; said Kirk. &#8220;People don&#8217;t remember that. Bill Cassidy voted for the impeachment of Donald Trump. He&#8217;s trying to play like he&#8217;s some sort of, you know, friend of Donald Trump now. He&#8217;s got to go. He has routinely been the biggest supporter of sending money to Ukraine despite our border being wide open, which is not popular with the voters of Louisiana. So he&#8217;s on the top of the list.&#8221; 
Cassidy, who has met with a number of Trump nominees in recent weeks, including <a href="https://x.com/petehegseth/status/1866988332292747431?s=46">Pete Hegseth</a> and <a href="https://x.com/kash_patel/status/1869834089961754716?s=46">Kash Patel</a>, met with Trump in June 2024 and <a href="https://www.cassidy.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/cassidy-releases-statement-following-meeting-with-president-trump/">issued a statement at the time</a> promising to work with Trump if he became the next president. In a a Saturday statement to The Daily Wire, a spokesman for the senator said, &#8220;Senator Cassidy continues to work for the state of Louisiana and for the United States. He looks forward to working with President Trump so that our country does great again over the next four years. This is what Louisiana voters care about.”
But not all the senators that have found themselves on the other side of the conservative base meet Krik&#8217;s criteria. Kirk and others are unhappy with Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa for her recent behavior towards Trump nominee Pete Hegseth, but she doesn&#8217;t fully meet their criteria for the primary list, particularly since she&#8217;s going to be in a competitive race.
&#8220;And here&#8217;s how it would work,&#8221; he noted, &#8220;if we were to remove Joni Ernst, the National Republican Senate groups would be like, &#8216;Oh, your fault.&#8217; They would rather make an example out of us try to make an example out of Joni Ernst. So we&#8217;re trying to be wiser than that.&#8221; 
<div id="attachment_850599" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/charlie-kirk-has-thoughts-on-which-republicans-need-a-primary-challenge/conservatives-gather-in-phoenix-for-annual-americafest-5" rel="attachment wp-att-850599"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-850599" class="wp-image-850599 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-2190485533-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-2190485533-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-2190485533-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-2190485533-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" /></a>PHOENIX, ARIZONA &#8211; DECEMBER 22: Turning Point USA executive director Charlie Kirk is silhouetted against a large video of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump during Turning Point USA&#8217;s AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center on December 22, 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona.  (Photo by Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)</div>
The Turning Point founder also mentioned Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota, James Risch in Idaho, and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, who is part of leadership.
&#8220;There needs to be consequences when you don&#8217;t listen to the will of the voters,&#8221; Kirk said. &#8220;So we&#8217;ll see how they vote for the cabinet. That will definitely play into this.&#8221;
&#8220;Bill Cassidy, there&#8217;s nothing he can do at this point,&#8221; he added. &#8220;He voted to impeach Donald Trump, of which we believe you need to be retired.&#8221; 
Rounds and Capito did not respond to requests for comment, but a spokesman for Risch told The Daily Wire: “Senator Risch will vote to confirm President Trump’s nominees, just as he did during President Trump’s previous term.”
Questioned on what role he believes Trump will play on all of this, Kirk said he doesn&#8217;t think Trump would actively campaign against incumbents, but that his silence could be just as impactful.
&#8220;I think his silence will be the most powerful thing,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Not endorsing a candidate will end up being an endorsement if that were to happen, because look, he has to still work with the US Senate. He&#8217;s got to get ambassadors through, he&#8217;s got to do stuff. I don&#8217;t imagine him endorsing challengers. Bill Cassidy, he might, I don&#8217;t want to speak for him or for his team, but someone who actually voted to impeach him, I think that would probably reach to a level where he might do something, but probably not.&#8221; 
&#8220;It&#8217;s gonna be primary season sometime soon,&#8221; he added with a grin. 
As for what role Turning Point would play in primary season, Kirk appeared energized and ready to go. He says his organization will play a &#8220;heavy role,&#8221; including drafting the candidates, invigorating the grassroots, raising money for independent expenditures, and ballot chasing. 
&#8220;Republican primaries are different than general elections,&#8221; he explained,  &#8220;Our ask is not something extreme, the Washington insiders are trying to say Turning Point is just trying to cause problems. Well, not really, they&#8217;re the ones that cause the problems for not listening to their voters. If you vote like Ted Cruz or vote like Mike Lee, we think you&#8217;re a hero. You decided to vote a certain way that is against what your voters want.&#8221;
&#8220;We just want a Republican Party that is as conservative as its voters,&#8221; he argued. &#8220;Some people would say, and it sounds good, &#8216;Oh well, Charlie, we just won a huge election. Why are you picking these fights?&#8217; That&#8217;s exactly actually why — because the people gave us a mandate and the senators aren&#8217;t listening to that mandate.&#8221;
&#8220;So it&#8217;s time for some sorting out,&#8221; he concluded.

US-POLITICS-TRUMP

Charlie Kirk Has Thoughts On Which Republicans Need A Primary Challenge

bill Cassidy

Charlie Kirk

James Risch

Republicans

Shelley Moore Capito

U.S. Senate

A top Senate waste-watcher says the Biden administration is in the process of signing more long-term agreements with federal employee unions letting them work from home.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), the chair of the Senate DOGE Caucus, wrote to 24 agencies on Thursday demanding they cease efforts to bind President-Elect Donald Trump’s hands before he takes office in a month.
“I am calling on you to stop all collective bargaining or any other contractual arrangements related to telework for federal employees extending beyond the few weeks remaining in the Biden administration. Giving bureaucrats another four-year vacation from the office is unacceptable. Bureaucrats have had enough gap years—it’s time to get them back to work. Americans are tired of being put on hold by bureaucrats who are phoning it in,” she wrote.
She said a whistleblower told her that the Department of Housing and Urban Development is on the verge of signing a contract that would run through 2029, &#8220;the top four priorities of which are, in order: solidifying telework and remote work privileges, limiting accountability through hamstringing employee performance review processes, maximizing use of taxpayer-funded union time, and lastly, permitting the use of agency facilities for union offices.”
The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) is frantically working to unionize lawyers at the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and Environment and Natural Resources Division, explicitly using the potential of continuing to work from home to gain buy-in, she added.
A union representing hundreds of Bureau of Land Management employees who work at its headquarters are also “scrambling” to sign a deal with the Biden administration, with a union head calling on Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to do a deal before Biden’s term ends.
Ernst cited The Daily Wire’s report highlighting the circumstances behind the Social Security Administration signing a telework deal through 2029, which suggested that it was not a compromise between management and labor, but rather a deal worked out between people who were both sitting on the same side of the table.
Martin O’Malley, the agency head appointed by Joe Biden, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/social-security-head-drank-with-union-members-before-giving-them-telework-through-2029" target="_blank" rel="noopener">partied with the union at a junket in Florida</a>, signed the contract days later, then immediately resigned his post to run for chair of the Democratic National Committee — being owed favors from politically connected unions could help him attain the DNC chair. 
The contract shows that the work-from-home agreement was structured as a settlement resolving years-old allegations of racism, meaning O’Malley could have signed it previously — but chose not to take away his own management prerogative, only those of his successor.
Ernst said other agencies have also recently finalized such deals. On December 3, 2024, the National Park Services (NPS) signed a contract with two unions representing Washington, D.C.-based employees that would also, coincidentally, run through the entirety of the Trump administration. One of the unions said to expect “virtually all NPS positions” to be “eligible for telework,” with no requirement to come in more than once a week.
An American Federation of Government Employees union representing 1,000 employees of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission earlier this year signed an agreement stretching into 2030, with the union highlighting that employees would only need to come to work one day a week. The agency is among those who are also on a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/feds-look-to-hire-up-to-1200-new-dei-bureaucrats-before-trump-takes-office" target="_blank" rel="noopener">last-minute hiring spree</a> loading up the federal agency with DEI employees, searching for a &#8220;recent graduate&#8221; to pay $88,926 as a  “diversity data analyst.”
Ernst said government employee union leaders are ungrateful and insatiable. The union representing employees at the Department of Labor — which is headed by the fiercely pro-union Julie Su — is fighting with Su, saying her request that employees come to work half the time is draconian, engaging in “a fruitless 11-hour mediation session.”
Taxpayers actually pay for employees to do union work,  like advocating for contracts, instead of their actual jobs. For many years, the Office Personnel Management published data about how much money was spent on taxpayer-funded union time, or “official time,” but the Biden administration stopped that transparency practice.
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The latest available figures are from 2019, when agencies spent $135 million paying employees who were actually conducting union work, plus $25 million in office space and other goods.
Ernst said that after repeated inquiries, HUD gave limited, more recent data, showing that it paid employees for between 27,000 and 41,000 hours of union work per year. “Among the HUD employees who did claim [Taxpayer-Funded Union Time], one was paid for sitting in a jail cell, another is running a real estate business in Florida, and a third is supposed to be in Colorado but allegedly routinely goes on paid vacations, including spending a week on the beach in Puerto Rico,” Ernst wrote.
In the letters sent to two dozen agencies, she demanded that they not sign union contracts tying Trump’s hands, that they provide final and draft copies of union agreements, and that they produce data about taxpayer-funded union activity. In a statement, she said, “The entire concept of public service is being perverted by public employee union bosses who forget the obligation of government workers is to serve the American people, not themselves.”
“The one government employee who won’t have to worry about coming back into the office ever again after January 20, 2025, is President Biden. But as for the millions of others on the public dole, they work for taxpayers … and soon, for President Trump, not the president of a labor union,” she said.
Ernst worked with inspectors general to conduct a large-scale investigation that found that federal employees never returned to the office after the COVID pandemic. It found that only 6% of federal employees report to work in person every day, that one-third are still <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/only-6-of-feds-work-from-an-office-full-time-and-some-arent-working-at-all-audit-finds">fully remote</a>, and that the government spends $16 billion a year on office buildings with a 12% occupancy rate. She said some of the employees who are &#8220;working remotely&#8221; aren&#8217;t doing much at all, which she said has contributed to citizens receiving a frustrating lack of services.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/government-unions-top-workers-rights-official-mistreated-employees-probe-finds">Government Union’s Top Workers’ Rights Official Mistreated Employees, Probe Finds</a>

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