Trump Media, Tesla stocks down big this year
Trump Media and Musk's Tesla, which both experienced surges in their share prices leading up to Election Day, are having a rough time in the stock market this year.
Trump Media shares, which trade as DJT, fell more than 7% today, their seventh consecutive losing session. That's their longest negative streak since early September, according to a CNBC analysis. The stock is down about 40% since Trump, who has put his majority stake in a revocable trust, took office last month.
Tesla, meanwhile, fell around 8% today, bringing its losses for the year to about 25% as CEO Musk focuses on the Trump administration's cost-cutting DOGE initiative. The company's market value slipped under $1 trillion.
21 DOGE staffers resign, saying they refuse to ‘compromise core government systems’
Twenty-one civil service employees have resigned en masse from Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, according to a letter posted online and shared with media outlets today.
The letter said they refused to use their technical expertise to “compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services.”
“We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,” wrote the staffers, who joined when the agency was known as the United States Digital Service. “However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments at the United States DOGE Service.”
White House says Amy Gleason is DOGE's acting administrator
The White House confirmed today that Amy Gleason is the acting administrator of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.
Trump administration lawyers couldn’t name her in court yesterday.
Her LinkedIn profile has her listed as the senior adviser at the U.S. Digital Service since January. Musk morphed that agency into DOGE.
Gleason worked at the U.S. Digital Service during Trump's first term and into the first year of the Biden administration, according to her profile.
Democratic lawmaker shouts at VA human resources leader over layoffs
Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., railed against a human resources leader at the Department of Veterans Affairs today for terminating more than 2,000 employees through a termination letter she admitted she did not write.
In a fiery line of questioning, Takano, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, asked Tracey Therit, the VA’s chief human capital officer, if she wrote the memo herself and whether she confirmed that each terminated employee was a poor performer before sending the pink slips.
Therit said at the congressional hearing that she had signed the termination letters but did not write them. She said the termination order came from a directive from the Office of Personnel Management.
When Takano asked if she vetted whether the affected workers had performance issues, Therit said she was “happy to answer” the question later.
“Does it not weigh on your conscience that somebody’s livelihood was terminated and you didn’t do the due diligence to find out whether this memo was, in fact, true?” Takano asked.
When Therit began to repeat her previous response, Takano screamed at her. “Look at the veterans that are sitting behind you, ma'am!” he shouted. “You fired these people!"
The VA fired another 1,400 probationary employees yesterday after dismissing more than 1,000 others earlier this month, it said in a news release. Probationary employees are recent hires or sometimes longtime employees who were recently moved into new positions.
Therit was one of three panelists testifying at a House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs hearing to discuss pending legislation that pertains to veterans.
Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., who chairs the committee, urged lawmakers to keep their questions focused on the bills.
Army veteran feels ‘absolutely betrayed’ after being terminated from USAID
Phil Sussman, an Army veteran who worked for the United States Agency for International Development, said in an interview today that he felt “absolutely betrayed” after receiving a termination letter last night.
“This isn’t a meme. This isn’t a tweet. This is myself and my wife and my three children who don’t know how we’re gonna pay the mortgage next month,” Sussman said. He added that federal employees have “spent their entire lives dedicated to helping others, sacrificing for others.”
Sussman is medically retired from the Army, where he served for 10 years, including in northern Syria. After moving with his wife and three young children to Florida, his home in St. Petersburg was wiped out by Hurricane Helene. He then got a job with USAID’s Middle East Bureau as a desk officer for Syria, working as a liaison between the agency and its partners in the region. He had moved with his family to the D.C. region for the job.
His letter stated that he was terminated “on the basis that it is in the best interest of the United States government.”
“There’s no amount of mental gymnastics that I can do to or that I can imagine anyone can do to justify that,” Sussman said. “This isn’t the way to do it. This isn’t the way to treat people. This isn’t the way to treat Americans.”
Federal judge blocks Trump administration from reinstating funding freeze
A federal judge in Washington today ruled that the Trump administration is barred from reinstating the federal funding freeze put in place by the Office of Management and Budget.
“Many organizations had to resort to desperate measures just to stay operational,” Judge Loren AliKhan wrote in her order. “The pause placed critical programs for children, the elderly, and everyone in between in serious jeopardy. Because the public’s interest in not having trillions of dollars arbitrarily frozen cannot be overstated, Plaintiffs have more than met their burden here.”
“In the simplest terms, the freeze was ill-conceived from the beginning,” the judge wrote. “Defendants either wanted to pause up to $3 trillion in federal spending practically overnight, or they expected each federal agency to review every single one of its grants, loans, and funds for compliance in less than twenty-four hours. The breadth of that command is almost unfathomable.”
In early February, OMB released, then rescinded its order pausing agency grant, loan and other financial assistance programs.
Fired federal workers say lives are 'completely ruined' during group's visit to Capitol Hill
A group of former federal workers went from office to office on the Senate side of Capitol Hill today to request meetings with senators or their staff about the DOGE cuts that have left them jobless.
The group did not meet with any senators, but had brief conversations with staff in their offices or lobby areas. At one point, the former workers were escorted out of the office of Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, after the lobby got too crowded.
“I really loved the work that we were doing, and now I don’t know what to do, and I have cried every day,” Elizabeth Lidden, one of the fired employees, said. “I have a 15-month-old at home, and I’m looking at him and thinking, ‘Well, what’s this country that we’re now living in?’”
Lidden, who worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development, called the termination process “disorganized,” adding that she got two termination letters on the same day.
Marlee Bird, a former USAID contractor, echoed Lidden, describing her own termination as “chaotic” and saying she was in meetings where it was unclear who the leadership was and what her legal rights were.
Another former USAID employee, Karlan Jankowski, said her colleagues have told her they are constantly checking their emails, and that the uncertainty is “creating a real environment of chaos.” Ten workers have been cut from her team, which started out with 35 people, she said.
“There’s no jobs for us here in D.C.,” Bird added. “I don’t know if there are jobs for us, period. A lot of people’s professional lives have just been completely ruined, and I want to know how the senators are going to support us. How are they going to give us resources? How are they going to make sure that people's families are taken care of?”
No charges for woman dragged from Idaho town hall
No charges will be filed against a woman dragged from an Idaho Republican town hall by security guards. The security firm’s license has also been revoked. KHQ’s John Webb reports.
Arizona’s Democratic governor starts state partnership with the Trump administration on immigration
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs signed an executive order today directing state and local law enforcement agencies to partner with Customs and Border Protection to prevent border crimes such as drug and human trafficking, making Hobbs one of the first (if not the first) Democratic governors to partner with the Trump administration on immigration.
Immigration was top of mind for Arizona voters during the most recent presidential election, with about one-fifth of voters saying it was their top issue, according to the NBC News exit poll. Those voters broke near-unanimously for Trump.
Many Democratic governors, including JB Pritzker of Illinois and Kathy Hochul of New York, have bucked the Trump administration’s early efforts to carry out the largest mass deportation operation in American history — a top campaign promise of Trump’s.
But Hobbs is in a unique situation: While other border states lean either solidly Republican or Democratic, Arizona is the only border state considered to be a presidential battleground.
White House press secretary says administration will determine the press pool
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during today's briefing that the administration will now determine which outlets will be in the White House press pool, a smaller group of journalists who share information to a wider group when space is limited.
The White House Correspondents' Association, which operates independently of the White House, currently coordinates pool coverage.
Leavitt said that "legacy outlets" will still be allowed to join the pool, but noted that the administration will be allowing additional outlets to join.
"I am proud to announce that we are going to give the power back to the people who read your papers, who watch your television shows and who listen to your radio stations," she said.
WHCA President Eugene Daniels criticized the administration's move, saying it "tears at the independence of a free press in the United States" and noted that the White House did not previously discuss their announcement with the WHCA.
"Since its founding in 1914, the WHCA has sought to ensure that the reporters, photographers, producers and technicians who actually do the work — 365 days of every year — decide amongst themselves how these rotations are operated, so as to ensure consistent professional standards and fairness in access on behalf of all readers, viewers and listeners," he said in a statement.