Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., was diagnosed with “a severe concussion, a seizure, and a slight brain bleed” after slipping on ice in his backyard and hitting the back of his head, he said in a Facebook post yesterday.

Cramer said that, at the request of his doctors, he will rest in North Dakota before returning to D.C., but he is “ready to return quickly if events require it.” He also posted photos of his head injury and the ice where he slipped.

“I’m happy to be recovering at home,” Cramer wrote in the Facebook post. “The head still hurts a bit, but I sleep a lot. Thank you to all of the folks praying for a full recovery. God is good!”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wouldn't name DOGE's administrator when asked who it is at today’s press briefing.

A government court filing earlier this month said Elon Musk was "not an employee of the U.S. DOGE Service or U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization." Instead, the filing identified Musk as a senior adviser to the president.

"The president tasked Elon Musk to oversee the DOGE effort," Leavitt said. "There are career officials and there are political appointees who are helping run DOGE on a day-to-day basis."

Leavitt did not respond to an immediate follow-up question about whether Musk was the administrator, but she was asked about the identity of the administrator again later in the briefing.

The White House said Elon Musk will participate in Trump’s first Cabinet meeting tomorrow, joining agency heads and leaders to discuss DOGE's efforts.

"Elon, considering he is working alongside the president and our Cabinet secretaries in this entire administration, will be in attendance tomorrow just to talk about DOGE's efforts and how all of the Cabinet secretaries are identifying waste, fraud and abuse at their respective agencies," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters during a press briefing.

Musk is serving in the Trump administration as a “special government employee,” launched on a cost-cutting mission across the federal government while overseeing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

The White House is attributing a large bruise on the back of Trump’s right hand to him shaking hands.

The bruise was visible during Trump’s visit with French President Emmanuel Macron at the White House on Monday.

“President Trump is a man of the people,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, adding, “His commitment is unwavering and he proves that every single day.”

“President Trump has bruises on his hand because he’s constantly working and shaking hands all day every day,” Leavitt added in a follow-up statement.

Trump has had visible bruising or redness on his right hand on at least two other occasions, in August and November of last year, according to NBC News observations and wire service photos.

Read the full story here.

The president of the American Federation of Government Employees said he thinks Congress is not paying enough attention to federal workers’ concerns over the Department of Government Efficiency, urging lawmakers to “stand up.”

“It’s inhuman, it’s un-American to treat these federal employees the way that they’re being treated when they are patriotic employees wanting to provide the services for the American people,” the union head, Everett Kelley, said in an interview on MSNBC.

Kelley said he spoke to one federal employee yesterday who is pregnant but lost her insurance after being fired.

“These people are crying to us, and people need to feel that these are real human beings,” Kelley said. “The phone needs to ring off the hook. And I encourage every not just federal employee, but every American, to stand up with work in America to make sure that the democracy of this country stays intact.”

A central Massachusetts town administrator has been fired after he butted heads with the longtime police chief over a “Trump 2024” flag that had been flying inside the police station.

James Ryan, who was hired as the West Boylston town administrator in January, spotted the flag in the gym while touring the station and asked Police Chief Dennis Minnich to take it down, the local NBC News affiliate reported.

Minnich, who has worked in the town for decades, said he did and was unaware that some of his officers had replaced that flag with another until he learned that Ryan had sent over a town worker to make sure the first Trump flag was gone.

Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., said today that Republicans need to work on their messaging on the Department of Government Efficiency, which comes after people in his district lashed out at him last week over the mass terminations of federal workers by the Elon Musk-run effort.

“I’m all for trimming the government, but I am all for also doing it in a deliberate manner that allows people to adjust in their lifestyle,” McCormick told reporters on Capitol Hill when asked about the confrontation at his town hall.

When asked if DOGE needs to be more compassionate, McCormick noted that Musk had applauded Republicans a few years ago for coming across as “more compassionate,” but added there was a risk of losing that.

“We have a message that we’re for the little person ... getting out of the way of innovation, getting out of the way of holding your businesses back, getting out of the way of taxing you and overburdening you but, but then to lose that message just with one — one attitude," he said. "And if nothing else, we have to be careful how we message this so it doesn’t come across as discompassionate.”

Speaker Mike Johnson said today that he is plowing forward this week with a vote on House Republicans’ multitrillion-dollar budget blueprint, a crucial test for Trump’s legislative agenda.

Wary moderate Republicans appeared to be moving toward supporting the budget resolution after receiving some assurances from Johnson about Medicaid in a future package. But a band of unruly conservatives is threatening to tank the vote.

At least four GOP rabble-rousers — Reps. Victoria Spartz of Indiana, Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Warren Davidson of Ohio and Thomas Massie of Kentucky — emerged from a closed-door meeting of House Republicans this morning and said they would vote against the budget plan over concerns it doesn’t cut spending enough.

Read the full story here.

Gene Dodaro, comptroller general of the Government Accountability Office, is on Capitol Hill today to present his agency’s report on areas of government ripe for improvement and at high risk of waste, fraud and abuse — a more traditional perspective on a hot issue in the era of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. 

The updated report will cite $84 billion in savings over the last two years as Congress and the executive branch followed hundreds of GAO recommendations as to how billions more could be saved.  

DOGE has been firing off tweets about purported savings, cutting staff indiscriminately throughout the government and claiming inflated savings of $65 billion found over the last month, and Musk and his allies have been portraying the new effort as if no one in government is hunting for waste or ways things can be done more efficiently. 

But the GAO is the government’s long-established chief watchdog, with a team of more than 3,000 auditors and government analysts that regularly pumps out reports aimed at making the government run better and finding real risk of fraud and abuse.  

Read the full story here.