Social Security Chief Privately Admits Musk’s DOGE Will Wreck Things

The Department of Government Efficiency’s influence at the Social Security Administration is growing to be too much even for the agency’s Trump-loving acting commissioner, who privately warned that Elon Musk and his team will soon make serious mistakes.

“I am relying on longtime career people to inform my work, but I am receiving decisions that are made without my input. I have to effectuate those decisions,” acting Commissioner Leland Dudek said in a staff meeting Tuesday, The Washington Post reported.

He described Musk’s cronies as “outsiders who are unfamiliar with nuances of SSA programs,” and warned that their aggressive approach could hurt the some 73 million Americans who receive Social Security benefits, according to meeting notes from the Post.

Still, he said Musk’s DOGE minions should be given a chance. “DOGE people are learning, and they will make mistakes, but we have to let them see what is going on at SSA,” he told staff.

Dudek has only been acting commissioner for two weeks, and has been open about his views on the “bureaucratic stagnation, inefficiency, and a lack of meaningful service improvements,” at the SSA. Previously a mid-level staffer, Dudek was rewarded the position because he cooperated with DOGE’s demand for information. Trump’s official nominee to run the SSA, Frank Bisigano, is yet to be confirmed by Congress.

Last month, Dudek announced the SSA was cutting over 7,000 jobs, despite staffing levels already being at a 50-year low. Still, DOGE’s reckless approach is too much for the former data analyst, who told his staff things are “currently operating in a way I have never seen in government before.”

The president has repeatedly promised Social Security will be safeguarded in his government-wide assault on federal agencies, but Musk is clearly on a mission to change the safety-net program. He and his team have reportedly tried to access sensitive information at the SSA, which the billionaire described as “the greatest Ponzi scheme of all time.” Musk has also made numerous fraudulent claims against the agency, including that dead people receive Social Security checks.

U.S. workers are being laid off at levels not seen since the Great Recession in 2009, all thanks to Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

A new report from Challenger, Gray, and Christmas, an international firm that helps laid-off workers find new jobs, said that job losses spiked a whopping 245 percent to 172,017 last month, higher than any month since the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic in July 2020, and the highest in any February since 2009.

The biggest source of lost jobs comes from the federal government, with 62,242 announced cuts from 17 different agencies, according to Challenger. Government layoffs amounted to 62,530 workers in January and February, a staggering 41,311 percent increase over 2024. Challenger’s report said that DOGE was the top reason for job cuts, responsible for 63,583 layoffs of federal employees and contractors.

Fortunately for the Trump administration, federal government layoffs won’t show up in the government’s February monthly jobs report because they took place outside of the survey week. Meanwhile, administration officials are discussing how to fudge the numbers and remove government spending from gross domestic product reports to hide how much DOGE’s government cuts have hurt the economy.

DOGE’s mass purge of federal workers is going to have ripple effects on the economy, especially since more cuts are expected. The newly unemployed will be spending much less, hurting other businesses, particularly in areas with a lot of federal employees, such as the Washington, D.C., metro area.

Trump said during his speech to Congress Tuesday that his economic actions, including ill-advised tariffs, may cause “a little bit of an adjustment period.”

“There’ll be a little disturbance, but we’re OK with that. It won’t be much,” Trump added. We’re all about to find out how little that disturbance will be, and how many Americans will suffer as a result.

Donald Trump plans to revoke the legal status of some 240,000 Ukrainian refugees, Reuters reported Thursday.

A senior Trump official and three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that the Trump administration intended to target Ukrainians welcomed under President Joe Biden’s parole programs, who’d fled their country amid Russia’s invasion.

The move could be expected as soon as April, according to Reuters. U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told Reuters that her agency had no announcements at this time.

In January, Trump signed an executive order terminating “all categorical parole programs that are contrary to the policies of the United States established in my Executive Orders,” including humanitarian parole programs helping migrants fleeing from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

Apparently, plans to place Ukrainian refugees on the fast-track to deportation were in the works before the talks between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy detonated last week, following an explosive meeting in the Oval Office.

During the meeting, Trump and Vice President JD Vance barely let Zelenskiy get a word in, both clearly incensed after the Ukrainian president tried to remind them that Russia didn’t always keep its word about ceasefires.

The U.S. president has since questioned Zelenskiy’s commitment to “peace,” even though he was the one to blow up during the meeting. Zelenskiy has since said the meeting was “regrettable,” and that it was “time to make things right.”

During Trump’s address to Congress Tuesday night, he read a letter from Zelenskiy stating that his country was “ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer. Nobody wants peace more than the Ukrainians.”

Zelenskiy wrote that he was willing to sign an “agreement on minerals and security,” which has become a key feature in negotiations, as Trump hopes to recoup the billions in aid provided to Ukraine by the U.S.

Meanwhile, Trump has demanded absolutely nothing from Russian President Vladimir Putin, the “bad guy” who ordered the deadly and destructive invasion into Ukrainian territory, simply saying that he had received “strong signals” Russia was ready for peace.

But Trump has already started taking his petty revenge against the wartime president for his supposed show of disrespect. On Monday, he suspended military aid to Ukraine, in defiance of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which the U.S. agreed to defend Ukraine’s borders in return for Kyiv’s surrender of nuclear weapons. The White House has also ordered a pause on intelligence sharing with Kyiv.

It’s clear that Trump is interested in making Zelenskiy beg for help, and in return, maybe he’ll see a reward from Russia—or maybe not.

Democratic firebrand Representative Jasmine Crockett went after her Republican colleagues Wednesday for holding a sham hearing about crime in sanctuary cities.

During the hearing before the Republican-led House Oversight Committee, in which four Democratic mayors defended their cities’ immigration polices, the Texas Democrat called out Republicans over their hypocritical focus on so-called migrant crime.

“I know that many of you prepared for today’s hearing by making sure that you got a little bit of information about immigrants and crime in your cities. Let me ask each of the mayors, just yes or no,” Crockett said.

“Have any of you been made aware of any immigrant that has had 34 felony convictions … that has still been able to roam in your cities?” she asked.

Each of the four mayors predictably answered, “No,” or said nothing, and so Crockett continued.

“I’m just curious because we are so concerned about crime, and I know that my Republican colleagues would never want anybody with 34 felony convictions roaming around, because that could be a danger to the community,” she said.

Crockett has been known for stirring the pot among her Republican colleagues, and was one of the Democratic lawmakers to walk out on Trump’s address to Congress on Tuesday night.

The mayors who testified Wednesday were Mike Johnston of Denver, Brandon Johnson of Chicago, Michelle Wu of Boston, and the embattled Eric Adams of New York, who recently agreed to walk back certain measures protecting undocumented immigrants after the Department of Justice moved to drop his public corruption indictment, leading to allegations there had been a quid pro quo agreement. Adams continued to deny those claims Wednesday.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu slammed Republican lawmakers for harming millions of Americans as she defended her city’s immigration policies at a House Oversight Committee hearing on sanctuary cities Wednesday.

In one particular exchange, Republican Representative Paul Gosar pressed Wu on federal immigration laws taking priority over local ones.

“Respectfully, Congressman, you could pass bipartisan legislation, and that would be comprehensive immigration law,” she replied.

“If you wanted to make us safe, pass gun reforms, stop cutting Medicaid, stop cutting cancer research, stop cutting funds for veterans. That is what will make our city safe,” she added as Gosar rolled his eyes.

She praised her city’s health care, low crime rates, higher education, and winning sports teams.

“We are the cradle of democracy and the city of champions. We are all of these things, not in spite of our immigrants but because of them,” Wu said.

The Boston mayor testified alongside the Democratic mayors of New York City, Denver, and Chicago, all of which are sanctuary cities, or jurisdictions with policies that limit information sharing with federal law enforcement to protect undocumented immigrants from deportation or prosecution. There are more than 600 sanctuary jurisdictions nationwide.

James Comer, the chair of the House Oversight Committee, and other Republicans, accused each city of putting its residents at risk and failing to comply with Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan. Comer is currently leading an investigation into sanctuary cities and their impact on federal immigration enforcement.

“Sanctuary cities make us all less safe and are a public safety nightmare,” Comer said at the hearing. “We cannot let pro-criminal alien policies of obstructionist sanctuary cities continue to endanger American communities and the safety of federal immigration enforcement officers.”

The attack on sanctuary jurisdictions is part of Trump’s larger war on immigration. On his first day in office, the president signed an executive order that included a directive to end federal funding to sanctuary jurisdictions. The order also threatens criminal investigation of any local official who does not assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

Despite clear hostility from Republican lawmakers at the hearing, the Democratic mayors did not back down.

“We know there are myths about these laws. But we must not let mischaracterizations and fearmongering obscure the reality that Chicago’s crime rates are trending down,” said Brandon Johnson, the mayor of Chicago.

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston added that Denver’s crime rates went down when the city’s immigration population increased.

And, as Wu pointed out, much of the danger to Americans right now is coming from Republicans themselves, not the people they’re trying to deport.

“This federal administration is making hardworking, tax-paying, God-fearing residents afraid to live their lives,” Wu said. “A city that’s scared is not a city that’s safe. A land ruled by fear is not the land of the free.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt threw a tantrum Wednesday, as she floundered trying to explain Donald Trump’s tariffs.

During a press conference, Leavitt attempted to use the issue of fentanyl smuggling over America’s northern border to justify the president’s 25 percent tariffs on Canadian goods, but her explanation quickly fell apart.

“There’s been more than a 2,000 percent increase in illegal fentanyl seizure at the northern border. Why? Because Canada is allowing that fentanyl to come to the United States,” Leavitt said.

She added that the president sought “repercussions” for the deaths of American citizens who died of fentanyl overdoses.

“But Karoline, respectfully, it’s just 43 pounds that were found last year—that’s less than a carry-on suitcase,” said NBC News’s senior White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez. “Is that a lot of fentanyl compared to, say, Mexico? The vast majority of the fentanyl is brought in through Mexico, not Canada. So what else does Canada need to do?”

In 2024, a total of 43 pounds of fentanyl were seized at the northern border, while a whopping 21,100 pounds were seized over the southern border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. By comparison, only two pounds of fentanyl were seized at the northern border in 2023, the 2,000 percent increase to which Leavitt referred.

While technically both Gutierrez and Leavitt were right, the president’s propagandist appeared to become agitated when confronted with the actual numbers behind her supposedly frightening statistic.

“Well, I just told you, last year alone there was a 2,000 percent increase in illegal fentanyl—” Leavitt said.

“But it’s only 43 pounds, Karoline—” Gutierrez interjected.

“You’re asking me for what the president’s justification is for these tariffs. It’s not up to you. You’re not the president, Gabe!” Leavitt snapped.

“And frankly, I think it’s a little bit disrespect-ul [sic] to the families in this country that have lost loved ones at the hands of this deadly poison,” Leavitt continued.

Not only did Trump’s chief communicator fail to offer a plausible explanation for why the U.S. needs to levy steep tariffs against its neighbors to the north, but earlier this week she failed to explain why exactly the tariffs would be good for Americans, merely citing “facts” without offering actual evidence.

On Wednesday, the Trump administration granted a one-month exception to U.S. automobile companies from the 25 percent tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada after speaking with CEOs of Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis. Leavitt read a statement from Trump claiming to have told the auto executives to relocate their production to the U.S.

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had a cheeky take on Donald Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress.

“We won the popular vote by big numbers and won counties in our country 2,700 to 525—on a map that reads almost completely red for Republican,” Trump told both chambers Tuesday night, using his win to claim that he had been given a “mandate” by the country to radically reimagine the federal government.

But the former South Bend mayor couldn’t help himself from adding a dash of spice to Trump’s reminder, offering to The Late Show With Stephen Colbert that the president may have won, but only by a historically tiny margin.

“Despite what you heard tonight, he came in with just under 50 percent of the vote,” Buttigieg said. “He won, I’m not disputing that. But it was the smallest popular vote margin since Nixon.

“I wonder how he feels about something that important being that small in his case,” Buttigieg mused with a smirk. “And he has lost support from there.”

“To be smaller than Tricky Dick is, uh—gives one pause, I would say,” Colbert quipped back.

A CNN Poll released this week found that just 39 percent of Americans felt the country was moving in the right direction, as opposed to 45 percent who believed it was moving in the wrong direction.

Even Republicans don’t seem to believe in the “mandate” decree coming from the White House. In Tennessee over the weekend, an angry town hall before Representative Diana Harshbarger screamed, “No!” when the Republican lawmaker asked if there had been a “mandate to the president from the American people,” who she claimed “overwhelmingly” voted Trump in.

“We’re giving the billionaires tax cuts!” a man shouted at Harshbarger.

Donald Trump is already backing off some of his tariffs only one day after they went into effect.

On Wednesday, the Trump administration granted a one-month exception to U.S. automobile companies from the 25 percent tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada. The change came after the president spoke with CEOs of the Big Three automakers: Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis. Trump reportedly told the auto executives that they should move their production to the United States, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

“We spoke with the Big Three auto dealers,” Trump said in a statement read by Leavitt. “We are going to give a one-month exemption on any autos coming through USMCA,” he added, referring to the free trade agreement between Mexico, the U.S., and Canada. Leavitt told reporters that Trump is open to additional exemptions, although none are planned at this time.

Trump imposed tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China on Tuesday, prompting the stock market to plummet and Mexican, Canadian, and Chinese leaders to announce retaliatory tariffs. The premier of Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, told the Associated Press that the auto industry in Canada and the U.S. could only last 10 days before assembly lines would start to shut down.

“People are going to lose their jobs,” Doug Ford said.

The exemption follows remarks by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick Wednesday morning on Bloomberg Television that Trump would update his tariff plans later in the day.

“There are going to be tariffs, let’s be clear,” Lutnick said. “But what he’s thinking about is which sections of the market that can maybe—maybe—he’ll consider giving them relief until we get to, of course, April 2.”

Trump’s tariffs are expected to raise the prices of numerous goods in the U.S. aside from automobiles, including groceries, electronics, and farm equipment. They also will cause negative ripple effects for the American public, including higher utility bills, partly due to Ford’s threats to cut off electricity to the United States.

It remains to be seen if there will be more carve-outs for Trump’s tariffs, although a rapidly worsening economy could force the president’s hand. What Trump’s endgame is for his very unwise economic plans is not clear, but in the meantime, the American taxpayer will bear the brunt of his folly.

In just a handful of weeks, Donald Trump’s nationalist policies and aggressive tariffs have rattled Canada’s economy, the American stock market, and, with it, the two nations’ long-standing alliance.

But Trump’s most recent approach to negotiating with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau amid the spontaneous trade war has taken a hard turn, more closely resembling catty high school gossip than legitimate foreign policy.

“Justin Trudeau, of Canada, called me to ask what could be done about Tariffs,” Trump posted on Truth Social Wednesday. “I told him that many people have died from Fentanyl that came through the Borders of Canada and Mexico, and nothing has convinced me that it has stopped.”

“He said that it’s gotten better, but I said, ‘That’s not good enough.’ The call ended in a ‘somewhat’ friendly manner!” Trump continued. “He was unable to tell me when the Canadian Election is taking place, which made me curious, like, what’s going on here? I then realized he is trying to use this issue to stay in power. Good luck Justin!”

That lackadaisical response came on the heels of a harrowing address given Tuesday by Trudeau, in which the Canadian leader accused Trump of attempting to undermine Canada’s economy in order to “annex” it as America’s fifty-first state. He also urged Americans to look in the mirror and consider if they’re comfortable tossing the nation’s strongest Western alliances to effectively become Russia’s puppet.

Trump “feels strongly that it would be very beneficial for the Canadian people to be the fifty-first state of the United States. They wouldn’t be paying for these tariffs, and they’d have much lower taxes if they became a part of our great country,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Wednesday.

The president’s controversial tariffs went into effect first thing Tuesday, imposing 25 percent levies on Canada and Mexico as well as a 10 percent tariff hike on Chinese goods. In return, Canada and China slapped the U.S. with equal tariffs, while Mexico promised to do the same, with further details to come Sunday. Meanwhile, the spontaneously unpaused levies immediately followed reports that Trump had directed administration officials to draft a proposal that would lift sanctions on Russia.

“I can tell you that every country is very, very aware that if the American government is willing to do this to their own closest ally, neighbor, and friend,” Trudeau said Tuesday. “Then everyone is vulnerable to a trade war.”

Less than a day after the tariffs went into effect, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Fox Business that they could be undone as soon as Thursday.

“Both the Canadians and Mexicans were on the phone with me all day today trying to show that they’ll do better,” Lutnick told the network, with regard to fentanyl flows into the U.S. “So I think [Trump] is going to work something out with them.”

The Department of Government Efficiency’s slashing of the federal workforce is disproportionately hurting veterans, and the damage is only going to get worse.

According to a March 4 memo first obtained by Government Executive, the Department of Veterans Affairs is planning to lay off as many as 83,000 employees. The Trump administration wants the department to get its workforce back to 2019 levels, when the VA employed 399,957 people and before millions of veterans became eligible for greater care. More than one in four VA employees are veterans.

The “aggressive” cuts will “resize and tailor the workforce to the mission and revised structure,” VA chief of staff Christopher Syrek wrote in the memo, which was sent to employees on Tuesday.

The department is expected to deliver its plans to “increase workforce efficiency” to the Office of Personnel Management by April 14.

Employment at the VA increased significantly under Biden with the passing of the 2022 PACT Act, which expanded health care benefits for veterans exposed to toxins and was the result of years’ worth of advocacy from various veteran organizations.

DOGE couldn’t care less. The pseudo-agency’s plan to fire 17 percent of the VA’s workforce is just the latest move in its assault on veterans and, more broadly, the federal government. Last month, DOGE laid off 2,400 VA employees and more than 6,000 veterans from other federal agencies.

DOGE also sought to terminate 875 affected contracts at the VA, which would significantly harm veterans’ access to health care services. The cuts have been temporarily suspended, but will likely resurface.