“I Don’t Know”: Mike Johnson Ducks Key Question About Shutdown Layoffs

House Speaker Mike Johnson claimed Monday he had no idea that President Doanld Trump’s sweeping layoffs of federal workers had gutted the department overseeing special education. 

During a press conference, Johnson was asked if he was “comfortable” with cuts that had reportedly decimated special education services at the Department of Education. 

“I haven’t seen the specifics of that and I don’t know,” Johnson said. 

“I do know that each of the Cabinet secretaries were asked to assist OMB to determine what the most essential programs are, and what the priorities are for the policies and all of that. And I’ve been so busy on all this I’ve not had a chance to dig into the details of each division, and how it’s happened,” he said. 

But those so-called “details” Johnson overlooked are quickly coming to light—and they’re a huge problem.

Rachel Gittleman, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees released a statement Monday saying: “We believe that all remaining offices in Office of Special Education + Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), incl. the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) + the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA), have been eliminated.”

The Education Department laid off practically every employee responsible for administering funding through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which authorizes grants to states, schools, and nonprofit organizations, one agency staffer told USA Today. The Biden administration had requested $14.4 billion for these grants for FY2025, including $545 million for the Grants for Infants and Families program.

Secretary Linda McMahon, who presumably directed the cuts, has previously suggested that the office would be better positioned in the Department of Health and Human Services, where Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently said he hopes to manufacture proof of his outlandish claims about the causes of autism. 

It’s still unclear how many positions were terminated within the special education office. The Education Department fired 466 employees as part of Trump’s broader reduction in force of some 4,200 jobs amid the ongoing government shutdown. 

Johnson seemed content Monday to defend Trump’s massive cuts, purportedly without even knowing what they are. He claimed that federal agencies were “in a triage situation” as a result of the government shutdown and blamed Democrats for the massive layoffs executed by the executive branch. 

But in past government shutdowns, including in the previous Trump administration, federal workers were furloughed, not laid off en masse. It seems clear that Trump is simply using the shutdown as an excuse to carry out a long-planned reduction in force and obliterate essential programs he doesn’t like.  

Throw out the history books—even settled modern American history is up for MAGA revisionism.

Despite the fact that he’s since won the 2024 presidential election and, presumably, has bigger fish to fry (see any rotating issue: the government shutdown, the rise in political violence, the stumbling economy, or escalating domestic and international tensions), Donald Trump once again took to social media Sunday to gripe about his impeachments. But this time, he opted to rebrand a little more history than usual by suggesting that Watergate was another supposed “hoax.”

“The Ukraine Impeachment (of me!) Scam was a far bigger Illegal Hoax than Watergate,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “I sincerely hope the necessary authorities, including CONGRESS, are looking into this! Adam ‘Schiffty’ Schiff was sooo dishonest and corrupt.

“So many laws, and protocols, were violated, and just plain broken!!!” he wrote.

Rewriting the national recollection of Watergate will take more than one social media post. Nearly 50 years later, the involvement of President Richard Nixon’s aides in the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters still lives on as one of the most seismic scandals to shake the office of the president—so much so that simply adding “gate” to the end of an event can suggest another political calamity.

Watergate, and Nixon’s forced resignation in the face of certain impeachment, resulted in the end of his political career. But in the last several months, Trump has taken some concrete steps to rewrite his own impeachment history.

Trump is the only U.S. president to be impeached twice, in 2019 and 2021. In August, the Smithsonian removed Trump from its exhibit on impeachments under direct pressure from the White House, in the wake of an art director’s ousting. That left the exhibit focusing on Presidents Nixon, Andrew Johnson, and Bill Clinton, effectively returning the exhibit to the way it looked in 2008. The “American Presidency” wing’s revised signage explained that “only three presidents have seriously faced removal” over the course of American history. The change was the result of a White House–initiated content review.

The Smithsonian has since re-added Trump to the impeachment exhibit, but with some changes to how the proceedings against him are described, most notably regarding his actions during the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Federal agents terrorized Chicago citizens over the weekend, as part of “Operation Midway Blitz,” President Donald Trump’s law enforcement crackdown on a major Democratic city.

On Friday, Border Patrol agents violently arrested Deborah Brockman, a producer for Chicago television station WGN-TV. Two agents held down Brockman while zip-tying her hands, before multiple agents shoved her into an unmarked van. Her arrest seemingly violated a temporary restraining order made the day before barring agents from detaining journalists. 

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin alleged in a statement that Brockman had thrown objects at the agents’ vehicle and was “placed under arrest for assault on a federal law enforcement officer.” Brockman was later released, and WGN told Newsweek that no charges were brought against her. 

As the vehicle carrying Brockman drove away, it slammed into a seemingly stationary vehicle before continuing on. 

McLaughlin claimed that “several violent agitators” had attempted to block the vehicle from leaving. “In fear of public & law enforcement safety, officers used their service vehicle to strike a suspect’s vehicle and create an opening,” McLaughlin said in a statement, adding that the incident “reflects a growing and dangerous trend of illegal aliens violently resisting arrest and agitators and criminals ramming cars into our law enforcement officers.”

In a video of the incident, multiple bystanders berated the officers, but none appeared to approach them or their vehicle. 

DropSite News’s Ryan Grim said that McLaughlin’s justification was “Orwellian.” 

“To explain why ICE rammed its car into another vehicle, the spokeswoman says it ‘reflects a growing and dangerous trend of … agitators and criminals ramming cars into our law enforcement officers,’” he wrote in a post on X. “Um, the opposite happened. Clearly. So weird.”

On Saturday, at least 15 people were arrested while protesting at an ICE processing center in Broadview, a neighborhood of Chicago. Detainees reportedly face charges ranging from criminal damage to government property to disobeying police orders. 

One of the individuals arrested was Elias Cepeda, an organizer and martial arts instructor who has reportedly been on the lookout for ICE agents in his neighborhood since the beginning of the school year. He and other advocates hoped to warn residents of Pilsen, where many Mexicans reside, about ICE activities so that they could avoid arrest or violence. 

DHS claimed Cepeda, who was armed at the time of arrest, was a “violent rioter” with “suspected ties to antifa and previous social media posts calling ICE Nazis.”

In a viral video posted Saturday by Joshua Reed Eakle, an executive director at Project Liberal Action, four law enforcement vehicles swarmed a car on a suburban Chicago street. An agent pulled the driver from her car as she pleaded with officers that she was only 15 years old. The arresting officer then threw her to the ground and appeared to put his knee on her neck as he restrained her hands behind her back. Block Club Chicago reported the arrest took place in Hoffman Estates.

Meanwhile, roughly 400 protesters gathered in Rogers Park Saturday after a tamale vendor and at least three others were arrested nearby earlier in the week, Block Club Chicago reported.   

And on Sunday, federal agents released tear gas on residents responding to a violent arrest during a protest in Albany Park, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. 

Attorney Samay Gheewala said he was among many residents forcefully pushed to the ground by federal officers, after he’d approached to do “usual lawyer stuff” on behalf of people being arrested. Federal agents reportedly gave no warning before administering tear gas canisters, despite a temporary restraining order issued last week that required officers to issue two warnings before using riot control weapons.

Alderman Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez and state Senator Graciela Guzmán came running with a group of rapid responders, but by the time they arrived, one man had already been taken.

“This is part of the chaos they like to bring to our communities,” Guzmán said. 

Rodriguez-Sanchez told the Sun-Times that one person “was saved due to the efforts of our communities, but unfortunately, somebody was [still] kidnapped from our neighborhood today.”

Ghislaine Maxwell—currently serving hard time for helping deceased sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein abuse minors—has been taking secret meetings and receiving special treatment at her new Camp Bryan prison in Texas, only further stoking fears that she is working with the Trump administration to receive a pardon. 

The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday that in August, Maxwell, who is serving time for sex trafficking and conspiracy until at least 2037, had the prison locked down while she met with unnamed visitors in the prison chapel. A fellow inmate reported that Maxwell returned from the meeting smiling, and said that it had gone “really well.” 

Additionally, Maxwell has been treated like more of a celebrity than a convicted sex trafficker and child abuser since she’s been transferred from her more serious facility in Florida to the grassy, minimum-security Camp Bryan. Her fellow inmates include Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes and Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Jen Shah. Shah and Holmes are in Camp Bryan for fraud. And while other inmates have taken to harassing Maxwell for being a “chomo” or sex predator, the prison warden essentially rolled out the red carpet for her visitors. 

One inmate told the Journal that the prison notified them that “someone important was coming to do a walk-through” and did a deep clean of the entire facility before Maxwell arrived. The warden even called a “town meeting” warning other inmates not to harm Maxwell. Since then she has been allowed to eat alone in her dormitory, has a security escort for when she wants to work out, and is allowed to shower well after other inmates are supposed to be in their bunks.  

This is all yet another strange wrinkle in a fairly obvious effort from the Trump administration and the GOP to tie up loose ends and absolve the president (who was quite close with Epstein and appears multiple times in his “files”) while simultaneously attempting to satiate their base’s deep desire for the truth about the Epstein files. 

Just last week President Trump indicated that a pardon for Maxwell was still on the table. 

“Her only chance for getting out of prison is a pardon from you. Is that something—”  CNN’s Kaitlan Collins said before Trump interrupted to ask who was being discussed. “Ghislaine Maxwell,” Collins clarified.

“You know, I haven’t heard the name in so long,” Trump said. “I can say this: that I’d have to take a look at it. I’d have to take a look.”

President Trump—a man regarded by some as the most corrupt president in U.S. history and a flagrant abuser of the presidential pardon power—on Monday called for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be pardoned for corruption charges.

During a speech before Israel’s Knesset, Trump strayed from his prepared remarks to lobby Israeli President Isaac Herzog for such a pardon.

“I have an idea. Mr. President,” Trump said. “Why don’t you give him a pardon? Give him a pardon. By the way, that was not in the speech, as you probably know, but I happen to like this gentleman right over here [Netanyahu], and it just seems to make so much sense.”

He went on to call the Israeli prime minister “one of the greatest wartime presidents,” asking, “Cigars and champagne, who the hell cares about that?”

Netanyahu has been on trial since 2020 for three cases involving bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. In one, he allegedly granted regulatory favors, to the tune of $500 million, to a telecommunications billionaire in exchange for positive news coverage.

In another, he is accused of accepting nearly $300,000 in gifts—including cigars and champagne, as Trump mentioned while underplaying the allegations—from billionaires including film producer Arnon Milchan, in exchange for actions advancing Milchan’s business interests.

The third case involves the prime minister allegedly negotiating a deal with the owner of an Israeli newspaper, under which Netanyahu would receive positive coverage and enact legislation to weaken a competitor publication.

As Trump has during his own legal battles, Netanyahu dismisses the accusations as a political “witch hunt” and “attempted coup” by his liberal enemies in the judicial system and media.

Trump in June called the charges against Netanyahu “politically motivated”—and the trial a “ridiculous Witch Hunt,” “Horror Show,” and “TRAVESTY OF ‘JUSTICE’”—on Truth Social. “Bibi Netanyahu’s trial should be CANCELLED, IMMEDIATELY, or a Pardon given to a Great Hero,” he wrote.

Netanyahu also faces active arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court on allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, to which the Trump administration responded with sanctions on ICC personnel.

The White House’s government shutdown blame game isn’t turning out to be a very effective cross-topic strategy.

Speaking with CBS News’s Face the Nation on Sunday, Vice President JD Vance couldn’t muster an answer as to why more than a thousand staffers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had been mistakenly laid off just days prior without lazily pointing the finger at congressional Democrats.

“Some of them were involved with the federal measles response. Some of them were involved with the response on Ebola,” said host Margaret Brennan. “How does a mistake like this happen? Did the White House even talk to the CDC?”

“So, you ask, how does this mistake happen? It happened because Chuck Schumer shut down the government, and we’re trying to make sure that essential services still function in the face of that shutdown,” Vance said in a sprawling answer that both blamed Democrats for the critical bipartisan failure and suggested that the layoff error was little more than water under the bridge.

“But that was a White House decision to lay off these individuals,” Brennan pressed.

“You heard the president talking about that. That—that wasn’t Chuck Schumer’s decision. I understand your broader point on the negotiations, but the layoffs came from the president and the White House.”

“But my point is, Margaret, that we have to do layoffs because we have to preserve necessary resources to do the most critical things that the government does,” Vance said.

“All these conversations about whether it’s a temporary layoff or a permanent layoff, we are dealing with a terrible, chaotic situation because Chuck Schumer and a few far-left Democrats decided to shut down the government.”

Roughly 10 percent of the CDC received layoff notices Friday amid a wave of some 4,100 government firings under the cover of the government shutdown. Once the news became public on Saturday, a federal health official indicated that some of the CDC’s pink slip recipients had been mistakenly let go, including members of the agency’s infectious disease outbreak team as well as its science and health data analysis team.

Approximately 700 employees were reinstated that day, according to their union, the American Federation of Government Employees.

So far, the government has been shut down for more than 12 days. The federal closure is the result of a boiling disagreement between Democrats and Republicans, leftover from the spring, about how to fund Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget.

Republicans want to pass a “clean” continuing resolution, which would provide the executive branch with unfettered funds to advance the president’s agenda as outlined in his July legislation. That would include ruinous cuts to Obamacare subsidies and Medicaid, a position that Democrats have demonstrated for months is a nonstarter.

Steve Bannon claimed that President Donald Trump’s team will launch tactics to keep him on the ballot in 2028 after the midterm elections.

During an interview Saturday on NewsNation’s BATYA!, host Batya Ungar-Sargon asked the MAGA movement architect if he believed the Twenty-Second Amendment was a “barrier” for the president.

“I think that there are many different alternatives that at the appropriate time after the midterms in ‘26, we will roll out,” Bannon said. “But I think there are many different alternatives to make sure that President Trump is on the ballot, and if he’s on the ballot, he’ll win.”

It’s not clear that Trump, who hocks “Trump 2028” hats, sees himself as constrained by the Twenty-Second Amendment, either—not to mention the U.S. Constitution. In March, he told NBC’s Kristen Welker that he was “not joking” about considering a third term, claiming that there were “methods” by which he could remain in the White House.

Still, the Twenty-Second Amendment is clear as ever: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.” It’s just a matter of whether the Supreme Court will enforce it—and based on recent remarks from Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Clarence Thomas, it’s not clear that it will.

It seems the quiet part about reelecting a man who once refused to concede the results of a presidential election has become quite deafening now. And ironically, Republicans have recently moved to criminalize “No Kings” protests across the country.

The Trump administration is flailing to protect its border czar, Tom Homan.

Undercover federal agents handed Homan $50,000 via a paper Cava takeout bag in a 2024 sting operation, according to FBI surveillance tapes referenced in federal reports. But the public corruption investigation into Homan had no clear resolution—instead, it ended abruptly when Donald Trump took office and Homan was appointed to government office. By the time the dust settled, it appeared that Homan had never actually returned the taxpayer funds.

Last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi deflected direct questions by two senators during a Judiciary Committee hearing about the missing “buy money,” grousing about the apparent “gotcha.”

But Vice President JD Vance didn’t have a better approach, either. Speaking with ABC News Sunday, Vance zigged and zagged on the topic until the network cut him off for refusing to answer the question.

“Tom Homan did not take a bribe,” Vance told the network. “It’s a ridiculous smear. And the reason you guys are going after Tom Homan so aggressively is because he’s doing the job of enforcing the law. I think it’s really preposterous.”

Vance went on to complain about the severity of public backlash that Homan has faced while trying to “enforce the country’s immigration laws,” but failed to actually answer host George Stephanopoulos as to whether Homan had accepted the cash or given it back.

“But, wait, you said he didn’t take a bribe,” pressed Stephanopoulos. “But I’m not sure you answered the question. Are you saying that he did not accept the $50,000?”

Vance regurgitated the same answer, to which Stephanopoulos asked again if Homan had accepted or rejected the $50,000. But by that point, Vance had decided the best course of action was to play dumb.

“George, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Did he accept $50,000 for what?” Vance said.

“He was recorded on an audiotape in September of 2024, an FBI surveillance tape, accepting $50,000 in cash. Did he keep that money?” Stephanopoulos said.

“Accepting $50,000 for doing what, George?” Vance tossed back. “I am not even sure I understand the question. Is it illegal to take a payment for doing services? The FBI has not prosecuted him. I have never seen any evidence that he’s engaged in criminal wrongdoing. Nobody has accused Tom of violating a crime, even the far-left media like yourself.

“So I’m actually not sure what the precise question is. Did he accept $50,000? Honestly, George, I don’t know the answer to that question,” Vance continued. “What I do know is that he didn’t violate a crime.”

After Stephanopoulos asked a third time, Vance began to ramble and rave about how the inquiry into Homan’s alleged impropriety was little more than a “left-wing rabbit hole,” claiming that ABC had misallocated its resources by investigating a public corruption story rather than airing more 24/7 coverage of the government shutdown.

ABC then pulled the plug on Vance, cutting off his blatant hedging—and he did not take it well.

Taking to X shortly after the failed interview, Vance further distorted the reality of the investigation by claiming that ABC wasn’t interested in “peace in the Middle East” or U.S.-China trade relations.

“George S doesn’t care about that. He’s here to focus on the real story: a fake scandal involving Tom Homan,” Vance wrote in a post that received more than 68,000 likes.

How $50,000 in cash got lost in translation is a bit of an anomaly for federal investigations. The Justice Department outlines strict regulations on exactly how federal agents can parcel out “buy money” during sting operations. Those funds are government property, and the DOJ requires clear accounting of how much was withdrawn and how much was returned to government accounts.

Several experts that spoke with The New York Times noted that $50,000 was a significant sum in the scope of public corruption investigations, and would suggest that agents had amassed “considerable evidence” that Homan was preparing to provide for-cash “kickbacks” once he entered public office.

Vice President JD Vance appeared desperate to claim “fake news” Sunday about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s wild announcement that a Qatari Emiri air force facility would be built in Idaho.

Last week, Hegeth announced that the United States would build a facility in America’s heartland to “host a contingent of Qatari F-15s and pilots,” summoning a tidal wave of disapproval from both sides of the aisle over the first foreign airbase to be built on U.S. soil.

But in an interview on Fox News’s Sunday Mornings Futures With Maria Bartiromo, Vance tried to backtrack the secretary’s claim, saying the whole thing was the sad product of “misreporting.”

“What is the function of this Qatar facility? People are wondering is this an airbase? What is Qatar gonna be developing in Idaho?” Bartiromo asked.

“Yeah, I saw some reporting about this, Maria. I actually talked to the Secretary of War Pete Hegseth this morning. This is largely a fake story,” Vance said.

“We continue to have, with countries that we work with, we have relationships where sometimes their pilots work on our bases, sometimes that we train together, sometimes we work together in other ways. The reporting that somehow there’s going to be a Qatari base on United States soil, that’s just not true,” he said.

“We are continuing to work with a number of our Arab friends to ensure that we are able to enforce this peace, but we’re not gonna let a foreign country have an actual base on American soil, so there was a bit of misreporting on that, as there often is, as you know, Maria.”

But there was nothing to misreport. Hegseth clearly said Friday that the Pentagon was “signing a letter of acceptance to build a Qatari Emiri air force facility at the Mountain Home Airbase in Idaho.”

Within days, either the White House seems to have shifted the goalposts on this deal, or Vance is simply lying to calm the angry mob. Or maybe no one knows what the hell is going on. Either way, the Trump administration is being less than transparent about its deal with Qatar, a country whose gifts the White House has readily accepted.

Try as he might, Vivek Ramaswamy will never be fully accepted by MAGA world.

The Ohio gubernatorial candidate and former DOGE co-chief came face-to-face with the racism rampant among American conservative youth culture Tuesday when he headlined a Turning Point USA event in Montana.

Speaking at Montana State University, Ramaswamy fielded disturbing questions about how he believed he could adequately participate in electoral politics when his religion and ethnic identity don’t align with stereotypical white American ideals.

“Jesus Christ is God, and there is no other God,” said a male student. “How can you represent the constituents of Ohio who are 64 percent Christian if you are not a part of that faith?”

“If you are an Indian, a Hindu, coming from a different culture, different religion than those who founded this country, those who grew this country, built this country, made this country the beautiful thing that it is today,” he continued. “What are you conserving? You are bringing change. I’ll be 100 percent honest with you—Christianity is the one truth.”

A female student asked Ramaswamy why he chose to “masquerade as a Christian.”

Before he became an alternative fixture in Trumpworld, Ramaswamy was a biotech investor, an entrepreneur, and a 2024 Republican presidential candidate. But none of those notches on his belt could atone for the color of his skin or his religion with some members of the Turning Point USA crowd, which was apparently more fixated on Christian nationalism than honoring the First Amendment’s allowances for freedom of religion.

“I’m an ethical monotheist, that’s the way I would describe my faith,” Ramaswamy said in another jarring exchange with a student. “Do you think it’s inappropriate for someone who’s a Hindu to be a U.S. president?”

“No I think it’s—” another male student started, before stopping himself. “But isn’t Charlie Kirk’s organization founded on Christian values as well? And isn’t America based on what Protestantism is and based on how those values are? Wouldn’t that contradict what your beliefs are?”

The tour stop had been scheduled before Turning Point’s founder Charlie Kirk was assassinated in September. Kirk launched Turning Point to spread conservative ideology among America’s youth.

There are some 900 official college chapters and around 1,200 high school chapters of Turning Point USA across the nation, but the conservative advocacy nonprofit received more than 54,000 inquiries for new campus chapters in the 48 hours after Kirk’s assassination, TPUSA spokesman Andrew Kolvet announced last month.