Federal Agency Working to Stop Invasive Bugs Invaded by Bugs

Bedbugs have infested the government agency responsible for insect defense.

The pests were found in the building housing the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, an agency of the Department of Agriculture, NOTUS reports. A USDA employee told the publication that the irony “was lost on no one.”

Employees of the agency, located in the George Washington Carver Center in Beltsville, Maryland, were told about the infestation in mid-May, five employees told NOTUS. The USDA sent the staffers home, telling them to telework for a few days while the building was fumigated. The agency’s acting administrator, Kelly Moore, and acting chief operating officer, Carson Hawley, told employees that the building would only be closed for a few days but that they would email staff later to confirm.

When employees came back to the office, though, the fumes were so bad that some became sick, and the department said they could go back to remote work, a rare departure from the Trump administration’s insistence on in-person work for federal employees.

On Friday, employees were told that bedbugs were seen again in the building, but now, employees told NOTUS, more telework has not been authorized. Instead, agency employees were told to take personal time off if they didn’t want to work in the office. Hawley told staff in an email that day that employees were responsible for the bedbugs coming back, as they engaged in “insufficient compliance regarding personal items,” and told them to put those items into garbage bags and take them out of the building.

“We appreciate your support and compliance so that APHIS can do our part to ensure that Building 3 is bedbug free,” Hawley said. USDA’s official line also blames employees.

“USDA took prompt and robust action several weeks ago,” an agency spokesperson told NOTUS. “Unfortunately, personal belongings left in the offices caused further issue. Animal Pest and Plant Health Inspection Service management is working with employees to ensure the spaces are emptied for proper mitigation.”

Agency employees don’t want to take their personal items home and spread bedbugs there. Some are considering filing a complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, but fear retaliation.

“They are scared,” an anonymous employee said about their colleagues. “If you bring them home, the answer is to trash all of your belongings and fumigate your house at your own expense.”

“They treated the building, and then they sent people home again because of offgassing,” another employee anonymously told NOTUS. “Then they came back. Now there’s more bedbugs.” Yet another employee told the publication that staff came back “to an office that was making them sick because the chemicals hadn’t aired out.”

It’s insane that an agency that is supposed to be dealing with bird flu and New World screwworm (recently found 25 miles from the southern U.S. border) is dealing poorly with an infestation of its own. The Trump administration continues to find new lows in ruining federal agencies.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the daytime television host Donald Trump tapped to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, offered a baffling explanation Tuesday for the president’s repeated visits to the hospital.

During a White House press briefing, a reporter asked Oz to explain why Trump, who is only required to attend one annual medical examination, has just had his fourth publicly announced visit to the Walter Reed medical facility since entering office for a second time.

Oz claimed that it was a “routine, regular exam,” and pointed to Trump’s long-standing “spectacular” health records that had shocked even him. The press weren’t buying it.

“If the president’s in such perfect health, then why does he keep going back in for check-ups?” another reporter asked.

“I think he likes the results. He does really well. He aces the test every single day,” Oz said. “And I do actually believe that he is curious to make sure everything is going in the right direction.”

Trump’s latest visit to Capt. Sean Barbarella, a Navy emergency physician serving as the president’s doctor, produced yet another glowing medical report—that some health experts have suggested omits crucial information. Trump’s supposedly incredible results contrast directly with what Americans can see: visible bruising and rashes, his frequent on-camera naps, and the fact that he is an 80-year-old man who rants madly about how healthy he is.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio can’t quite explain why he went to a UFC event in the middle of negotiations with Iran.

During Rubio’s testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday, Democratic Senator Jacky Rosen pointed out that Rubio was watching UFC 327 in Miami with President Trump instead of taking part in talks with Iran in Pakistan in April.

“I’d like to remind the American people that as the secretary of state, your main duty as America’s chief diplomat is to maintain our relations with foreign nations. This is why I was shocked to see that you were at a party with President Trump in Miami instead of accompanying Vice President Vance to Pakistan for negotiations,” Rosen said, to which Rubio quickly took offense.

“What party was I at? I was at a party?” Rubio responded.

“It’s publicly reported, and there’s photos there,” Rosen said. Rubio got upset and accused Rosen of slandering him.

Rosen pointed out that special envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner were present at the negotiations, along with Iran’s Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi, but Rubio was missing.

“I was not at a party. Where I was is next to the president, because in the midst of those negotiations, I was in communications with [Witkoff and Kushner], and in fact, I think there is media reporting from that evening on how, multiple occasions, I went into a back room, I came back out and spoke to the president and was constantly updating him,” Rubio said. “I know your staff wrote up this cute statement for your TikTok video, but it’s not true, and it’s not real, OK?

“I am the national security adviser and secretary of state. I was co-located with the president in the midst of a high-stakes negotiation so that I could immediately inform him about events occurring halfway around the world. I was where I needed to be at that moment because we had a very capable team on the ground in Pakistan led by the vice president,” Rubio added.

Rubio’s angry defense didn’t disprove Rosen’s main point: that President Trump dispatched Vance and two people who weren’t confirmed by Congress to critical negotiations with Iran instead of the chief U.S. diplomat. Since April, negotiations continued off and on until Monday, when Iran abruptly ended talks, citing Israel’s attacks on Lebanon as a ceasefire violation. Meanwhile, Trump and his top officials continue to be seen at events such as UFC fights, with plans to hold one at the White House on the president’s birthday next month.

At least four Republican senators are not feeling Bill Pulte, President Trump’s pick to replace Tulsi Gabbard as acting director of national intelligence.

“I see no evidence of any qualifications for that job,” GOP Senator John Cornyn, who recently lost his reelection campaign thanks to a Trump endorsement of his opponent, told PBS’s Lisa Desjardins.

“He doesn’t seem very qualified,” added Senator Bill Cassidy, who also lost his reelection campaign thanks to the president.

“I don’t know of any national security experience that he has,” said Senator Thom Tillis, who is retiring at the end of this term. “So I’ll be looking at that first and foremost.”

“Well, we don’t need a weaponized DNI, we need professionals there,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune. “So, again, I’ve just heard about it. I’ll try and get more information about the current state of their thinking about that position. And again, if he’s somebody they want in that position permanently, he’s got, as you all know, a lengthy road ahead of him.”

Thune is right to be worried about a weaponized intelligence community in Pulte’s hands. With zero national security experience, Pulte has made a name for himself using his previous role at Fannie Mae to attack Trump’s political enemies. Now, with even Republicans voicing displeasure just hours after his announcement, any possibility of Pulte’s taking over the position permanently is firmly in jeopardy.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio had a major meltdown Tuesday after he was called out for America’s disastrous dealmaking with Iran.

Speaking during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Senator Cory Booker pressed Rubio over allowing Iran to get rich off the flailing U.S. war effort despite attacking President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal for doing the same thing.

The New Jersey Democrat laid out how the U.S. had allowed Iran to sell an estimated $10 billion worth of sanctioned oil to China and then promised to further alleviate sanctions in return for releasing highly enriched uranium and committing to limiting its enrichment capacity.

“And that was the exact deal that you guys vilified, that the president and you vilified President Obama for having,” Booker said. Of course, Donald Trump’s deal is even worse than Booker says, as it reportedly includes a $300 billion investment fund for Tehran, in the event that a deal is reached.

“Here we have a worse situation, where our adversary and our enemy, who’s causing havoc in the region, who is funding proxies and terrorists, has discovered—thanks to you all—the power of shutting down the Strait of Hormuz,” Booker continued.

“No, they didn’t discover—they knew that a long time ago, and they’ve done it before,” Rubio said.

“Well, clearly, we all knew that a long time ago, that’s why this ill-conceived war should’ve never happened,” Booker said. “You have made our adversary in a stronger negotiating position. We are the strongest nation on earth, and we’re in a stalemate with Iran, and now we’re begging to get back into a deal that you all trashed in the first place.”

“No one’s begging for anything here,” Rubio said. “The Iranians might be begging because their economy is losing hundreds of millions of dollars a day.”

But Iran is not begging—in fact, it axed peace talks as of Monday.

The secretary continued to insist Iran’s economy was in free fall and its military capabilities were depleted. However, recent reporting indicates that Iran’s economy could survive for months more under the U.S. military’s blockade, and the country has retained significant ballistic missile capabilities, recovered underground facilities, repaired damaged missiles, and assembled new ones.

Booker continued: “Mr. Rubio, you keep telling us how we’re winning the war—”

“Well, the war’s over,” Rubio said.

“The war is not over!” Booker cried as his time expired. But he was right—as long as Iran retains control over the Strait of Hormuz, the war is still ongoing.