Elon Musk Suddenly Doesn’t Want Credit for Disastrous DOGE Cuts

Elon Musk is claiming that the Department of Government Efficiency isn’t actually behind the sweeping cuts to the federal workforce, instead placing the blame on the agency heads who order the firings.

Republican Representative Derrick Van Orden told CNN that during a private meeting with GOP lawmakers Wednesday, Musk told the group that the recently announced elimination of more than 70,000 jobs at the Department of Veterans Affairs “wasn’t a DOGE decision.”

The Wisconsin Republican said that Musk had told lawmakers that the “individual departments” had made their own plans to cut positions and that DOGE had made the “assumption” that those departments intended to “reward the people that are being productive.”

The billionaire bureaucrat has claimed this defense to his organization’s cost-cutting measures before, saying that DOGE simply makes recommendations for cuts to agency heads, and then it’s up to those heads to execute them. It’s unclear what fate would befall the agencies that failed to act in accordance with DOGE directives or the Trump administration’s mission to shrink the federal workforce.

However, Musk privately acknowledged that he’d made some massive missteps, and that he “can’t bat a thousand all the time,” four people familiar with his remarks told Politico. But when Musk misses a swing, people lose their livelihoods.

Republican Representative Russell Fry told CNN that Musk promised to make things right. “He said, like, you know, there’s going to be mistakes along the way. He has said that publicly before too. And then when those are identified, they will be corrected,” Fry said.

Already, Musk-directed massive firings have been rescinded. The Trump administration’s Office of Personnel Management, which has been attempting to manage the entire federal workforce even though it lacks the authority to do so, issued a memo Tuesday instructing federal agency heads that they did not have to comply with instructions to fire probationary employees who have held their jobs for one year or less.

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.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt denied the report shortly after it was published. “This is more fake news from Reuters based on anonymous sources who have no idea what they are talking about,” Leavitt wrote on X. “The truth: no decision has been made at this time.”

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.

This story has been updated.

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.