Trump’s push to fire federal workers and slash spending hits roadblocks in the courts

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• Geoff Bennett:

  Welcome to the "News Hour."

  President Trump announced this afternoon that Elon Musk will need to consult with Cabinet secretaries before firing more federal workers.

• Amna Nawaz:

  That came after Trump met with Musk and his Cabinet earlier in the day.

  Lisa Desjardins joins us now with the latest on government layoffs and the court challenges surrounding them.

  Lisa, good to see you.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Hi.

• Amna Nawaz:

  So, what exactly did President Trump announce here and what does it mean for any change in power that Elon Musk has?

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Those are the critical questions.

  So Trump announced today that Musk must work with Cabinet secretaries to deal with firings at their agencies. And, specifically, he said they're going to meet every other week. Now, the secretaries, Trump said, will use a scalpel versus a hatchet, but obviously it has been the hatchet approach.

  At the same time, as he seems to be empowering secretaries, Trump also said, however, if secretaries don't make cuts, Elon Musk will. So I don't think there's a change in power here. And I think what is happening, however, is the administration is reconfiguring after courts have been very clear that Elon Musk and the agents he's associated with do not have the power to make these firings.

  So what they're doing is a kind of a work-around. He will meet with Cabinet agencies and they will do the firing, but he's still right there.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Speaking of the courts, there's been some major action affecting federal workers starting with thousands who could get their jobs back. What's happening there?

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Quite a lot of news.

  That first one has to do with the U.S. Department of Agriculture specifically, where we know now about 6,000 probationary workers were fired. Now, in a ruling, this decision is from a critical agency that people don't talk about a lot called the Merit Systems Protection Board.

  Now, in this ruling that came out just late last night, the chair of that organization wrote that probationary workers fired — those are those in their jobs a year or less — who were sent the same dismissal letter, the chair wrote that they — "I find that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the agency, USDA, terminated the aforementioned probationary employees in violation of U.S. law."

  Now, the ruling, when you get into it, finds a number of reasons that this was in violation, but overall the idea here is that mass firings are not allowed under statute, the way they have been done in a generic form.

  Now, I want to talk about where we are overall with firings. So, if you look at that USDA change there from that granting, it's in addition to GSA. That is the General Services Administration. They have had 600 new firings. At the Department of Ed, there are thousands waiting tonight to see if they will be fired.

  Now, then you put in the 6,000 that have been ordered to have their jobs reinstated, as I just reported. All together, Amna, by my total, we still have about 31,000, at least, people who have been fired.

  One other important development, this one in Trump's favor. Last night, a court ruled that a key watchdog, the special counsel we have talked about on this program, Hampton Dellinger, that, in fact, he cannot be reinstated for his job. They took him out of that watchdog post, and today he announced he's not going to appeal the case because it would just take too long.

  That's a critical watchdog function. Now he's out of that job.

• Amna Nawaz:

  There's a lot of court action to keep track of here, but there's also news about contractors and organizations that are dealing with the federal funding freezes. What do we need to know about that?

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Right. First I want to talk about the freezing of grants and loans that were affecting a lot of organizations around this country. There was a temporary ruling put in place. A judge now has said that that needs to stay in force much longer.

  Here is what the judge wrote when he blasted Trump's funding freeze. He wrote: "This fundamentally undermines the distinct constitutional roles of each branch of government. Here, this executive put itself above Congress."

  Judge McConnell in that case saying, he's not against executive power, but this is an overreach. Now, at the same time, I want to talk about where we are with USAID and cases involving foreign aid. First of all, there were contractors that were hired by USAID who lost their job. A judge has denied their reinstatement, those contractors who had those jobs.

  Now, on the other hand foreign aid organizations, as John Yang reported last night, the Supreme Court has ordered that they should be repaid for services they have already rendered. Those organizations are still waiting for that money. We're waiting for an order on when that would happen.

  And I will note that at least one large partner organization announced it's closing today.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Lisa Desjardins, thank you so much.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  You're welcome.