{"id":925,"date":"2025-03-27T16:04:08","date_gmt":"2025-03-27T16:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/03\/27\/trump-administration-live-updates-mass-layoffs-announced-at-health-and-human-services-dept-the-new-york-times\/"},"modified":"2025-03-27T16:04:08","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T16:04:08","slug":"trump-administration-live-updates-mass-layoffs-announced-at-health-and-human-services-dept-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/03\/27\/trump-administration-live-updates-mass-layoffs-announced-at-health-and-human-services-dept-the-new-york-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Administration Live Updates: Mass Layoffs Announced at Health and Human Services Dept. – The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Devlin<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The attorney general indicates there will be no criminal inquiry into the Signal chat.<\/a><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Attorney General Pam Bondi seemed to be ruling out any criminal investigation into how details of a military operation was shared in an insecure text group.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Kenny Holston\/The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Attorney General Pam Bondi signaled on Thursday that there was unlikely to be a criminal investigation into the sharing of military operation details in an unsecured text group, declaring that the specifics of when fighter jets would depart and when bombs would fall were \u201cnot classified.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Bondi, speaking at a news conference in Virginia, was asked about the public debate surrounding Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after he sent details of a coming attack on rebels in Yemen to senior administration officials in a Signal group chat that accidentally included a magazine editor.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt was sensitive information, not classified, and inadvertently released,\u201d Ms. Bondi said, while praising the military operation that ensued.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we should be talking about is, it was a very successful mission,\u201d she said, before quickly accusing Democrats from previous administrations of mishandling classified information.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to talk about classified information, talk about what was in Hillary Clinton\u2019s home,\u201d she said. \u201cTalk about the classified documents in Joe Biden\u2019s garage, that Hunter Biden had access to.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Justice Department opened investigations into Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Biden in those instances, but neither ultimately faced criminal charges. She did not mention the prosecution of Mr. Trump over his handling of classified documents after his first term in office \u2014 a case which was ultimately abandoned when he won a second term.<\/p>\n

In this case, Ms. Bondi seemed to be ruling out any similar investigation to determine all the facts.<\/p>\n

Dating back to at least the Reagan administration, the government has considered the details of \u201cmilitary plans, weapons, or operations\u201d to be classified.<\/p>\n

Under federal law, it is possible for people to be charged with crimes for mishandling national defense information that is not classified, but such prosecutions are very rare.<\/p>\n

This month, hours before the military strikes against Houthi targets, Mr. Hegseth texted the group the plan of attack, including the time at which \u201cthe first bombs will definitely drop.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the attack was carried out, the details of the text conversation were revealed by Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, who was accidentally included in the conversation among the senior officials.<\/p>\n

Mr. Hegseth and other senior officials have argued that the information he shared was not classified, and that it was ultimately up to his department to decide what of its information should be considered classified.<\/p>\n

National security experts said that argument fails a test of basic common sense about the danger of letting military plans leak before an operation, and that it goes against longtime practice among military and intelligence agencies.<\/p>\n

Democratic lawmakers sparred over the issue with Trump administration officials<\/a> at a congressional hearing Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, told the House intelligence committee that \u201cno sources, methods, locations or war plans\u201d were shared.<\/p>\n

In the same hearing, Representative Joaquin Castro, Democrat of Texas, scoffed at claims that the information was not classified. \u201cYou all know that\u2019s a lie,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a lie to the country.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Javier<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Under Trump, the Kennedy Center\u2019s classical offerings will (mostly) go on.<\/a><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Washington National Opera will perform classics like \u201cAida\u201d and less commonly heard works like \u201cTreemonisha.\u201d The National Symphony Orchestra is planning warhorses by Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich as well as world premieres.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Mandel Ngan\/Agence France-Presse \u2014 Getty Images<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The Kennedy Center\u2019s flagship opera company and symphony orchestra announced Thursday that they plan to present robust and fairly typical programs next season, the first full season since President Trump took over the institution<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But one prominent work was missing from the lineup: Gregory Spears and Greg Pierce\u2019s \u201cFellow Travelers<\/a>,\u201d an opera set in the 1950s about two men working for the government who become lovers. The work was withdrawn by its creators because of concerns about Mr. Trump\u2019s takeover<\/a>, according to a letter obtained by The New York Times.<\/p>\n

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Washington National Opera said the 2025-26 season would include classics like Verdi\u2019s \u201cAida\u201d and less commonly heard works like \u201cTreemonisha,\u201d an opera by the ragtime composer Scott Joplin. The National Symphony Orchestra is planning warhorses by Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich and world premieres by Carlos Simon, the Kennedy Center\u2019s composer in residence; Valerie Coleman; and others.<\/p>\n

In a sign of the political sensitives at the Kennedy Center, the leaders of the opera and the symphony declined to be interviewed about the new season.<\/p>\n

The center has been in flux since Mr. Trump purged its previously bipartisan board of Biden appointees and had himself elected chairman. The president\u2019s actions have prompted an outcry, leading some artists to cancel engagements there in protest. The musical \u201cHamilton\u201d scrapped a planned tour there next year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The classical field, in which seasons are planned years in advance, has largely been unaffected. But the creators of \u201cFellow Travelers,\u201d an opera based on the 2007 novel by Thomas Mallon, confirmed this week that they were pulling the work, which was supposed to have its Washington premiere next year.<\/p>\n

The creators said in a recent letter to Washington National Opera that Mr. Trump\u2019s takeover ran counter to the values of \u201cfreedom and liberty for all people\u201d that are highlighted in the opera. \u201cWe have made the impossibly difficult decision that the Kennedy Center is not a place the team feels comfortable having the work presented,\u201d said the letter.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the leaders of Washington National Opera, Tim O\u2019Leary and Francesca Zambello, said they were disappointed by the decision to withdraw \u201cFellow Travelers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe deeply regret that the creative team of \u2018Fellow Travelers\u2019 has decided to deprive W.N.O. audiences of the chance to experience this opera,\u201d Mr. O\u2019Leary and Ms. Zambello said. \u201cArt and music have the power to rise above division and bring people together to find common ground. The W.N.O. has long been a place for everyone to enjoy the power of the opera and it will remain a place for patrons of all backgrounds and beliefs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFellow Travelers,\u201d which is set in Washington and premiered at Cincinnati Opera in 2016<\/a>, will be replaced by a new production of Robert Ward\u2019s \u201cThe Crucible.\u201d It will be conducted by Robert Spano<\/a> as part of his inaugural season as the opera company\u2019s music director.<\/p>\n

The season announcement came as the Kennedy Center undergoes significant change under Richard Grenell<\/a>, a former ambassador to Germany, whom Mr. Trump appointed as the Kennedy Center\u2019s new president.<\/p>\n

This week, the center gutted a community outreach program known as Social Impact, firing several employees and deleting some references to the program on its website. The program had worked to expand the audience for opera and symphony performances; to commission works by underrepresented voices; and to \u201cadvance justice and equity.\u201d (The Trump administration has shuttered many diversity-themed efforts across the federal government.)<\/p>\n

Marc Bamuthi Joseph, who was dismissed as a vice president at the center who oversaw Social Impact, lamented the end of the programs. \u201cThey were wildly successful, they were growing, there was a positive trajectory,\u201d he said in an interview. \u201cThere was no evidence at all that the programs were a detriment to the institution.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Kennedy Center did not respond to a request for comment about the cuts. But Donna Arduin, the center\u2019s new chief financial officer, wrote in a letter to staff on Wednesday that the center was facing serious fiscal challenges.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe road out of this economic environment will not be easy and the shift will be felt across the center,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

Mr. Grenell, in a social media post<\/a> on Wednesday, said the center would begin by \u201ccutting executive pay and downsizing the staff where possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the upheaval, many artists and employees have chosen to stay on. The conductor Gianandrea Noseda recently renewed his contract<\/a> as music director of the National Symphony through at least 2031.<\/p>\n

And Mr. Simon, the center\u2019s composer in residence, said in an interview that he would maintain his affiliation, saying he felt his music could \u201creflect what\u2019s happening in the world \u2014 unapologetically.\u201d Mr. Simon, who will premiere a double concerto for violin and cello next season with the National Symphony, said he felt he had creative freedom at the center.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow is not the time to pull back,\u201d he said. \u201cNow is the time for artists to create.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Musk targeted FEMA. Storm-battered communities are paying a price.<\/a><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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A freeze on Federal Emergency Management Agency money has disrupted payments to states, local governments and nonprofits, with ramifications being felt across the country.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

A post from Elon Musk last month trumpeted a supposedly startling discovery by his team of government cost-cutters: The Federal Emergency Management Agency had provided $59 million to house undocumented immigrants in New York City. The money, he declared, was \u201cmeant for American disaster relief and instead is being spent on high end hotels for illegals!\u201d<\/p>\n

But if Mr. Musk\u2019s goal was to funnel more FEMA money to disaster aid, the fallout from his declaration had the opposite effect.<\/p>\n

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A pair of Trump administration orders, issued soon after the Feb. 10 social media post<\/a>, aimed to block any agency money from helping undocumented immigrants and \u201csanctuary\u201d jurisdictions protecting them left FEMA staff without sufficient guidance about how to proceed, effectively freezing payments on billions of dollars in disaster grants, according to two people briefed on the process and an internal document viewed by The New York Times.<\/p>\n

While the freeze did not stop aid going directly to disaster survivors, it has disrupted payments to states, local governments and nonprofits, with ramifications felt across the country.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Sheryl<\/a>\"Christina<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Kennedy plans to lay off 10,000 workers at Health and Human Services.<\/a><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation\u2019s health secretary, is reorganizing the Health and Human Services Department.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Eric Lee\/The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The Trump administration on Thursday announced a layoff of 10,000 employees at the Health and Human Services Department, as part of a broad reorganization designed to bring communications and other functions directly under the purview of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.<\/p>\n

The layoffs are a drastic reduction in personnel for the sprawling health department, which now employs about 82,000 people and touches the lives of every American through its oversight of medical care, food and drugs. Together with previous layoffs and departures, the move will bring the department down to about 62,000 employees, the agency said.<\/p>\n

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The restructuring will include creating a new division called the Administration for a Healthy America. \u201cWe\u2019re going to do more with less,\u201d Mr. Kennedy said, even as he acknowledged it would be \u201ca painful period for H.H.S.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 28 divisions of the health agency will be consolidated into 15 new divisions, according to a statement issued by the department. Mr. Kennedy announced the changes in a YouTube video<\/a>. The staff cuts, reported<\/a> earlier by The Wall Street Journal, are being made in line with President Trump\u2019s order to implement the Department of Government Efficiency\u2019s shrinking of the federal work force.<\/p>\n

Mr. Kennedy said rates of chronic disease rose under the Biden administration even as the government grew. He pitched the changes as a way to refocus the agency on Americans\u2019 health, but did not outline any specifics on how he would mediate rates of diabetes, heart disease or any other condition.<\/p>\n

The reorganization will cut 3,500 jobs from the Food and Drug Administration, which approves and oversees the safety of a vast swath of the medications and consumer products people eat and rely on for well-being, according to an H.H.S. fact sheet. The cuts are said to be administrative, but some of the roles support research and monitoring of the safety and purity of food and drugs, as well as travel planning for inspectors who investigate overseas food and drug facilities.<\/p>\n

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will also have its work force cut by about 2,400 employees, and will narrow its focus to \u201cpreparing for and responding to epidemics and outbreaks,\u201d the fact sheet said. The C.D.C. also does work on H.I.V.\/AIDS, tobacco control, maternal health and the distribution of vaccines<\/a> for children. The National Institutes of Health will lose 1,200 staff members, and the agency that administers Medicare and Medicaid is expected to lose 300.<\/p>\n

All of those agencies have campuses outside of Washington and tend to operate under their own authority, and Mr. Kennedy has been at odds with all of them. Mr. Kennedy assailed them, and other parts of the department, in his video.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I arrived, I found that over half of our employees don\u2019t even come to work,\u201d he claimed. \u201cH.H.S. has more than 100 communications offices and more than 40 I.T. departments and dozens of procurement offices and nine H.R. departments. In many cases, they don\u2019t even talk to each other. They\u2019re mainly operating in silos.<\/p>\n

The plan also includes collapsing 10 regional H.H.S. offices into five.<\/p>\n

Dr. Robert Califf, the F.D.A. administrator during the Biden administration, said his team worked with staff to drum up support for an 8,000 person reorganization to change how its divisions for food and facility inspections operate. Given how morale-crushing the second Trump administration has been for the department, with many staff members laid off on the false premise that their performance was subpar, the effort could be all the more challenging.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you are coming to work sick to your stomach, as Russell Vought said he wanted them to,\u201d he said, referring to the head of the Office of Management and Budget, \u201cthen people are not going to be able to collaborate as well. They\u2019ll be suspicious of each other, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Califf said such a sudden and massive reduction in staff and reorganization could also disrupt services and safety oversight that the public relies on.<\/p>\n

Mr. Kennedy also suggested in the video that the changes would help his team get more access to data, a prospect that has been fraught, given Mr. Kennedy\u2019s long history of manipulating figures to advance arguments about the harm of vaccines that have widely been deemed safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn one case, defiant bureaucrats impeded the secretary\u2019s office from accessing the closely guarded databases that might reveal the dangers of certain drugs and medical interventions,\u201d Mr. Kennedy said.<\/p>\n

Mr. Kennedy said the new division, the Administration for a Healthy America, would combine a number of agencies focused on substance abuse treatment and chemical safety, as well as the agency that administers courts that handle federal claims over vaccine injuries.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to consolidate all of these departments and make them accountable to you, the American taxpayer and the American patient,\u201d Mr. Kennedy said. \u201cThese goals will honor the aspirations of the vast majority of existing H.H.S. employees who actually yearn to make America healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Devlin<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Attorney General Pam Bondi declared Thursday that information about a pending military operation in Yemen that was mistakenly shared with a journalist in a Signal group chat was \u201cnot classified.\u201d Speaking at a news conference, Bondi said: \u201cIt was sensitive information, not classified, and inadvertently released.\u201d She added: \u201cIf you want to talk about classified information, talk about what was in Hillary Clinton\u2019s home.\u201d National security veterans have previously said<\/a> the details of a pending military operation, such as those sent to the group chat by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, match the type of information that is meant to be classified. <\/p>\n

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Credit…<\/span>Eric Lee\/The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\"Devlin<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The declaration, coming from the nation\u2019s top law enforcement official, suggests there will be no criminal investigation of the pending attack plans that Hegseth shared in the Signal chat group.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Sheryl<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Trump administration will announce a massive layoff today of 10,000 employees at the Department of Health and Human Services, as part of a dramatic reorganization designed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., according to a White House official. The layoffs, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, amount to a drastic reduction in personnel for the health department, which now employs about 80,000 people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Sheryl<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Journal also reported<\/a> that the reorganization would bring communications and other functions across the department\u2019s various agencies directly under Kennedy\u2019s authority. Those agencies include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health, which all have campuses outside of Washington and tend to operate under their own authority.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Karoun<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Trump administration deflects blame for the Signal leak at every turn.<\/a><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Michael Waltz, the national security adviser, inadvertently included the editor in chief of The Atlantic in a group chat of top U.S. officials discussing plans for a military strike on Houthi militant sites in Yemen earlier this month.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Doug Mills\/The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

It was a hoax. The information wasn\u2019t classified. Somehow the journalist got \u201csucked into\u201d the Signal chat, either deliberately or through some kind of technical glitch.<\/p>\n

In the days since the editor in chief of The Atlantic revealed<\/a> he had been inadvertently included in a group chat of top U.S. officials planning a military strike on Houthi militants in Yemen, senior members of the Trump administration have offered a series of shifting, sometimes contradictory and often implausible explanations for how the episode occurred \u2014 and why, they say, it just wasn\u2019t that big a deal.<\/p>\n

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Taken together, the statements for the most part sidestep or seek to divert attention from the fundamental fact of what happened: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used Signal, an unclassified commercial app, to share sensitive details about an imminent attack in an extraordinary breach of national security.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a look at the main players and what they\u2019ve said about what happened, and how much their reasoning matches up with what transpired.<\/p>\n