Elon Musk’s DOGE Loses Its Second Major Staff Member This Week

Less than a week into the new Donald Trump administration, Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” is already losing employees. 

The top lawyer in the pseudo-department, Bill McGinley, is leaving to work in the private sector, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. His departure follows Vivek Ramaswamy being pushed out of DOGE earlier this week for disagreeing with Musk over the department’s purpose. 

“I am in discussions regarding a number of private sector opportunities and will have something to announce in the next couple of weeks,” McGinley said Thursday. “I support President Trump, Vice President Vance, and the great teams in the White House and across the administration 100 percent.”  

McGinley, who served as Cabinet secretary in Trump’s first term, was initially Trump’s pick for White House counsel. But Trump later changed his mind and named McGinley as DOGE’s chief counsel in December, saying that the lawyer would assist in cutting regulations and reducing government spending. 

So far, DOGE is the target of three lawsuits alleging that its creation breaks federal law due to its operating like a federal agency yet not following public transparency laws that agencies are required to follow. Meanwhile, Musk already has a White House email address and has been working in the West Wing this week, the Journal reports, with DOGE based out of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

With Ramaswamy’s and McGinley’s sudden departures, it seems that Musk’s vision for DOGE is clashing with others in Trump’s orbit as the group begins its work of slashing whatever Musk deems as waste in the federal government. With a deeply entrenched federal bureaucracy with allies in Congress, DOGE fights over prospective cuts are on the horizon, and more departures may soon follow.

Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski were the only two Republicans who voted against Donald Trump’s choice to head the Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth, in a procedural vote Thursday, citing concerns with his ability to lead the U.S. military.

In a long post on X after the vote, Collins took note of the many pressures facing the military, including active conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, as well as threats in the Pacific. Hegseth “does not have the management experience and background that he will need in order to tackle these difficulties,” Collins’s statement said. 

Collins also said that she was concerned about Hegseth’s past statements questioning women serving in the military, saying that after she and Hegseth had a “candid conversation in December about his past statements and apparently evolving views,” she is “not convinced that his position on women serving in combat roles has changed.”

Like Collins, Murkowski also announced her decision to oppose Hegseth in an X post. The Alaska senator said she was concerned about Hegseth’s inexperience, as well as his previous statements against women serving in the military. Murkowski also cited the allegations against Hegseth of sexual assault and excessive drinking in her decision, as well as his repeated marital infidelity.

“These behaviors starkly contrast the values and discipline expected of servicemembers. Men and women in uniform are held accountable for such actions, and they deserve leaders who uphold these same standards,” Murkowski’s statement read.  

In recent days, more allegations against Hegseth have surfaced as his former sister-in-law said in a sworn affidavit that he made his second wife fear for her safety with his “volatile and threatening conduct” and that he doesn’t think women deserve the right to vote.

Murkowski’s and Collins’s votes against Hegseth Thursday led to his nomination only advancing by a 51–49 vote, with every Democrat voting against the former Fox News personality. A final vote on Hegseth’s nomination is expected later this week, and if he loses just one more Republican vote, his confirmation would need Vice President JD Vance’s tiebreaker. Either way, it would be the narrowest confirmation of Trump’s Cabinet nominees so far.

Donald Trump has revoked the security detail for Mike Pompeo, despite the fact that the former secretary of state is reportedly facing threats for actions he took under the president’s direction.

Pompeo and former aide Brian Hook both lost their security details Tuesday, The New York Times reported, despite warnings from the Biden administration that both men had received threats from Iran.

Pompeo and Hook had been involved in America’s aggressive stance toward Iran during the first Trump administration, and Pompeo was reportedly a driving force behind convincing Trump to have Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the leader of the Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, killed.

This change, which the Times reported Thursday, came one day after Trump decided to revoke the security detail of John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser. Bolton has been an outspoken critic of the president.

When Bolton’s security detail was removed, it seemed like a petty jab at someone on Trump’s list of political enemies (it’s really Kash Patel’s list), which could potentially have dangerous consequences. Bolton has also received death threats from Iran and was the target of a murder plot by a member of the Revolutionary Guards Corps in 2022.

Pompeo has done a few small things that could have incurred Trump’s wrath. During his first administration, Pompeo once undermined Trump’s claim that Iran wasn’t funding terrorist groups while Trump was president. In 2023, Pompeo warned that the GOP should shift away from “celebrity leaders” with “fragile egos.” He also was honest about the administration’s financial failures, saying that “the Trump administration spent $6 trillion more than it took in, adding to the deficit,” a truth Trump would rather ignore as he begins his second term.

Trump previously said that Pompeo would not have a place in his forthcoming administration, and said he doesn’t want anyone who worked under Pompeo to join his administration either.

Biden administration officials had stressed to members of the Trump administration the need for security details for all three men, someone with knowledge of the matter told the Times.

The rampant, vile horniness of Republican lawmakers may stop them from getting a key witness on the stand in their sham “reinvestigation” of the January 6 insurrection. 

One of House Speaker Mike Johnson’s aides warned Republicans not to subpoena former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson  because doing so would likely reveal all of the sexually explicit text messages Republicans have been sending Hutchinson since 2018, according to The Washington Post. 

Hutchinson is known for delivering an explosive testimony about the events of January 6, 2021, exposing President Trump as the power-crazed man he is. She told Congress that Trump grabbed the wheel of a moving limousine, jumped at a Secret Service agent, and threw a plate of food at the wall in the days leading up to January 6. 

The idea to subpoena Hutchinson was first raised by Representative Barry Loudermilk, who led the first Republican-only investigation into January 6. He was seeking testimony and electronic messages from Hutchinson in regard to her communications with former Representative Liz Cheney, the Republican leader of the House select committee investigating January 6.

But Loudermilk was dissuaded from this by the Johnson aide, who stated that such a subpoena could add “sexual texts from members who were trying to engage in sexual favors” to public record and “potentially reveal embarrassing information.”

One can only speculate the horrors Hutchinson was sent by our own public officials.

Donald Trump has outright admitted to profiling immigrants.

Speaking with Fox News’s Sean Hannity Wednesday night in his first Oval Office interview since being inaugurated, Trump insisted that you could tell how much “trouble” immigrants are going to be for the country based on the “look” of them.

“Open borders with people pouring in. Some of whom, I won’t get into it, but you can look at them and you can say, ‘Could be trouble, could be trouble,’” Trump told the network.

The forty-seventh president has effectively promised a full-throttle immigration crackdown for the next four years. It includes attacking birthright citizenship and ordering high-profile ICE raids around the country against undocumented immigrants, decisions that could keep the backbone of the nation’s agricultural workforce inside.

Just two days into the administration, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would roll back an Obama-era directive, suddenly allowing the immigration agency to detain people in sensitive areas such as hospitals, places of worship, courtrooms, funerals, and weddings.

“Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” a spokesperson for the agency said in a statement Tuesday. “The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense.”

And those aren’t the only aggressive policies that Trump’s new administration is cozying up to. In an interview with Fox News last week, Vice President JD Vance promised to resume Trump’s “family separation” program, claiming that the system—under which more than 4,600 children were separated from their parents—was being “dishonestly” brandished by its critics. (As of December, 1,360 children remain unaccounted for because of the Trump-era policy, according to a report by Human Rights Watch, which said the practice met the definition for “enforced disappearance,” amounted to “torture,” and was a “crime under international law.”)

“If you come into this country illegally, you need to go back home,” Vance told Fox. “And what the Democrats are going to do is they’re going to hide behind this. They’re going to say this is all about compassion for families.”

The Senate on Thursday confirmed former QAnon doomscroller John Ratcliffe to serve as Trump’s CIA director, 74–25. 

Ratcliffe, who served in Trump’s first administration as director of national intelligence, is a hard-line Trump loyalist with a penchant for conspiracy theories. 

Just four years ago, the “Following” list on his official Twitter account was rife with alt-right QAnon accounts. He followed often graphic accounts like Hobbit Frog and Political Madness, which to this day continue to advance right-wing conspiracy theories on X. While Ratcliffe has since made a new account on X that no longer follows them, his ideological alignment with them very likely remains unchanged. 

Ratcliffe’s nomination didn’t get much objection from Republicans or Democrats, perhaps thanks to the long list of unqualified people Trump has picked for his Cabinet. But Ratcliffe leading the CIA is still cause for concern. In 2019, his initial nomination for director of national intelligence was scuttled after he was caught exaggerating his involvement in counterterrorism efforts. After he was finally confirmed the second time he was nominated, he refused to seriously investigate the murder of Saudi journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi, impeding the release of a report on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s role in the killing. He also called the FBI investigation into Russia’s 2016 election interference a deep state, anti-Trump plot.  

Democrats contested Ratcliffe’s CIA confirmation much less than they did his 2020 DNI nomination, which passed by just a slim 49–44 vote.

Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski announced Thursday that she will vote against Pete Hegseth’s confirmation for secretary of defense because he’s inexperienced and undisciplined.

Murkowski’s decision about Hegseth’s nomination comes just days after his former sister-in-law accused him of making his second wife fear for her safety with his “volatile and threatening conduct.” The Alaska Republican announced her decision in a post on X, in which she cited her “significant concerns.”

“After thorough evaluation, I must conclude that I cannot in good conscience support his nomination for Secretary of Defense,” Murkowski wrote. “I did not make this decision lightly; I take my constitutional responsibility to provide advice and consent with the utmost seriousness.

“Managing the Department of Defense requires vast experience and expertise as the department is one of the most complex and powerful organizations in the world, and Mr. Hegseth’s prior roles in his career do not demonstrate to me that he is prepared for such immense responsibility,” Murkowski wrote, adding that Hegseth was facing allegations of “financial mismanagement and problems with the workplace culture he fostered.”

Hegseth has been accused of regularly abusing alcohol, according to some of his colleagues at Fox News and his family members.

Murkowski wrote that she was concerned what message it would send to women in the armed services, or those hoping to join, if Hegseth was appointed, considering his past statements about how women were not fit for combat.

The senator also addressed the allegations of sexual misconduct against Hegseth, including those in a shocking 2017 police report accusing him of raping an attendee at a Republican women’s conference in Monterey, California.

While he has vehemently denied these allegations, Hegseth has admitted to several other scandals, including five affairs that he had during his first marriage. It seems that his apparent lack of character became just too much for Murkowski to support.

“While the allegations of sexual assault and excessive drinking do nothing to quiet my concerns, the past behaviors Mr. Hegseth has admitted to, including infidelity on multiple occasions, demonstrate a lack of judgment that is unbecoming of someone who would lead our armed forces,” Murkowski wrote. “These behaviors starkly contrast the values and discipline expected of servicemembers. Men and women in uniform are held accountable for such actions, and they deserve leaders who uphold these same standards.”

A federal district court judge on Thursday temporarily blocked Trump’s revocation of birthright citizenship, striking the first blow against the president’s sweeping, aggressive executive orders.

Senior U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour listened to 25 minutes of arguments before rejecting the order, halting the policy from coming into effect for 14 days. There will be an injunction for a permanent block once the initial period is up.

Coughenour agreed with Arizona, Illinois, Oregon, and Washington—the four states that sued Trump—that the executive order was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

“I’ve been on the bench for over four decades,” Coughenour said, according to NBC. “I can’t remember another case where the question presented is as clear as this one. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order.”

Trump signed an executive order ending birthright citizenship on Monday, and has long pledged to end one of the bedrock principles of American identity. “The federal government will not recognize automatic birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens born in the United States,” a Trump official announced on Monday. The order would also ban birthright citizenship for children of parents temporarily in the United States, including those on student and work visas.

This was only one of six lawsuits filed against the Trump administration by Democratic attorney generals in 22 states and immigrants rights organizations across the country. More legal challenges are likely to come.

This story has been updated.

Donald Trump told an audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Thursday that every international business needs to make their products in the United States, or face tariffs.

“My message to every business in the world is very simple: Come make your product in America, and we will give you among the lowest taxes of any nation on Earth,” Trump said in a speech livestreamed from Washington, D.C. “But if you don’t make your product in America, which is your prerogative, then, very simply, you will have to pay a tariff.”

Trump’s tariff threats have not been welcomed by world leaders, especially countries such as Canada and Mexico. The president on Thursday again floated annexing Canada as the fifty-first U.S. state by using tariffs as leverage. He has previously threatened to enact tariffs against Mexico unless the country stops sending “Crime and Drugs” across the border.

On Tuesday, Trump threatened a 10 percent tariff against China “based on the fact that they’re sending fentanyl to Mexico and Canada,” and said he was considering tariffs against the European Union over a $350 billion trade deficit. But at Davos, these threats did not go over well.

“Tariffs against friends and allies is a crazy idea,” Finland’s Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen told The Wall Street Journal. Likewise, the head of the World Trade Organization, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said tariffs would hurt global growth and could result in retaliatory tariffs, with devastating results.

“If we have tit-for-tat retaliation, whether it’s 25 percent tariff (or) 60 percent, and we go to where we were in the 1930s, we’re going to see double-digit global GDP losses. That’s catastrophic. Everyone will pay,” Okonjo-Iweala said at Davos Thursday.

Trump isn’t likely to listen to criticism over his tariff plans, even as economic experts say they will hurt the country, particularly areas that engage in cross-border trade like Texas. While he might engage in specific carve-outs for his corporate friends, for the most part, Trump plans to plow ahead with tariffs regardless of their devastating effects on the U.S. economy.

Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to have successfully convinced Donald Trump that diminishing America’s nuclear weapons reserves would be a good thing.

Speaking before the World Economic Forum on Thursday, the forty-seventh president said that Putin had warmed to the idea of “denuclearization” between the two countries.

“We’d like to see denuclearization,” Trump told the conference. “I will tell you that President Putin really liked the idea of cutting way back on nuclear, and I think the rest of the world, we would have gotten them to follow.

“And China too, China liked it,” Trump added.

On Monday, Putin indicated that he was ready to discuss nuclear arms control, the war in Ukraine, and other security issues with Trump, reported Reuters.

The last and only remaining nuclear arms deal between the U.S. and Russia—the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, otherwise known as New START—is set to expire on February 5, 2026. The deal capped the number of strategic nuclear warheads that the two nations could deploy, as well as the number of land and water vehicles used to deliver them.

Legitimate international disarmament would, of course, be a good thing. But whether Putin would actually follow through on diminishing his nation’s nuclear stockpiles is unclear. For decades, Russia has spent millions working to replace and upgrade its strategic and nonstrategic nuclear systems.

As of early 2024, Russia possessed a total of 5,580 nuclear warheads, the most of any country in the world, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The nonprofit organization argued that the war in Ukraine had drastically depleted Russia’s “conventional forces,” pushing it to deepen its reliance on nuclear weapons for its national defense systems.

“Russia’s nuclear modernization programs—combined with frequent explicit nuclear threats against other countries in the context of its large conventional war in Ukraine—contribute to uncertainty about the country’s long-term intentions and have generated a growing international debate about the nature of its nuclear strategy,” read a Bulletin column.

The global security group further argued that the U.S. ballistic missile system could stand in the way of Russia’s eventual nuclear disarmament, claiming that the missile system “constitutes a real future risk to the credibility of Russia’s retaliatory capability.”

Some of Trump’s domestic decisions prior to entering the White House were reportedly “thrilling” to Russian mouthpieces. Margarita Simonyan, the editor in chief of the Russian state-controlled broadcaster RT, mocked American politicians in December for their stupidity while claiming that some of Trump’s more unqualified choices for his Cabinet—such as onetime DOGE co-chair nominee Vivek Ramaswamy and director of national intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard—are friendly faces that bring the Kremlin “lots of joy.”