Trump’s “Buyout” Deadline Is Here—With One Crucial Caveat

The U.S. Department of Education chose to kindly let employees know that Donald Trump’s “buyout” offer for federal employees, should they accept it, may be yanked away from them at any moment.

Last week, the president announced that he’d be giving federal workers the option of full-time in-office work or quitting with a buyout and severance pay through September 30. This is a key strategy in his effort to completely transform the federal government’s bureaucratic apparatus.

However, three Department of Education officials told NBC News on Wednesday that there were some massive caveats to this policy. The department’s new chief of staff, Rachel Oglesby, and Jacqueline Clay, its chief human capital officer, told employees that the secretary of education could nullify the agreement or the government could simply stop paying, as employees would waive their right to legal claims if they take the buyout deal. Employees have until Thursday to make a decision.

“It sounded like a commercial for a used car dealership, like, ‘Act now, one day only,’” one department official who was at the meeting said.

The Department of Education and the Office of Personnel Management, the agency responsible for managing federal employees, has pushed back with a memo that claims to assure the government’s accountability on payments. That memo includes a sample agreement that gives the “sole discretion” to waive the buyout to the “agency head” and “waives all rights to challenge the resignation before the Merit Systems Protection Board or any other forum.” More than 40,000 of the two million–plus federal government employees have accepted the buyout as of Wednesday.

Donald Trump is continuing to push his crazy plan for the United States to take over Gaza, even after the idea was soundly rejected by world leaders. In a post on Truth Social Thursday morning, the president said the “Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting.”

“The Palestinians, people like Chuck Schumer, would have already been resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region,” Trump said, showing his true regard for the Palestinians by using them to insult the Senate minority leader.

“They would actually have a chance to be happy, safe, and free. The U.S., working with great development teams from all over the World, would slowly and carefully begin the construction of what would become one of the greatest and most spectacular developments of its kind on Earth. No soldiers by the U.S. would be needed! Stability for the region would reign!!!” Trump’s post said.

The post flies in the face of White House officials’ attempt to clarify Trump’s harebrained idea, which he first mentioned during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday evening. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Wednesday that Trump only intended to “temporarily” transfer the 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza to neighboring countries, such Egypt and Jordan.

The “greatest development teams from all over the world” Trump referred to in his post presumably would be real estate developers, as opposed to humanitarian organizations who help displaced people rebuild their lives and homes. The president is trying to end America’s humanitarian initiatives by trying to close the U.S. Agency for International Development, and his son-in-law Jared Kushner is a real estate developer who sees Gaza’s destruction as an opportunity for profit.

While Trump promises not to use any U.S. troops to transfer Gaza’s population, sending Israeli troops to do the job would reignite the conflict, which continues to simmer despite a more than two-week-old ceasefire. Palestinians have universally rejected the plan, as have America’s Arab allies, who presumably would be taking them in. How, then, does Trump intend to carry out his scheme?

Donald Trump wants CBS to do more than pay the price for conducting a sit-down interview with Kamala Harris before Election Day.

Since the interview aired in September, the president has insisted that the network had selectively edited Harris’s answers to a question regarding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—a detail made all the more confusing since CBS’s 60 Minutes and Face the Nation cut and aired different portions of her answer on different days.

“CBS and 60 Minutes defrauded the public by doing something which has never, to this extent, been seen before,” Trump posted on Truth Social early Thursday. “They 100% removed Kamala’s horrible election changing answers to questions, and replaced them with completely different, and far better, answers, taken from another part of the interview.”

CBS has maintained that the interview with the Democratic presidential candidate was only edited for time but that both clips were cut from the same extended answer to the question.

Trump sued the network for $10 billion after the interview, claiming that the different clips were tantamount to “election interference” and merited CBS losing its broadcast license. Trump also argued, at the time, that Harris should drop out of the presidential race over the GOP-baked scandal.

After a review of the interview, the Federal Communications Commission released a transcript Wednesday revealing that the two answers were in fact cut from the same cloth and had both been provided by the former vice president during an extended 21-second response.

Anna Gomez, a Democratic commissioner on the FCC, said that the raw footage of the interview provided “no evidence” that CBS violated broadcasting guidelines.

“Having now seen these materials, I see no reason to continue pursuing this investigation,” Gomez said in a statement. “The FCC should now move to dismiss this fishing expedition to avoid further politicizing our enforcement actions.”

Still, the company’s apparent innocence is backdropped by a decision from Paramount, its parent company, to pursue a settlement with Trump as it rushes to close a merger with SkyDance. Trump’s new Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr has said that the editing controversy would “likely arise” in his review of the deal.

“Each excerpt reflects the substance of the vice president’s answer,” 60 Minutes said in a statement Wednesday. “As the full transcript shows, we edited the interview to ensure that as much of the vice president’s answers to 60 Minutes’ many questions were included in our original broadcast while fairly representing those answers. 60 Minutes’ hard-hitting questions of the vice president speak for themselves.”

Donald Trump’s announcement that the United States will take over Gaza and ethnically cleanse the area for new developments is such an extreme and grotesque idea, even his own people can’t conceal their disgust.

Trump announced Tuesday that he wants the U.S. to become the steward for the territory it funded the devastating destruction of for more than a year, and develop it into the “the Riviera of the Middle East.” All they needed to do is find some “beautiful area” to relocate its Palestinian residents—an ethnic cleansing by any definition. 

During an appearance on Fox News’s The Five, host Jessica Tarlov explained the widespread criticism of the president’s “untenable” plan.  

“If he’s such a humanitarian then you take those two million people and you bring them here to the U.S., which is the country you are in charge of, and you resettle them. I’m just saying, you can’t force them down other people’s throats,” Tarlov said.

“If you want to know how crazy the idea is, though, you have to look no further than Susie Wiles’s face as he said it,” Tarlov said, referring to a photograph of Trump’s White House chief of staff looking particularly horrified as the president announced his plan to ethnically cleanse all the Palestinians in Gaza.

Tarlov explained that Wiles’s wide-eyed face seemed to telegraph, “Oh my God, what is he saying?”

Trump reportedly unveiled his plan to take over Gaza just two hours before announcing it on live television.

Donald Trump openly speculated about paying himself millions to build a ballroom in the White House while signing an anti-trans executive order Wednesday.

Trump was signing the “No Men in Women’s Sports” executive order in the White House’s East Room and, as he is prone to do, went off on a tangent, remarking how the room was so full that many people couldn’t get in.

“This room is packed. You know, I offered to build a ballroom, I’m very good at building ballrooms. I build beautiful ballrooms, and I actually offered to build a ballroom for the White House. I was going to build it right there,” Trump said, pointing behind him.

“I was going to build a beautiful, beautiful ballroom like I have at Mar-a-Lago, as beautiful as it can be. It was going to cost about a hundred million dollars. I offered to do it, and I never heard back,” Trump added to laughter, noting that he made the offer to the Biden administration. “So, I’m going to try and make the offer to myself, you know, because we could use a bigger room.”

While Trump added that such a project “would cost nothing,” and “I’ll spend the whole thing myself,” he has a reputation for charging the government (and taxpayers, by extension) exorbitant amounts of money.

For example, during his first term, he reportedly charged the Secret Service “300 percent or more above the authorized government per diem” for accommodation at his hotels, and his political work has also resulted in millions of dollars going to his personal coffers. Trump will likely bring up his ballroom idea again, and in all likelihood, it won’t be the last far-fetched, exorbitant project he proposes.

One of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s most devoted cheerleaders, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, may have an ulterior motive for supporting the vaccine skeptic’s nomination to head the Department of Health and Human Services, according to a new report from The American Prospect.

Soon-Shiong has seemingly gone out of his way to boost Kennedy’s bid to head the U.S. health agencies.

In December, Soon-Shiong reportedly blocked the publication of an op-ed criticizing Trump’s Cabinet choices, including Kennedy, TAP reported.

Last week, LA Times contributor Eric Reinhert accused the legacy newspaper of making significant edits to a piece of his that was largely critical of Kennedy, recasting his warning about Trump’s pick to head HHS with a more optimistic tone. The edited version suggested that the virulent anti-vaccine advocate could help assuage the American public’s poor opinion of the health care industry. The New Republic published the original version of Reinhert’s piece here.

When Kennedy’s nomination was narrowly advanced on Tuesday, Soon-Shiong posted on X to cheer him on. “Yay!!!! The transformation of healthcare begins,” he wrote.

But it looks like the billionaire scientist’s support is ultimately self-serving. As Kennedy’s confirmation advances, ImmunityBio, Soon-Shiong’s biotech firm, has three pending drug applications in front of the Food and Drug Administration.

Soon-Shiong founded ImmunityBio in 2014, just four years before he bought the LA Times. The firm’s first commercial drug, Anktiva, which treats a form of bladder cancer, hit the market last April after it was initially rejected the year before. The snafu led Soon-Shiong to infuse an additional $400 million into the company to keep things moving, according to the LA Business Journal.

By ensuring his new buddy secures the position overseeing the FDA, Soon-Shiong can possibly avoid hitting the same expensive snag a second, third, and fourth time.

Soon-Shiong is listed as ImmunityBio’s executive chairman and global chief medical and scientific officer, and in December, his ownership share of the company was around 80 percent.

The far right, including Elon Musk, are pushing a conspiracy theory that the U.S. Agency for International Development secretly funds several mainstream media outlets, including Politico, the Associated Press, and The New York Times.

The conspiracy hatched on Tuesday after a technical glitch prevented Politico’s employees from receiving their paychecks. MAGA influencers, including Benny Johnson, Dana Loesch, and Rob Smith, all saw this as a direct result of Donald Trump suspending USAID’s programs. Johnson fueled the unfounded belief by posting screenshots from USASpending.gov showing that the federal government paid Politico $8.2 million last year, and wrongly assumed that it all came from USAID.

However, in reality, that money appears to come from Politico Pro subscriptions, which are targeted at business executives, lobbyists, and government workers, and cost more than $10,000 each. It also was the total amount of money from all government agencies, not just USAID. The service tracks legislation, votes, and lawsuits, and includes niche reporting and analysis about news from within the federal government.

Right-wing commentators then found what they claimed was evidence that USAID funneled money to the Associated Press, although much of that is due to syndication agreements between the AP and government media outlets such as Voice of America.

Ian Miles Cheong then got in on the conspiracy-mongering, posting screenshots claiming that The New York Times is being funded by the U.S. government, prompting Musk to post, “NYT is government-funded media.” The right-wing panic quickly made its way to the floor of Congress, where Representative Lauren Boebert falsely claimed during a hearing that Politico was laying off staff due to USAID’s funding being cut.

Even the Trump administration weighed in, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt telling reporters at a briefing that she “can confirm that the more than eight million taxpayer dollars that have gone to essentially subsidizing subscriptions to Politico on the American taxpayer’s dime will no longer be happening.”

“The DOGE team is working on canceling those payments now,” Leavitt said.

As ludicrous as this false narrative is, the right is not likely to listen to evidence that goes against its “findings,” especially as media outlets continue to report news from the Trump administration that it dislikes. The expenditures it is decrying are a tiny fraction of the trillions of dollars in the federal budget, and go toward subscriptions and advertising. But all the right sees is an excuse to go after the media outlets that criticize it, even if some conservatives, like Johnson, took money from the Russian government.

After a horrific start to his tenure, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has decided that our aviation system needs Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE’s help.

“Big News–Talked to the DOGE team. They are going to plug in to help upgrade our aviation system,” Duffy wrote Wednesday on X.

“With the support of President @realDonaldTrump, the @DOGE team will aim to make rapid safety upgrades to the air traffic control system,” Musk replied. “Just a few days ago, the FAA’s primary aircraft safety notification system failed for several hours!”

The United States is now getting aviation safety consultations from the adolescent minions of a man whose cybertruck is a death trap and whose rockets often explode. That’s not to mention the Teslas regularly crashing and erupting in flames.

Duffy faces a populace that is shaken after the devastating crash near Reagan National Airport, thanks in part to an aviation system that is outdated and understaffed. We can only hope, for all of our sakes, that Elon isn’t letting a bunch of recent college graduates handle these “rapid safety upgrades.”

Donald Trump has found the perfect person to say if Elon Musk has conflicts of interest: Elon Musk. 

During a White House press briefing Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked what steps the Trump administration was taking to address the conflicts of interest that arise from the billionaire technocrat serving as a “special government employee” heading the Department of Government Efficiency. 

It seems that it’s up to Musk to decide. 

“The president was already asked, and answered the question this week. He said that if Elon Musk comes across a conflict of interest with the contracts and the funding that DOGE is overseeing, then Elon will excuse himself from those contracts,” Leavitt said. 

Leavitt insisted that Musk had “abided by all applicable laws,” which has become the company line about the unelected bureaucrat currently rifling through the private information of federal employees. 

Based on Leavitt’s non-answer, it seems that Musk’s approach to conflicts of interest will be based solely on the honor system, and he will receive no ethics oversight for his dealings with DOGE. 

Earlier this week, Trump said that Musk was given access “only to letting people go that he thinks that are no good,”  and to get rid of certain “groups” and “numbers,” weaving into his outlandish lie about uncovering government spending on condoms for Gaza. “Elon can’t do, and won’t do anything without our approval,” Trump eventually said. Well, that’s comforting. 

Ethics experts have raised concerns over Musk’s dual status as a federal employee and CEO of SpaceX. As a federal employee, he is legally required to recuse himself from any decision that can benefit his financial interests. Meanwhile, he has raked in billions in unclassified prime revenue from the U.S. government in the last year alone. 

The CIA may have just doxxed itself.

The New York Times is reporting that the Central Intelligence Agency, complying with Trump’s attempts to purge the federal government, sent his administration an unclassified email containing a list of every single person the CIA had hired over the past two years. Security experts everywhere are alarmed at the news, as many of those named closely monitor U.S. adversaries like Russia and China—and could soon become targets because of it.

The list, which was sent to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, contained names of operatives whose identities are typically guarded. It’s not clear how many names were in the email.

“Exposing the identities of officials who do extremely sensitive work would put a direct target on their backs for China,” Democratic Senator Mark Warner wrote on X. “A disastrous national security development.”

A former CIA officer described the email as a “counterintelligence disaster.” This comes as Trump offered CIA employees an unauthorized “buyout” in return for their resignations.