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Donald Trump has moved to compel the Elon Musk cost reduction working group, commanding his office to ensure that “the most productive” officials are exempt from dismissals that have wreaked havoc in the United States.
During a meeting at the White House on Thursday attended the secretaries of state and musk, the president hinted at the so-called billionaire Government Department of Effectiveness Perhaps too blind in its mass layoffs of federal employees.
Trump posted on Truth Social shortly after the end of the meeting: “While secretaries learn and understand people working for the various departments, they can be very precise about who will remain and who will go. We say the “scalpel” rather than the “ax”. »»
The president’s comments come in the midst of concern among the republican legislators and the members of the cabinet on the speed and extent of DOGE dismissalswho have assigned at least 20,000 federal employees – including veterans and cancer researchers.
“It is very important that we reduce levels where they should be, but it is also important to keep the best and most productive people,” wrote Trump in his article. “We are going to have these meetings every two weeks until this aspect of this very necessary work is done.”
Addressing the White House journalists Thursday afternoon, Trump went further: “I don’t want to see a big cup where many good people are cut. . . I want the members of the cabinet to go first, keep everyone you want, everyone you need.
The post of Trump echoes the comments of the Republican MP of New York, Nicole Malliotakis, last month, in which she urged Doge to use a “scalpel and not a hammer” during the identification of savings “to avoid unforeseen consequences and unnecessary anxiety”.
The head of the majority of the Senate, John Thune, said that the layoffs said that “should be done in a respectful manner”, while a number of his republican colleagues have delicately criticized proposed cuts in scientific research, American aid spending and the slaughter of FBI agents.
In response to concerns, Musk agreed on Wednesday to provide certain Republican senators with his personal phone number to call and report problem cuts, according to some who were in the room.
The president of the Chamber, Mike Johnson, advised the Republican members of the Congress not to organize in person meetings in their districts, after a certain number of legislators were subjected to strong demonstrations concerning the Cups of Doge in the town halls in Georgia, Texas and Kansas, among other states.
Earlier this week, the Trump administration discreetly clarified a directive that stimulated dismissals, declaring that it was up to the agencies to determine the opportunity to reject employees.
Last week, a federal judge prohibited the office for the management of American government personnel – a key vehicle for Musk’s Doge Project – to dismiss probation employees in specific departments, clarifying that the office “has no authority under a law of the history of the universe to hire and dismiss employees in another agency”.
Some probation workers from the National Science Foundation last month began to be rehired on Monday, the agency said. The US government was also forced last month to re -hire employees of the National Nuclear Security Administration.
