Biden’s letter to Trump wished him ‘all the best in the next four years,’ Fox reports
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(WASHINGTON) — Former President Joe Biden wished President Donald Trump “all the best for the next four years” in the letter he left in the Resolute desk in the Oval Office, Fox News reported Wednesday.
Trump said Tuesday night that he opened the letter and called it “very nice.”
“Just basically, it was a little bit of an inspirational type of letter, you know? ‘Joy, do a good job. Important, very important, how important the job is.’ But I may, I think it was a nice letter. I think I should let people see it, because it was a positive for him, in writing it, I appreciated the letter,” Trump told reporters Tuesday evening.
Read aloud on Fox News Wednesday morning, the letter was addressed “Dear President Trump” and was two paragraphs long.
“As I take leave of this sacred office I wish you and your family all the best in the next four years. The American people – and people around the world – look to this house for steadiness in the inevitable storms of history, and my prayer is that in the coming years will be a time of prosperity, peace, and grace for our nation,” Biden wrote Trump.
He closed with a prayer, “May God bless you and guide you as He has blessed and guided our beloved country since our founding.”
Trump appeared to discover the letter Biden left for him on Monday evening in the Oval Office when speaking with reporters.
When one asked whether he’d found the letter, Trump opened the drawer of the desk and found it, apparently for the first time. It was in a small white envelope with “47” written on the front and underlined.
“It could have been years before we found this thing. Wow, thank you,” Trump said.
Biden continued the tradition of leaving a letter for his successor — one Trump continued in 2020 when he left after his first term, turning over the office to Biden.
Trump also reflected on his return to the Oval Office, when asked by ABC News about how it felt to be back in the White House.
“What a great feeling, one of the better feelings I’ve ever had,” Trump said.
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in New York on Wednesday dismissed corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams, but not in the way the Trump administration wanted.
Judge Dale Ho dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning it cannot be revived.
The Justice Department sought to have the case dismissed to free up Adams to cooperate with the mayor’s immigration agenda, however, the department wanted the case dismissed without prejudice, meaning it could be brought again.
Adams was indicted last year in the Southern District of New York on five counts in an alleged long-standing conspiracy connected to improper benefits, illegal campaign contributions and an attempted cover-up. He had pleaded not guilty.
Ho declined to endorse the DOJ’s desired outcome.
“In light of DOJ’s rationales, dismissing the case without prejudice would create the unavoidable perception that the Mayor’s freedom depends on his ability to carry out the immigration enforcement priorities of the administration, and that he might be more beholden to the demands of the federal government than to the wishes of his own constituents. That appearance is inevitable, and it counsels in favor of dismissal with prejudice,” Ho decided.
Ho’s 78-page opinion dismantled the Justice Department’s stated rationale for dismissal: so Adams could focus on the Trump administration’s immigration priorities.
The judge said he could find no other example of the government dismissing charges against an elected official to enable the official to facilitate federal policy goals.
“DOJ’s immigration enforcement rationale is both unprecedented and breathtaking in its sweep,” Ho said. “And DOJ’s assertion that it has ‘virtually unreviewable’ license to dismiss charges on this basis is disturbing in its breadth, implying that public officials may receive special dispensation if they are compliant with the incumbent administration’s policy priorities. That suggestion is fundamentally incompatible with the basic premise of equal justice under the law.”
Ho also made clear he was not weighing the facts of the case and said his decision “is not about whether Mayor Adams is innocent or guilty.”
Still, Adams’ lawyer celebrated the decision to drop the charges without the fear of them being revived after the mayoral election in November — as the Justice Department had threatened.
“The case against Eric Adams should have never been brought in the first place — and finally today that case is gone forever,” Alex Spiro, Adams’ lawyer, said in a statement. “From Day 1, the mayor has maintained his innocence and now justice for Eric Adams and New Yorkers has prevailed.”
The decision to dismiss the charges came just days after Adams’ lawyer had pushed for them to be dismissed ahead of the April 3 deadline for petitions to be submitted for mayoral candidates to get on the June primary ballot. Adams has said he will run as a Democrat in the primary despite criticism from opponents he has cozied up to the Trump administration in recent months, meeting with the president and attending his Inauguration instead of scheduled Martin Luther King Day events in the city.
The decision by Ho followed the recommendation from Paul Clement, who served as solicitor general under the Bush administration and was appointed by Ho to make an independent assessment of the case.
“A dismissal without prejudice creates a palpable sense that the prosecution outlined in the indictment and approved by a grand jury could be renewed, a prospect that hangs like the proverbial Sword of Damocles over the accused,” Clement said.
The eventual dismissal came after a scathing letter from acting U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, suggesting acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove and other members of DOJ leadership were explicitly aware of a quid pro quo suggested by Adams’ attorneys, saying Adams’ vocal support of Trump’s immigration policies would be boosted by dismissing the indictment against him.
Sassoon, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, resigned in protest along with several other career DOJ officials.
Spiro, Adams’ lawyer, balked at the notion of a quid pro quo following Sassoon’s resignation: “The idea that there was a quid pro quo is a total lie. We offered nothing and the department asked nothing of us.”
(WASHINGTON) — Before deciding to resign from the Office of Personnel Management, a senior agency official was asked a question by a staffer from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE): “What’s going to break?”
The official, a civil servant serving in a nonpartisan role, who asked that their name not be used, is now one of the tens of thousands of federal workers taking up the “deferred resignation” offer to leave the government.
OPM manages more than $1 trillion in assets and federal retirement, health and life insurance benefits for millions of current and former federal employees and their spouses, along with sensitive data on millions of government employees. It’s now being directed by officials and appointees with links to Musk’s team who have control over its systems, according to sources familiar with its workings.
The agency also helps the government pay its bills: The Treasury Department borrows money from the trust funds OPM manages for employee retirement programs and health benefits under “extraordinary measures” to avoid breaching the debt ceiling. The funds are made whole once Congress acts to suspend or lift the debt ceiling.
OPM is leading efforts directed by President Donald Trump to shrink the federal workforce and could be facing deep cuts of its own, which current and former officials worry could impact its day-to-day business. The agency’s chief financial officer, Erica Roach, was pushed out of her role this week and chose to resign rather than move into another role after being asked to submit 70% cuts to her office, according to multiple sources familiar with the move. And Melvin Brown, who served as OPM’s chief information officer, was replaced on the second day of the Trump administration, sources told ABC News.
“Eighty-five percent of federal workers work outside the D.C. area,” Rob Shriver, the managing director of Democracy Forward’s civil service initiative and the deputy director of OPM under President Biden, told ABC News. “These are VA nurses, they are law enforcement officers. They are people who process Social Security benefit claims, they are people who inspect our food.”
He added, “They deserve to depend on getting their retirement benefits, the health benefits that the American people have promised them. Taking steps to harm that is going to hurt working class and middle-class people.”
Agency veterans worry that removing and reassigning career officials and accountants who manage these systems could lead to potential problems with government payments and systems – and, they say, raise the risk of missed payments or claims.
On Tuesday, OPM released a memo to government agencies recommending that chief information officers be redesignated as “general” roles rather than “career reserved,” a move that could allow for more political appointees to work in roles generally filled by career civil service workers.
“It’s a complex financial ecosystem, with major implications not just for federal employees but the federal government overall,” a source familiar with the agency’s work told ABC News.
A DOGE spokesman did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
Current and former OPM officials told ABC News that Musk’s team includes engineers and aides who have joined him in government from across the private sector. Some of them wear the same “uniform” in the office and have been spotted sleeping overnight in the office building.
Others have refused to identify themselves in conversations with career officials, sources told ABC News.
“They’re scorching the earth,” one former agency official told ABC News, describing Musk’s team. “It’s a different mindset from SpaceX than providing services to the American people.”
“If you’re building an unmanned spaceship and you forget a screw, the ship might crash. You lose money, but no one is hurt,” the former official added. “If you’re delivering services to the American people and you stop financial assistance, that is impacting people.”
An OPM spokesperson declined to comment on internal agency deliberations.
Musk, who is working in the government as a special government employee, campaigned intensely alongside Trump, and vowed to help reshape the government.
Following an executive order signed by Trump directing his efforts, Musk’s team has embedded in agencies across the federal government, gaining access to IT systems and other crucial programs and data at individual departments and agencies, including the Departments of Health and Human Services, Commerce, Veterans Affairs and Transportation.
The Trump administration has effectively shut down the US Agency for International Development, recalling employees in the field and freezing most foreign assistance programs, with the help of Musk’s team and its access to agency systems.
On his social media platform over the weekend, Musk said he discussed the work on USAID with Trump and that the president agreed with “shutting it down.”
“None of this could be done without the full support of the president. And with regard to the USAID stuff, I went over it with him in detail, and he agreed that we should shut it down,” Musk said. “I want to be clear. I actually checked with him a few times, ‘Are you sure?’ Like, yes, so we are shutting it down.”
The White House has repeatedly defended the work of Musk and his team.
“President Trump was an elected with a mandate from the American people to make this government more efficient,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday in a briefing with reporters. “He campaigned across this country with Elon Musk, vowing that Elon was going to head up the Department of Government Efficiency and the two of them with a great team around them. We’re going to look at the receipts of this federal government and ensure its accountable to American taxpayers.”
(WASHINGTON) — House Republicans signaled they’re going full steam ahead on significant changes to Medicaid, despite pressure from Democrats and even some moderates in their party.
The suggested overhauls to the program, which provides health care for lower-income Americans and those with disabilities, are part of an effort to slash federal spending and hit the House GOP’s goal of cutting $2 trillion over a decade from the federal budget.
“I support any plan that helps Medicaid be sustainable. And the current trajectory of Medicaid is not,” said Florida Republican Rep. Byron Donalds, who recently declared he’s running for governor of Florida — a state with millions of Medicaid recipients.
“Medicaid is supposed to be for people who are disabled, for children, for single parents with multiple kids. That’s what Medicaid is for. And if we continue down this line where it just becomes a bigger and bigger portfolio of beneficiaries, the federal government is not going to be able to afford the match,” Donalds added.
In a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson, moderate Republican members of the Congressional Hispanic Conference warned “slashing Medicaid would have serious consequences, particularly in rural and predominantly Hispanic communities.”
Asked what he would say to Republican colleagues who are worried cuts to Medicaid will have a serious impact on lower income Americans, Donalds replied, “I think some of that is, quite frankly, fear-based. We know the Democrats are already running ads about Medicaid and about how what we’re trying to do is damaging to people and it’s just simply not true.”
Some GOP members have floated adding new work requirements to the program and capping the amount of money states receive to run their Medicaid programs — a pitch that could drastically reduce the number of people on Medicaid and limit the funding available for beneficiaries.
“I don’t consider that a cut,” Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., said about work requirements. “I don’t consider block-granting to the states a cut. The Democrats are using that but it’s just not right.”
The exact plan is still unclear. Approving the House budget blueprint Tuesday night was just the first step in a months-long budgeting process that could stretch into the summer.
“We’re very early in this process,” New York Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, a moderate who represents a Staten Island district with a significant number of Medicaid recipients, said.
“Maybe you should wait until we actually do the work and highlight what we’re going to do,” she said.
Republicans also believe they can achieve a significant amount of their spending cuts by targeting fraud in Medicaid and Medicare. But eliminating all fraud and waste would likely only chip away at Republicans’ goal.
Asked about that approach, Malliotakis said, “There’s about $50 billion a year in fraud, just within the Medicaid program.”
But whether Republicans can get to the kinds of numbers they’re talking about by just eliminating fraud, Malliotakis said, “Well, yes. Within the health care. You’re going to look at that, you’re going to look at the loopholes the states have put in place.
Meanwhile, Democrats are pouncing.
An internal Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee memo first obtained by ABC News shows Democrats aim to make Medicaid cuts “politically perilous for House Republicans” in the November 2026 midterm elections.
“Rather than delivering on their campaign promises to lower the high cost of living, [Republicans] are poised to pass an extreme budget scheme that would decimate affordable health care and take food off the tables of millions of American families,” the memo reads.
