Biden’s letter to Trump wished him ‘all the best in the next four years,’ Fox reports

(WASHINGTON) — Employees at the Department of Health and Human Services began to receive notices of mass layoffs on Tuesday, days after HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that 10,000 people would lose their jobs, including employees working on tobacco use, mental health and infectious disease.

The layoffs are expected to impact 3,500 employees at the Food and Drug Administration and 2,400 employees from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — nearly one-fifth of the workforce at both public health divisions, which fall under HHS.

In total, and including roughly 10,000 people who have left over the last few months through early retirement or deferred resignation programs, the overall staff at HHS will fall from 82,000 to around 62,000 — or about a fourth of its workforce.

As news of the cuts spread, employees stood in long lines outside of their offices in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Georgia, some waiting for hours as security determined whether they could be let in the building or not. In some cases, employees were turned around after being informed that they no longer had a job.

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(WASHINGTON) — Economists say the uncertainty from President Donald Trump’s tariff threats and mass layoffs of government workers are starting to have a “chilling” effect on the U.S. economy.

“It’s a very difficult business environment, because they can’t plan for what their cost structure is going to be,” said Rachel Ziemba, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “It’s adding to investment uncertainty, and some people are holding back on investments.”

Trump has so far imposed 10% tariffs on Chinese imports and says he’ll impose additional 10%, plus 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico on March 4. Trump also says he will impose “reciprocal tariffs” that match the duties other countries levy on the U.S. That comes on top of tariff plans on cars, semiconductors, steel and aluminum. Even if Trump doesn’t ultimately move forward with all his tariff threats, the mere uncertainty has a chilling effect.

“If one of the inputs of your factory goes up by 25%, you might cut your production and say maybe we’ll have to fire some people,” Ziemba added.

Meanwhile, the Department of Government Efficiency’s slashing of the federal workforce across the country “also impacts consumption, because people are losing their jobs or are afraid of losing their jobs, so that might cause them to save more money,“ Ziemba said.

This week, The Conference Board’s consumer sentiment survey found that it registered the largest monthly decline since August 2021.

“Views of current labor market conditions weakened. Consumers became pessimistic about future business conditions and less optimistic about future income. Pessimism about future employment prospects worsened and reached a 10-month high,” said Stephanie Guichard, senior economist for global indicators at The Conference Board.

“Average 12-month inflation expectations surged from 5.2% to 6% in February. This increase likely reflected a mix of factors, including sticky inflation but also the recent jump in prices of key household staples like eggs and the expected impact of tariffs,” Guichard said.

The Canada and Mexico tariffs would have a sweeping effect, since those are America’s two biggest trading partners. It could raise prices at the grocery store and the gas pump. Ziemba also noted that the cost of cars could increase by several thousand dollars.

“Every time a car part crosses the border, 25% tariffs could be very onerous,” Ziemba said. “We could see the cost of building a house go up quite substantially.”

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In an interview on ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday, Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy warned of an “assault on the Constitution” under President Donald Trump.

“I think this is the most serious constitutional crisis the country has faced, certainly since Watergate,” Murphy said. “The president is attempting to seize control of power, and for corrupt purposes.”

Pointing to the Trump administration’s efforts to overhaul the federal government, including by freezing foreign aid programs under the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Murphy said the country is in the midst of a “red-alert moment” and argued that Trump is ushering in “the billionaire takeover of government.”

Trump and Elon Musk, the billionaire leader of the new Department of Government Efficiency, have called for a shuttering of USAID, with Trump posting on social media, “CLOSE IT DOWN!”

“The president wants to be able to decide how and where money is spent so that he can reward his political friends, he can punish his political enemies,” Murphy said. “That is the evisceration of democracy.”

“You stand that next to the wholesale endorsement of political violence with the pardons given to every single Jan. 6 rioter — including the most violent, who beat police officers over the head with baseball bats — and you can see what he’s trying to do here,” Murphy continued. “He is trying to crush his opposition by making them afraid of losing federal funding, by making them afraid of physical violence.”

Murphy accused Musk of being motivated to shutter USAID in order to promote his own business interests.

“It makes America much less safe around the world, but it helps China. USAID is a thorn in the side of the Chinese government,” Murphy said. “Elon Musk has many major business interests at stake inside Beijing, and so making Beijing happy is going to accrue to the financial benefit of Elon Musk and many billionaires who outsource work to China.”

Murphy said it amounted to an “assault on the Constitution in order to serve the billionaire class” that will require “full scale opposition.”

“You can’t just rely on the courts,” he said. “Ultimately, you’ve got to bring the American public into this conversation, because we need our Republican colleagues in the House and in the Senate, ultimately, to put a stop to this. You cannot just rely on the court system when the challenge to the Constitution and the billionaire takeover is so acute and so urgent.”

Murphy also pushed back against Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman, who said on the Puck podcast “Somebody’s Gotta Win” last week that Democrats need to tone down their rhetoric, saying Americans are “not going to pay attention” if Democrats “keep yelling” and using “the most severe kinds of language.”

“I don’t agree. I’m not going to calm down,” Murphy said. “This is a fundamental corruption, and democracies don’t last forever, and what those who are trying to destroy democracies want is for everyone to stay quiet, for everyone to believe that the moment isn’t urgent.”

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