FEMA officials fired after Musk claims they paid to house migrants in ‘luxury’ NYC hotels
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(NEW YORK) — After Elon Musk complained about federal spending for housing migrants in what he called “luxury hotels” housing in New York City, the Department of Homeland Security announced Tuesday four FEMA officials who it said made the payments had been fired.
The firings include the agency’s chief financial officer, two program analysts and a grant specialist, DHS said in a statement that labeled them “deep state activists.”
The money came from the FEMA grant program.
“Under President Trump and Secretary Noem’s leadership, DHS will not sit idly and allow deep state activists to undermine the will and safety of the American people,” the DHS statement said.
Further details about the firings were not immediately released.
Musk claimed on X that his Department of Government Efficiency “discovered” that FEMA over $50 million to ‘luxury” hotels for “migrant housing,” and doing so violated the president’s executive order calling for an immigration crackdown.
A short time later, Acting FEMA Administrator Cameron Hamilton posted on X that payments to those luxury hotels had been suspended as of Saturday and “personnel will be held accountable.”
Trump echoed Musk’s criticism of FEMA and continued to bash it in a social media post on Truth Social Tuesday.
He said that the agency is being investigated due to allegedly mismanaging money and not helping North Carolina; and that the agency should be “TERMINATED.”
ABC News’ Justin Gomez, Oren Oppenheim and Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Dozens of Department of Education employees received letters as business hours closed Friday placing them on administrative leave, according to a copy of one letter obtained by ABC News.
While no specific reason was given, some employees told ABC News they believe the only common thread among them is that they attended a voluntary training called the “Diversity Change-Agent Training Program.”
The letter states that the administrative leave notice is not for disciplinary purposes. Rather, it’s being issued under President Donald Trump’s executive order on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and “further guidance” from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, according to the letter.
Per the letter, employees will receive full pay and benefits through the end of the administrative leave.They are not required to do work-related tasks during this time, nor are they required to come into the office. Employees who were placed on leave also had their government email access suspended as they received the letters. There’s no set time for the leave period, according to the letter.
The letters have caused a frenzy throughout the department, as some employees had been locked out of their accounts and had to check their private email addresses for the notice, according to Sheria Smith, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 252.
Smith told ABC News more than 50 employees in “extremely diverse roles” within the department received the email notices to their government email addresses or their private email accounts after regular business hours over the weekend.
ABC News spoke with three Department of Education employees who received the letters and described their leave as “paid administrative hell” since Friday evening.
“It’s very, very, unsettling,” one department employee of over 20 years, who works in Washington, D.C., told ABC News. “I don’t get it. What’s my crime? What have I done?”
Smith said the positions of Department of Education employees placed on leave run the gamut, from senior civil rights attorneys to attorneys for borrower defense to press specialists. She said she feared more letters would be sent in the coming days.
An attorney who works for the department in Washington, D.C., said they were put on leave from their “dream job.” The employee has two children and received the notice after putting them to bed on Friday night, they said. The person said Friday was tough and the news was shocking to receive, but now they’re feeling “different levels” of sadness.
“My mood felt a little bit different just waking up knowing that I wasn’t going to be working,” the employee told ABC News.
“But I just feel like there’s a lot of information that I’m trying to process and, with small kids, it’s like you’re trying to balance a lot,” the employee added.
Trump’s rhetoric — including threatening for months to shutter the Department of Education — has created fear throughout the department, according to Smith.
“People took these jobs because they care about the mission,” Smith told ABC News. “And so it absolutely impacts us. You know, the very thing that brought us to these jobs we’re unable to do.”
The department employee with two small children has worked for the department for just over four years and comes from a family of educators. The employee said education is the “great equalizer,” and the Department of Education benefits everyone.
“I believe in the department,” the department attorney said, adding: “I always wanted to work here.”
In a statement to ABC News, Department of Education Deputy Assistant Secretary for Communications Madi Biedermann said the president was elected to enact “unprecedented reform” that is merit-based and efficient at serving the interests of the American people.
“We are evaluating staffing in line with the commitment to prioritizing meaningful learning ahead of divisive ideology in schools and putting student outcomes above special interests,” Biedermann wrote.
ABC News has reached out to the White House for comment.
Meanwhile, the three department employees who spoke to ABC News said they’re completely stumped on why they were issued administrative leave notices. The department employee with decades of experience in Washington also said it’s puzzling, in part, because during Trump’s first term, managers were evaluated on upholding DEI standards via a department performance rating system.
“We were expected to do DEI,” the employee said. “That’s what Trump and [then-Education Secretary] Betsy DeVos wanted us to do. They wanted to do that. They put it in our [performance] plans. We did not put that in our plans. And not only that, it is in every manager’s plan in the department, not just people that are on administrative leave.”
“Every single person in the Department of Education that’s a supervisor or a manager right now has [DEI] in their performance plan — that is programmed in by the department,” the employee added.
The administrative leave notices may have been tied to a two-day “Diversity Change-Agent Training Program,” a facilitator-led training, according to training document slides obtained by ABC News. The training took place over two days dating as far back as March 2019, under DeVos and during Trump’s first term, according to a February 2019 email obtained by ABC News with the subject “Diversity Change Agent Course.”
The training program aimed to create specific action plans to “drive diversity and inclusion” and increase creativity and innovation. The program also challenged employees to achieve greater results by championing the diversity of its workforce while creating and sustaining an inclusive environment, according to the training document slides.
Another department employee, who took the 2019 training and works remotely out of the New York offices, called the notice “bizarre,” especially since the 2019 training occurred during the president’s first term.
“The whole thing is bizarre,” the department employee told ABC News. “Betsy DeVos — and [Trump’s] prior administration — was a decent champion of these programs, and they didn’t come with any warning to me to say, ‘Hey, taking this training might lead to an adverse personnel action one day,’ right? So it’s just strange how they can retroactively apply something.”
The department employees on leave who spoke to ABC News said they have no official DEI responsibilities in their roles. All three department employees who spoke with ABC News also confirmed the only DEI-like program that would potentially be barred under Trump’s executive order would be the change-agent training sessions.
However, to their knowledge, the three employees on leave said there’s no official list or way of matching the employees on administrative leave with the training programs. Even though they’re convinced these trainings link them to the Trump administration’s definition of DEI, the employees haven’t confirmed why they’re on leave, according to the ones who spoke to ABC News.
The employee who works out of New York has more than a dozen years of experience in administering federal programs. Multiple other employees on administrative leave that this employee spoke to over the weekend said they also took the 2019 training, according to the employee.
“That’s the only thing we can think of that any of us did,” the employee said.
After reaching out to other colleagues with the same titles, the employee in New York said, they “pieced it together.” This employee said they took at least three training programs like the diversity change-agent training program since the initial training.
The Republican-led effort passed 224-198 with two members voting present, one of them being Green. Ten Democrats voted on the resolution to censure Green.
The Texas Democrat was immediately called to the well for a public reading of the resolution by Speaker Mike Johnson. Green and other Democrats surrounding him there began singing the civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome,” which prompted the Republican side to yell “order.”
A screaming match between House Democrats and Republicans broke out. At one point, Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley yelled back, “Shame on you!” Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib also shouted at Republicans.
In a brief appearance on Fox News after the vote, Johnson called it “a really sad day for out institution.”
Moments before the vote, Johnson had told ABC News he took “no pleasure in making history like this” and hoped Green would “acknowledge his mistake.”
“I want us to have proper decorum. I want us to maintain really the great tradition of this institution,” Johnson said. “And these things do damage to it and I’m sorry that it happened.”
Green was ejected from the joint session on Tuesday after interrupting the president’s speech and refusing to sit down despite warnings from Johnson.
“He chose to deliberately violate House rules in a manner that we think is probably unprecedented in history — interrupting a message of a president of the United States, who is an honored guest,” Johnson explained ahead of the vote.
Several members of the GOP conference were circulating different resolutions to censure Green the morning after Trump’s speech. Republican Rep. Dan Newhouse was the first to formally introduce a resolution on the House floor on Wednesday.
“Decorum and order are the institutional grounds for the way we do business in the United States Congress, and the sheer disregard for that standard during President Trump’s address by the gentleman from Texas is unacceptable,” Newhouse said in a statement. “A Member’s refusal to adhere to the Speaker’s direction to cease such behavior, regardless of their party, has and will continue to be reprimanded in the people’s House.”
Democrats tried and failed on Wednesday evening to block the censure measure.
A censure resolution is a formal reprimand by the House for violations of the chamber’s code of conduct. A vote to censure a member of the House does not hold any power beyond a public condemnation of the member’s behavior and it does not deny the member privileges.
Censuring House members has been historically rare, but in the last few years we’ve seen members from both political parties use this as a political tool. Green is the fifth member of Congress to be censured in this decade.
Green on Wednesday defended his actions, saying, “I would do it again.”
“I am not angry with the speaker. I am not angry with the officers. I am not upset with the members who are going to bring the motions or resolutions to sanction. I will suffer the consequences,” he said.
Green’s outburst happened within minutes of Trump’s address, when the president called his electoral victory a “mandate.” Green, an 11-term Democrat representing the Houston area, stood up and pointed his cane as he shouted, “You have no mandate to cut Medicaid.”
Johnson slammed his gavel and gave a warning to lawmakers assembled to maintain decorum, telling Green several times to take his seat. As Green continued to protest, Johnson called for him to be removed.
Green is not the only lawmaker to interrupt a presidential address to Congress. In 2022, Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert repeatedly interrupted then-President Joe Biden’s speech. Greene did it again during Biden’s 2024 State of the Union address.
On “Good Morning America” the next day, Johnson defended his decision to have Green removed.
“Al Green was trying to interrupt the entire proceeding. But look, I’ll just say this. If the Democrats want a 77-year-old congressman to be the face of their resistance, heckling the president, then bring it on,” he said.
Green told ABC News late Tuesday night he was “following the wishes of conscience.”
“There are times when it it better to stand alone than not stand at all,” Green said. He added, “At some point, we’re all going to have to stand up.”
Ten Democrats voted to censure Green: Reps. Ami Bera of California, Ed Case of Hawaii, Jim Costa of California, Laura Gillen of New York, Jim Himes of Connecticut, Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, Jared Moskowitz of Florida, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Wahsingont and Tom Suozzi of New York.
(WASHINGTON) — Incoming first lady Melania Trump appeared on “Fox & Friends” Monday where she promoted her new documentary, indicating that production crews have started filming her day-to-day with the transition team and how it will show her return to the White House next week.
She said she will spend most of her time in Washington.
“I will be in the White House. And you know when I need to be in New York, I will be in New York. When I need to be in Palm Beach, I will be in Palm Beach. But my first priority is, you know, to be a mom, to be a first lady, to be a wife. And once we are in on January 20, you serve the country,” she said.
Asked what is different this time around, Melania Trump talked about being familiar with the process but appeared to take a jab at the Obama administration, claiming it withheld information in 2017.
“I know the rooms where we will be living. I know the process. The first time was challenging. We didn’t have much of the information. The information was upheld for us from the previous administration,” she said.
She continued, “But this time, I have everything. I have plans I could move in. I already packed, I already selected the, you know, the furniture that needs to go in. So, it’s very different.”‘
ABC News is reaching out to the Obama team for comment.
She also indicated that she would continue and expand her “Be Best” initiative, which focused on well-being for youth and advocated against cyberbullying.
“I will continue with Be Best, and also I will expand Be Best,” she said.
“I started the first in the first administration. I didn’t have much support from anyone. I invited all of the streaming platforms to the White House. I had the roundtable, and I didn’t have much support from them. And imagine what we could do in those years if they would rally behind me and teach the children what to do to protect them about social media and their mental health.”
Her apparent dig at streaming platforms is notable considering her documentary will air exclusively on Amazon Prime Video. Also, on the campaign trail, Barron Trump played a significant role in bringing podcasters to his father to help secure the youth vote.
Asked if her son will have a room in the White House residence, she said she thinks he’ll visit.
“I think he will come and visit. Yes, he will bring his friends,” she said.
As she has done before, she indicated that her voice would not be lost in the mix, detailing that she has previously given her husband, President-elect Donald Trump, advice.
“I gave him my advice, and sometimes he listens. Sometimes he doesn’t and that’s okay,” she said.
Asked if she’s different from eight years ago, she said she’s always been herself, but she didn’t feel accepted the first time around.
“I feel I was always me the first time as well. I just feel that people didn’t accept me. Maybe they didn’t understand me the way. Maybe they do now. And I didn’t have much support,” she said.
She continued, stressing her independence, “Maybe some people they see me as just the wife of the president, but I am standing on my own two feet. Independent. I have my own thoughts. I have my own yes and no. I don’t always agree with what my husband is saying or doing, and that’s okay.”
Melania Trump’s views became noteworthy on the campaign trail when she expressed her support for abortion rights without government interference in the eleventh hour, breaking from her husband’s position that it was up to individual states to decide.
