VA begins reversing contract cancellations that support medical care, facilities
(P_Wei/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — One day after the Department of Veterans Affairs celebrated an estimated $2 billion in savings on canceled contracts, the agency began reversing some of the cancellations that may have affected veterans’ medical care and other benefits, according to multiple sources familiar with the contracts and agency records reviewed by ABC News.
“We were taking in millions of dollars in contracts to create things like PowerPoint slides and meeting minutes,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said on Tuesday. “Millions of dollars in contracts for ‘coaching and training.'”
“Don’t feed the line of what D.C. is wanting to sell you,” he added. “We are putting money back to veterans’ health, back to veterans’ benefits. And don’t let nameless sources, even senators and House members, who want to scare you, and the media, who want to perpetuate the line. We’re taking care of veterans.”
But the hundreds of contracts set for cancellation included some for legally required technical inspections of medical equipment that produce radiation at VA facilities, including CT scanners, MRI machines and dental X-ray units.
Without annual inspections, some of which are conducted by contractors in part to save the agency money, VA staffers are not permitted to use the equipment.
“We’re a really good deal for them,” said one contractor with multiple agency contracts, including several that were initially canceled — and then reversed by Wednesday afternoon. “They can’t afford to have that done in-house.”
Canceling the contracts “100% will impact care,” a VA official told ABC News. “If [the machines] get serviced or a part is replaced, they need to be inspected as well.”
Asked for comment Tuesday, a VA spokesperson told ABC News, “We’re reviewing VA’s various contracts, and we will be canceling many focusing on non-mission critical things like PowerPoint slides, executive support and coaching. Our review is ongoing and not final.”
“We will not be eliminating any benefits or services to veterans or VA beneficiaries, and there will be no negative impact to VA healthcare, benefits or beneficiaries,” the spokesperson added. “We are always going to take care of veterans at VA. Period.”
Some of the contracts marked for termination on Monday included contracts to provide employee and workplace benefits services to tens of thousands of VA employees and their families. Others included work overseeing hazardous waste disposal, conducting safety inspections at VA medical facilities, supporting cancer programs and burial services, according to agency records review by ABC News.
Some of the contracts marked for termination on Monday included contracts to provide employee and workplace benefits services to tens of thousands of VA employees and their families. Others included work overseeing hazardous waste disposal and conducting safety inspections at VA medical facilities.
Many of these contracts are labeled as some variations of consulting, a sweeping category of federal contracts that the Department of Government Efficiency’s team has aggressively gone after as part of its efforts to cut wasteful government spending.
“Everyone can agree that there is waste, likely fat, and there may very well be some fraud,” Arthur Mabbett, a disabled veteran and CEO of Mabbett & Associates, a government contractor with dozens of contracts with the VA and other agencies, told ABC News.
“Doing it in a businesslike fashion, rather than pure chaos, which is what they’re doing right now, would be a better approach,” said Mabbett, whose company has not had its stop-work orders rescinded as of Wednesday evening.
Some of that work includes working with VA facilities to make sure expansion and renovation projects comply with federal environmental law.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., on Tuesday slammed Collins’ previous move to cancel the contracts, saying many of those contracts provide “critical and direct services” to veterans.
“To say abruptly cancelling these services won’t impact veterans’ care and benefits is another unrealistic promise from Collins,” Blumenthal wrote in a statement. “Make no mistake — this is just another reckless cost-cutting decision that will harm veterans and taxpayers for years to come.”
Agency leaders directed employees to begin terminating hundreds of contracts on Monday, with some stop-work orders issued that evening.
Already, some of those stop-work orders have been rescinded — one of several DOGE-led efforts across the federal government that have been slowed or partially reversed by various agency leaders.
“I like what they’re doing, I just think they made a mistake, and they need to fix it,” one contractor told ABC News about the overall DOGE efforts. “If it goes quickly, I’ll be happy. And if it takes three to four months, I won’t be.”
The VA has already gone through two rounds of layoffs: The first affected 1,000 workers, and the second, announced this week, affected 1,400 “non-mission critical positions,” according to the agency’s statement.
Some of those terminated employees were asked to return to work days later, workers told ABC News.
Other layoffs may be on the horizon. On Wednesday, the Trump administration directed agencies to begin preparing for “large-scale” layoffs and reorganizations and to present plans for doing so to the Office of Management and Budget by March 13, according to a memo obtained by ABC News.
-ABC News’ Soorin Kim and Nathan Luna contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump kicked off his second term with a flurry of executive actions on immigration, Jan. 6, health policy and more.
More orders are expected Tuesday amid fallout from his first moves, including his issuing pardons for more than a thousand rioters convicted in connection with the violent Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and his effort to end birthright citizenship.
Meanwhile, lawmakers will continue to question and process the president’s Cabinet picks. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been sworn in as other nominees, including Elise Stefanik for ambassador to the United Nations, face confirmation hearings.
Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger sent an internal memo praising officers following the pardons made by President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden. The memo was obtained by ABC News Senior Political Correspondent Rachel Scott.
Manger said that “when there is no price to pay for violence against law enforcement, it sends a message that politics matter more than our first responders.”
Manger cited the pardons from Trump for Jan. 6 rioters and from Biden for commuting the sentence of Leonard Peltier, a man convicted of the murder of two FBI agents in 1975.
“Police willingly put themselves in harm’s way to protect our communities. When people attack law enforcement officers, the criminals should be met with consequences, condemnation and accountability,” Manger said.
DOGE gets official government website
The page currently consists of a simple landing page displaying a logo featuring the iconic Shiba Inus from the original “doge” meme.
The official page comes after President Donald Trump’s executive order on Monday night creating the now solely Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency. The order notably stated that the U.S. Digital Service (USDS) will be renamed the U.S. DOGE Service and placed under the Executive Office of the President.
DOGE will terminate on July 4, 2026, as Musk has previously detailed, and each agency in the Trump admin must create a DOGE Team, according to the order.
– ABC’s Will Steakin
Trump to meet with Republican leaders at White House
House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune will meet with President Donald Trump at the White House at 2 p.m., sources told ABC News.
At 3 p.m. ET, other GOP leaders from both chambers — including Steve Scalise, Lisa McClain and John Barrasso — will meet with Trump as well at the White House, sources said.
The White House has not yet formally released a schedule for Trump.
-ABC’s Katherine Faulders, Rachel Scott, Lauren Peller and Allison Pecorin
Trump’s 1st executive orders quickly face lawsuits
Eighteen states and the city of San Francisco filed a lawsuit challenging the president’s executive order to cut off birthright citizenship Tuesday, calling it a “flagrantly unlawful attempt to strip hundreds of thousands American-born children of their citizenship based on their parentage.”
The lawsuit accused Trump of seeking to eliminate a “well-established and longstanding Constitutional principle” by executive fiat.
A union representing thousands of federal employees also sued the Trump administration Monday evening over an executive order that makes it easier to fire career government employees, alleging the directive would violate the due process rights of its members.
“The Policy/Career Executive Order directs agencies to move numerous employees into a new excepted service category with the goal that many would then be fired,” the lawsuit alleged.
– ABC News’ Aaron Katersky and Peter Charalambous
Coast Guard commandant fired in part over DEI efforts: Source
Admiral Linda Fagan, who served as the Coast Guard Commandant and was the first woman to lead a U.S. armed forces branch, was “relieved of her duties” by Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Benjamine Huffman.
A source with knowledge of the decision said Fagan was fired in part because of her Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts in the Coast Guard.
“She has served a long and illustrious career and I thank her for her service,” according to a memo to the workforce obtained by ABC News.
Admiral Kevin Lunday is now acting commandant.
Trump promised to go after who he called “woke” generals in the military during his 2024 campaign. His nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has said he will follow through on that issue.
-ABC’s Luke Barr
Reverend urges Trump to have ‘mercy’ on LGBTQ community, migrants
The Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, during the prayer service at Washington National Cathedral, directed a message for President Donald Trump, who was seated in the front row.
“Let me make one final plea. Mr. President, millions have put their trust in you. And as you said, you have felt the providential hand of our loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now,” she said.
Budde said there are LGBTQ citizens of all political creeds who now ‘fear for their lives.” She also referenced migrants who may not be in the U.S. legally but are devoted neighbors, workers and parents.
“Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land,” she said.
Stefanik backs US withdrawing from WHO, pushes for UN reform
Rep. Elise Stefanik is facing senators for her confirmation hearing to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
The ideological divide between Republicans and Democrats over the utility of global organizations has taken center stage. Stefanik zeroed in on reform.
“Our tax dollars should not be complicit in propping up entities that are counter to American interests, antisemitic or engaging in fraud, corruption, or terrorism,” she said. “We must invest in programs to strengthen our national security and deliver results to increase the efficacy of U.N. programs. We must drive reform.”
She also defended Trump’s decision to withdraw from another global body: the World Health Organization.
“I support President Trump’s decision to walk away from WHO,” she said, arguing it had “failed on a global stage in the Covid pandemic for all the world to see, and instead spewed CCP talking points that I believe led to not only false information, but dangerous and deadly information across the globe.”
As Trump attends service, Episcopal Church leaders express concern about immigration actions
Episcopal Church leaders on Tuesday released a letter urging Trump to “exercise mercy” in his approach to immigration policy.
While the service Trump is currently attending incorporates many faiths, the National Cathedral itself is part of the Episcopal Diocese in Washington.
“Even as we gave thanks for a peaceful transfer of power, we learned from news reports that the new presidential administration has issued a series of executive orders that are a harbinger of President Trump’s pledge to deport undocumented immigrants at a historic scale, restrict asylum, and direct other immigration actions,” the church leaders wrote in a letter.
“We read this news with concern and urge our new president and congressional leaders to exercise mercy and compassion, especially toward law-abiding, long-term members of our congregations and communities; parents and children who are under threat of separation in the name of immigration enforcement; and women and children who are vulnerable to abuse in detention and who fear reporting abuse to law enforcement.”
Trump and Vance attend interfaith prayer service
President Trump and Vice President Vance are attending an interfaith prayer service at Washington National Cathedral.
It’s the first public appearance for Trump since Monday night’s inaugural festivities.
First lady Melania Trump, second lady Usha Vance and Trump’s children are there as well.
House Speaker Mike Johnson and Republican Rep. Mike Lawler are some of the lawmakers in attendance.
Trudeau responds to Trump tariff threats
Standing alongside his cabinet ministers, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed President Trump’s proposed tariffs, stating firmly that if the U.S. proceeds with the measure, Canada will not hesitate to respond in kind.
“Everything is on the table,” Trudeau said adding, “We are prepared for every possible scenario.”
ABC News’ Aleem Agha
‘For us and the whole world, it is still the Gulf of Mexico’: Mexican president
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum responded to Trump’s various decrees issued after the inauguration in a point-by-point statement.
Sheinbaum said Trump’s decrees concerning the emergency zone of the southern border and the Migrant Protection Protocols were no different than the orders made during Trump’s first term.
“We will always act in the defence of our independence, the defense of our fellow nationals living in the U.S. We act within the framework of our constitution and laws. We always act with a cool head,” she said in her statement.
Sheinbaum however pushed back on Trump’s decree to rename the Gulf of Mexico.
“For us and the whole world, it is still the Gulf of Mexico,” she said.
-ABC News’ Anne Laurent and Will Gretsky
Rubio promises State Department will focus on making America ‘stronger,’ safer,’ and ‘more prosperous’
After being sworn in as the nation’s 72nd secretary of state, Marco Rubio promised that every action taken by the department would be determined by the answer to three questions: “Does it make us stronger? Does it make us safer? And does it make us more prosperous?”
Rubio gave remarks in Spanish as well, giving thanks to God, his family present and not present, including his parents, who he said came to the U.S. in 1956 — and that the purpose of their lives was that their children could realize dreams not possible for them.
“It’s an incredible honor to be the secretary of state of the most powerful, best country in the world,” he continued in Spanish, giving thanks to Trump for the opportunity.
Rubio also echoed themes from Trump’s inaugural address and reiterated the president’s agenda.
“As far as the task ahead, President Trump was elected to keep promises. And he is going to keep those promises. And his primary promise when it comes to foreign policy is that the priority of the United States Department of State will be the United States. It will be furthering the national interest of this country,” Rubio said.
– ABC News’ Shannon Kingston
Confirmation hearing begins for Trump’s VA pick
Doug Collins, Trump’s choice to lead the Veterans Affairs Department, will face questions from lawmakers as his confirmation hearing gets underway.
Collins, a former congressman, is a Navy veteran who currently serves as a chaplain in the U.S. Air Force Reserve Command.
He was the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee during Trump’s first impeachment, and had defended the president.
Rubio is sworn in by JD Vance as secretary of state
After being unanimously confirmed by the Senate on Monday night, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was officially sworn in by Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday morning.
Rubio joined ABC’s “Good Morning America” ahead of the ceremony, where he discussed Trump’s pardons for Jan. 6 rioters, TikTok and the Russia-Ukraine war.
Rubio sidestepped directly weighing on the pardons, saying his “focus needs to be 100% on how I interact with our counterparts, our adversaries, our potential enemies around the world to keep this country safe, to make it prosperous.”
When asked about Trump’s campaign pledge to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine on Day 1, Rubio contended the matter is more complex and that negotiations would not be played out in public.
“Look this is a complex, tragic conflict, one that was started by Vladimir Putin that’s inflicted a tremendous amount of damage on Ukraine and also on Russia, I would argue, but also on the stability of Europe,” Rubio said. “So the only way to solve these things, we got to get back to pragmatism, but we also get back to seriousness here, and that is the hard work of diplomacy. The U.S. has a role to play here. We’ve been supportive of Ukraine, but this conflict has to end.”
White House signals Trump will make announcement on infrastructure
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said this morning that Trump will be making a a major announcement on infrastructure at 4 p.m. ET.
“I can confirm that the American people won’t be hearing from me today,” she wrote, indicating she would not hold a press briefing. “They’ll be hearing from the leader of the free world,” Leavitt said during an appearance on “Fox & Friends.”
“Once again, President Trump will be speaking to the press later this afternoon at the White House, and we will have a big infrastructure announcement,” she added.
(WASHINGTON) — After a month of fits and starts, a final hammer came down on the U.S. Agency for International Development on Wednesday night when the State Department, which had previously said it was going to review all foreign aid, announced that review was over and it had decided to terminate nearly 10,000 government contracts worth about $60 billion in humanitarian work abroad.
The cancellations left aid organizations reeling Thursday.
Many, for weeks, had been advocating behind closed doors for their projects to continue and applying for waivers in order to deliver immediate, lifesaving aid while the review process was underway. Several organizations on Thursday decided to start to speak out as they face a future with almost all U.S. foreign aid cut off.
“Any type of communicable disease, I think we will see rage rampant. I think we will see increased conflict in the world. I think we will see increased terrorism in the world. And so, I think, the implications are going to be really dire in terms of the instability that this creates in already very unstable regions of the world,” said Jocelyn Wyatt, CEO of Alight, an international organization that provides food, medicine and services for refugees in 20 countries around the world.
Like all international aid organizations, four days after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Alight was told to suspend all programming funded through U.S. grants and contracts.
Wyatt described scrambling to keep her organization’s health care clinics afloat. They had to shutter programs in Uganda and Myanmar but were able to secure waivers from the State Department for lifesaving humanitarian aid to keep their operations going in Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan.
But as of Thursday, all of Alight’s U.S. contracts have been canceled going forward, even contracts related to those programs that had received waivers to continue in the last few weeks.
Now, Wyatt said Alight is closing 33 health care clinics in Sudan, many in areas where they were the only health care provider, as well as water and sanitization services in three refugees camps in the country and another 13 clinics in Somalia.
According to Wyatt, their clinics see 1,200 people a day in Somalia alone, including about 700 malnourished children a day at designated feeding centers where the children get weighed and provided with supplemental food.
“We are unable to provide any services to those severely malnourished children, and so it’s really a matter of days or weeks before many of them will die,” she told ABC News during an interview Thursday. “The toll, the human lives that will be lost, is unfathomable.”
Thursday appeared to be a watershed moment for humanitarian leaders who, so far, had been reticent to speak put publicly out of concern that their organizations could face backlash or see grants and contracts suffer.
David Miliband, president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee, called the termination of contracts “a devastating blow.”
“These are people who depend on the U.S.-funded services for the basics of survival. These programs are not just numbers on a spreadsheet; they represent real lives and real futures,” he wrote in a statement, calling on the U.S. government to reconsider. “The countries affected by these cuts — including Sudan, Yemen, Syria — are home to millions of innocent civilians who are victims of war and disaster. We now face the starkest of stark choices about which services can be protected, and are calling on the American public, corporations and philanthropists to show that America’s generosity of spirit and commitment to the most vulnerable has not been lost.”
“We are no longer the shining city on a hill,” one humanitarian leader, who requested to speak anonymously out of fear of retribution for his organization, said to ABC News in an interview Thursday.
“It seems cruelty is the point. This is not about putting America first. This will kill people around the world,” the leader added.
While aid organizations expected a review of their work with the new administration, the scope and scale of the cuts have been shocking and will mean many aid organizations will be forced to dramatically cut their work or shutdown all together.
The termination notices were included in a court filing late Wednesday as leading aid organizations sued the federal government over nearly $2 billion in past payments they say they are owed for work already completed during the first part of this year.
The filing stated that almost 5,800 USAID awards for future work, and approximately 4,100 distributed through the State Department, will be terminated, while around 500 USAID awards and roughly 2,700 State Department awards will be retained.
Alight typically relies on U.S. foreign aid dollars for about 30% of their revenue and they have already had to lay off hundreds of staff members as they also wait for payments due from the U.S. federal government for work previously done.
Still, Wyatt said her organization will survive and worries about others that will not as well as the impact it will have on the people they serve.
Despite the turmoil of the last few weeks, she was reticent to speak publicly out of a concern that her organization and the clients they serve, could be impacted and retaliated against.
She said she understands the new administration’s push to evaluate taxpayer spending and foreign aid and that she was prepared to undergo an evaluation of their organization and make sure it aligned with Trump’s American First foreign policy.
But now that all of her contracts have been cancelled, Wyatt hopes to raise awareness and apply public pressure.
International Medical Corps, one of the largest first responder and disaster relief organizations in the world, wrote in a statement that they received cancellation notices for “the majority of our U.S. government-funded programs” late Wednesday night.
“As a result, we are in the process of closing affected programs. Though we receive funding from a variety of sources, this loss of funding will significantly impact our lifesaving global operations. To navigate this challenge, we will need to implement substantial changes across the organization in the coming days and weeks,” the statement read.
The IMC, which works in over 30 countries and last year alone said they provided direct health care services to over 16.5 million people, had received about half of its funding from the U.S. It is also currently runs two of the only field hospitals still operational in Gaza.
Global Refuge, formerly Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, wrote in a statement Thursday that the contract terminations did not amount to a “simple review of federal resources,” but instead, “seeks to end America’s longstanding religious tradition of helping the least among us.”
(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.
