Sunlen Serfaty explains what we know about federal workers who resigned over DOGE efforts
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Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trump says crime in Washington DC is ‘out of control'. The stats suggest otherwise
President Donald Trump has moved to place the police department of Washington, D.C., under federal command for at least 30 days and dispatched the National Guard to patrol the capital's streets. Trump insisted the step was necessary to crack down on violent street crime, which he has said is 'out of control' since a former DOGE employee was assaulted by muggers in an attempted carjacking. Flanked by members of his Cabinet at a White House press conference called to introduce the measures on Monday, the president declared that it was 'Liberation Day' for Washington, pledging to 'rescue' the city from 'crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse.' But his decision has been met with a perplexed reaction, given that it comes just months after Trump's own Justice Department issued a press release touting Washington's declining crime rate. His opponents have been quick to accuse the president of seeking a distraction from the ongoing pressure he faces to release the government's files on the late billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. This is the second time Trump has federalized the National Guard this summer, following his decision to send the troops into Los Angeles to quell anti-ICE protests in June, a manoeuvre that risked inflaming local tensions and which delivered a knock to his approval ratings. What has Trump said? 'Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people, and we're not going to let it happen anymore,' the president said during Monday's press event, comparing the state of play in Washington to the country's southern border with Mexico. 'It's becoming a situation of complete and total lawlessness,' Trump said, adding that his administration would be 'getting rid of the slums' and tackling what he called the 'caravans of mass youth,' who, he claimed, 'rampage through city streets at all times of the day.' In a series of posts on Truth Social leading up to the press conference, the president had used similarly dystopian language and said of the seat of American democracy: 'It has become one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the World. It will soon be one of the safest!!!' He also ordered the city's homeless population to 'move out, IMMEDIATELY.' 'We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital,' he told them. 'The Criminals, you don't have to move out. We're going to put you in jail where you belong.' What is happening in D.C.? The president has invoked a previously unused section of the 1973 D.C. Home Rule Act to provide a 'crisis' basis for seizing control of local law enforcement, placing the responsibility for its management with Attorney General Pam Bondi. 'You'll have more police, and you'll be so happy because you'll be safe when you walk down the street,' Trump promised. 'You're going to see police, or you're going to see FBI agents. Going to have a lot of agents on the street. You're going to have a lot of essentially military, and we will bring in the military if it's needed.' Members of the National Guard duly hit the streets on Monday night, accompanied by the FBI and DEA officers, to support local police in maintaining order. The White House has already claimed that the multi-agency effort, which it has dubbed 'Operation Making D.C. Safe & Beautiful,' netted at least 37 arrests on its first night, yielding four narcotics charges and the seizure of 11 illegal guns. What do the stats say? Although Washington's murder rate hit levels not seen since the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s just two years ago, the period since has seen a steep decline under the leadership of Chief Pamela Smith, who was named to her role in 2023 after two years leading the U.S. Park Police. Statistics made public by the D.C. government and the Department of Justice show other violent crimes having declined during the same period. Crime figures from the Metropolitan Police Department for the District of Columbia state that violent offenses have fallen steadily from their recent peak in 2023, last year hit their lowest level in 30 years and have continued to decline in 2025, according to preliminary data for the first half of the year. Violent crime overall is down 26 percent year-on-year for the first eight months of 2025, according to the MPDC, while robbery specifically is down 28 percent for the same period. Homicides were up to 40 for every 100,000 people in 2023, a 20-year high but still well below 1990s levels, but has since fallen in 2024 and continued to decline so far this year. Trump claimed at his press conference that 'murders in 2023 reached the highest rate probably ever,' an assertion that, when challenged, the White House said was based on 'numbers provided by the FBI.' What happens now? Trump is likely to continue to face ongoing criticism over the actions, particularly if it leads to clashes with protesters concerned about creeping authoritarianism from his administration. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser called his move 'unsettling and unprecedented' but said she was unsurprised given his rhetoric towards the city over the years. The mayor also conceded that she and the city council lack grounds on which to contest the takeover and suggested that more officers on the streets could be a good thing. 'We follow the law... the [Metropolitan Police Department] follows the law as well, as well as all of the federal officials who are here. The fact that we have more law enforcement presence in neighborhoods, that may be positive.' Other critics speaking out so far have included the Rev. Al Sharpton, who said it amounted to the 'ultimate affront to justice and civil rights' and was 'disgusting, dangerous, and derogatory,' and Free DC executive director Keya Chatterjee, who said the move was not about crime prevention but rather about silencing dissent.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Just how much has DOGE exaggerated its numbers? Now we have receipts.
The Trump administration's claim that it is saving billions of dollars through DOGE-related cuts to federal contracts is drastically exaggerated, according to a new POLITICO analysis of public data and federal spending records. Through July, DOGE said it has saved taxpayers $52.8 billion by canceling contracts, but of the $32.7 billion in actual claimed contract savings that POLITICO could verify, DOGE's savings over that period were closer to $1.4 billion. Despite the administration's claims, not a single one of those 1.4 billion dollars will lower the federal deficit unless Congress steps in. Instead, the money has been returned to agencies mandated by law to spend it. DOGE's latest figures on contract cuts ticked up to $54.2 billion in an update posted on Tuesday. POLITICO's findings come on top of months of scrutiny of DOGE's accounting, but the magnitude of DOGE's inflated savings claims has not been clear until now. Even so, President Donald Trump claimed hundreds of billions of dollars had already been used to reduce the federal deficit. The former head of DOGE, Elon Musk, initially promised the organization would reduce the deficit by $2 trillion. Many in Trump's Cabinet have also celebrated DOGE's efforts, including his secretaries of Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs and Agriculture. DOGE's savings calculations are based on faulty math. The group uses the maximum spending possible under each contract as its baseline — meaning all money an agency could spend in future fiscal years. That amount can far exceed what the government has actually committed to pay out. Counting this 'ceiling value' gives a false picture of savings for taxpayers. 'That's the equivalent of basically taking out a credit card with a $20,000 credit limit, canceling it and then saying, 'I've just saved $20,000,'' said Jessica Tillipman, associate dean for government procurement law studies at George Washington University Law School. 'Anything that's been said publicly about [DOGE's] savings is meaningless.' The White House disagrees. DOGE has produced 'historic savings for the American people,' White House principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields wrote in an email in response to questions about DOGE's activities. DOGE's site, he said, provides up-to-date and accurate information. 'All numbers are rigorously scrubbed with agency procurement officials and updated in real time based on current information,' he said. DOGE's public list of records, or what it calls its "wall of receipts," says the site only represents a subset of the organization's overall savings. However, even among the sample of contracts it posted through July, roughly 40 percent of claimed savings could not be verified due to a lack of identifying information. DOGE claims it has saved $202 billion across the whole of the federal government from a combination of contract, lease and grant cancellations, workforce reductions, regulation clawbacks and more. To create savings from canceling contracts or other awards, DOGE has a few options: The president could formally claw back funds through Capitol Hill — a process where Congress cancels dollars it had previously appropriated, which it did this month for the first time in decades — or agencies could reclaim awarded funds for later use, an action known as a deobligation. To assess DOGE's actual savings so far from canceled contracts, POLITICO created a database of every traceable termination posted on DOGE's wall of receipts through July 26 that was at least one month old, about 10,100 contracts. Over this period, agencies have issued clawbacks, or deobligations, on less than 30 percent of those awards, recovering $1.4 billion in funds. Even if agencies immediately recovered all unspent funds from these 10,100 contracts, the total savings would amount to less than 40 percent of what DOGE has taken credit for. And agencies would still be on the hook to spend those dollars unless Congress or the president intervened, though some in the administration have said they could simply spend less. Roughly 2,400 cancellations on DOGE's termination list through July cannot be independently verified. Some of these cancellations were simply too recent to show up in public records, but most had their identifying information redacted by DOGE, which has often labeled those entries as 'unavailable for legal reasons.' DOGE's list is filled with exaggerated savings claims across the federal government. Some contracts included on DOGE's termination list have only been modified and not canceled; others have been removed from the list without explanation. Under the VA, for example, DOGE's page reported savings of $932 million from contracts canceled though June, including awards for a cancer registry, suicide prevention services and other health care support. Federal records show the VA recovered just $132 million from these awards, or less than 15 percent of what DOGE claimed, and that the VA reinstated the contract for suicide prevention support. These contracts were canceled because VA staff could perform the necessary work in-house, VA press secretary Pete Kasperowicz wrote in an email. The VA, he said, has avoided up to $27 billion in costs from reviewing and downsizing thousands of contracts 'to ensure each one of them benefits Veterans and is a good use of taxpayers' money.' But the bulk of DOGE's actions show a different approach to savings entirely: lowering the ceiling value, which experts equate to an accounting trick. Lowering the ceiling decreases the potential price tag, but it's not guaranteed those dollars would have been spent to begin with. 'Voila! Half a billion saved. Time for lunch,' said one federal contracting lawyer with nearly four decades' experience advising government contractors who was granted anonymity to explain the practice freely. At most, for contracts where the ceiling exceeds the obligated amount, this kind of action amounts to avoiding future expenses that were never guaranteed to happen. In total, the administration removed $14 billion from contract ceilings on the traceable contracts on its 'wall of receipts' through July — a far cry from the $32.7 billion DOGE claimed to have saved from terminating them. In reality, the ultimate savings from terminations are nearly impossible to predict. DOGE's calculations, for instance, don't account for expenses that come from ending contracts prematurely, like payments for outstanding leases, subcontractors, or work already performed, which can add up quickly. 'There's no certainty because we haven't finished understanding termination costs of anything,' Tillipman said. That can take years to untangle. Until then, 'we don't know any of it,' she said, referring to savings. Plus, even drafting a contract costs money. 'You have spent multiple months or even years and many people's time getting to the best negotiated terms for the public's interest,' said Cristin Dorgelo, a former senior adviser in the Office of Management and Budget during the Biden administration. By law, agencies are still required to spend any funds Congress appropriated to them, including money they claw back from individual projects. They have some discretion to change how they spend it — perhaps to negotiate a better deal or to align it with the administration's priorities. Failing to spend appropriated dollars could violate the Impoundment Control Act, a law Trump's budget director, Russell Vought, has repeatedly said is unconstitutional. DOGE's actions will avoid future costs among the contracts it has terminated, experts agreed. But how much that ultimately amounts to and how much is returned to the Treasury, they said, lies somewhere in the middle of the numbers DOGE has published and what federal spending records show. One of DOGE's largest savings claims is from a canceled contract for a shelter in Pecos, Texas, to house unaccompanied migrant children. In a post on X in February, DOGE said the Department of Health and Human Services 'paid ~$18M/month' to keep the now-empty center open. Canceling the agreement, it said, would translate to more than $215 million in annual savings for taxpayers. By the time the contract was added to the DOGE termination list, that savings claim skyrocketed to $2.9 billion. DOGE's math was simple: It took the difference between the contract's $3.3 billion ceiling and the amount that had been formally awarded, or obligated — $428 million — and called it savings. But HHS and its Office of Refugee Resettlement were not on track to spend anywhere close to the contract's ceiling. That ceiling represented what it would cost the government to fund the Pecos center at full capacity — 3,000 children — for 365 days a year, for five years. If the center was not full, the government would pay less, according to four people familiar with the contract who were granted anonymity for fear of retribution. But the Pecos campus had been empty since February 2024. Instead, an $18 million price tag per month covered operating costs to keep the center ready to receive children with just two weeks' notice — an option the refugee resettlement office invoked at least twice during the lifetime of the contract. In total, the resettlement office had committed to pay no more than $428 million in rental, maintenance, security and IT expenses for the 80-acre campus through November, the four people said. At that time, the contract would be reviewed for renewal or cancellation. 'The bottom line is that the contract already had built in savings and efficiency into the way it was by the way it was structured,' one of the four people said. The most the government could save by canceling the contract for the Pecos campus before the November decision date would be about $126 million, or the amount the contractor, Family Endeavors, had yet to withdraw for upcoming monthly expenses. That's 4 percent of DOGE's $2.9 billion in claimed savings. Family Endeavors referred POLITICO to a written statement responding to the contract's cancellation that said the group's mission of 'serving vulnerable communities' is ongoing. To date, no funds have been returned to the Treasury from canceling this contract. ORR has not recalled funds because it anticipates future termination costs, according to the four people familiar with the contract. By the time that happens, actual savings from canceling this contract will be even less. 'The Biden Administration wasted more than $1.8 billion dollars on a facility to house illegal aliens, which has not been used in the last year,' HHS director of communications Andrew G. Nixon wrote in an email. 'Under Secretary [Robert F.] Kennedy's leadership, HHS is ensuring that taxpayer dollars are being spent wisely and not in support of illegal immigration.' The Interior Department, which administers the contract, referred questions to HHS. DOGE also claimed $166 million in savings from canceling a contract that plays a central role in the Energy Department's ability to keep household appliances like refrigerators and microwaves as efficient as possible. The Energy Department is required by law to set efficiency standards on roughly 70 products and appliances in order to reduce energy demand. Under an eight-year contract DOGE claims to have canceled, consulting firm Guidehouse Inc. provided the analysis used to set these standards. The Energy Department said the contract had not been canceled, but reduced, saying it achieved 60 percent 'in significant savings for the American taxpayer.' DOGE posted the contract on its list of terminations a few weeks before the agency repealed 20 appliance efficiency standards in May without any supporting evidence, said Emily Hammond, who served as deputy general counsel at the Energy Department during the Biden administration. 'DOE seems to be abnegating its duties,' Hammond said. 'Congress has required the agency to do its homework, and it doesn't appear to be doing that homework.' While DOGE claims $166 million in savings from terminating the agreement, federal spending records show the Energy Department has recalled $0 and removed just under $100 million from the contract's ceiling value. At most, that translates to $0 in savings to date and around $100 million in potentially avoided future costs. The irony, Hammond said, is that the efficiency standards Guidehouse helped to create save billions of dollars for consumers. 'The cost of developing them is quite small in contrast to the enormous impact,' Hammond said. The Energy Department has said dropping the regulations will lower costs for consumers, but efficiency standards saved households and businesses $105 billion in 2024, according to the department's own data — a far cry from DOGE's claimed $166 million in savings. Guidehouse declined to comment on the status of this contract. The future of the 'wall of receipts' and of the organization remains uncertain. Updates to DOGE's public accounting page have become more infrequent since Musk's exit in May. The page's three most recent updates represented the longest periods of silence since the site launched in February. It was stagnant for most of June and went nearly four weeks before posting new terminations in July. Another 17 days passed before its latest update in August. The same is true of Trump and Musk's relationship. After leaving DOGE, Musk declared war on Trump's megabill, which the president signed into law on the Fourth of July. The two took their breakup to X, lobbing insults on the world's stage. 'What the heck was the point of @DOGE if [Trump]'s just going to increase the debt by $5 trillion??,' Musk wrote on X in July, referring to the deficit increase. The law will increase the national debt by $3.4 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Now, Musk has committed to starting a third party with the same goal as DOGE: reduce government spending. POLITICO relied on public federal spending records from USA Spending and the Federal Procurement Data System as well as DOGE's list of terminated contracts available on its 'wall of receipts' for this report. (DOGE's website says its list of terminations are a subset of all canceled awards, but its ledger remains the only public log of its activity.) For this analysis, POLITICO excluded any contracts with a termination date within one month of its July 26 update, as DOGE cautions on its site that 'FPDS posting of the contract termination notices can have up to a 1 month lag.' POLITICO also excluded any contract terminations without a valid link to the Federal Procurement Data System, which contains additional identifying information POLITICO used to match each contract termination with federal spending records and was necessary for this analysis. When available, old versions of the DOGE data were used for USAID contract cancellations that were stripped of identifying information on the DOGE website due to 'legal reasons' without further explanation. Among contract terminations where savings could be verified, POLITICO compiled every transaction that has taken place between Jan. 20 and July 26, the date of DOGE's second-most recent update, in order to assess savings created by DOGE so far. 'Savings' represents dollars put back into the hands of agencies for later use. Agencies are required to spend dollars appropriated to them by Congress. Contracts added, removed or modified in DOGE's Aug. 12 data are not part of this analysis. Only 30 percent of the contracts POLITICO reviewed had deobligations, or money returned to the agency. The remainder either had no transaction activity during the Trump administration through July 26 or had only positive obligations during that period. Each contract has a few possible states: : POLITICO considered all deobligations reflective of DOGE's savings to date. In some cases, agencies added funds to a contract after a deobligation or reduction in ceiling value, effectively reducing the amount saved. POLITICO counted all activity on a contract after the first deobligation or reduction in ceiling value to show the net total of dollars saved or ceiling value reduced, respectively. : While DOGE says it has terminated the contract, there has been no change, negative or positive, to the amount the government has committed to spending. These contracts result in $0 in government savings to date by POLITICO's accounting. : There are many instances where contracts on DOGE's termination list showed additional spending during the search period and no deobligations. POLITICO did not count these dollars against DOGE's savings tally (unless that positive obligation happened after a negative obligation). This is to provide additional accounting for lags in DOGE actions appearing in public accounting records. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
CNN
4 hours ago
- CNN
Are countries getting a pass on their human rights records?
Are countries getting a pass on their human rights records? The US State Department released a pared-down version of its annual report meant to catalogue human rights concerns in countries around the world. There were notable changes between the previous report released April 2024 – covering 2023 – and the one released Tuesday. For countries whose leaders are political allies of the Trump administration, like El Salvador, there was far less criticism and detail about reports of their human rights abuses. 02:33 - Source: CNN Vertical Politics of the Day 10 videos Are countries getting a pass on their human rights records? The US State Department released a pared-down version of its annual report meant to catalogue human rights concerns in countries around the world. There were notable changes between the previous report released April 2024 – covering 2023 – and the one released Tuesday. For countries whose leaders are political allies of the Trump administration, like El Salvador, there was far less criticism and detail about reports of their human rights abuses. 02:33 - Source: CNN Locals in the Cotswolds protest JD Vance's visit US Vice President JD Vance arrived at Royal Airforce Base Fairford in the United Kingdom, where he met US troops and was welcomed by applause - a noticeable shift from locals protesting in the villages of Charlbury and Dean, where Vance stayed during his trip. 01:07 - Source: CNN The history of Trump's relationship with Putin CNN's Jeff Zeleny explains the history behind President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin's relationship over the years. The two world leaders are set to meet for their biggest summit yet in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday. 01:32 - Source: CNN Trump names Kennedy Center nominees after seizing control of institution President Donald Trump appeared at the Kennedy Center and announced the first recipients of its hallmark honors since he seized control of the institution's board earlier this year. 01:39 - Source: CNN Anderson gives his take on Trump admin's call to vet Smithsonian museums CNN's Anderson Cooper explores what the Trump administration's declaration that it intends to take control over the Smithsonian museums says about how President Trump views history. 04:15 - Source: CNN 'Deeply dangerous': Wes Moore reacts to National Guard deployed in DC Maryland Democratic Governor Wes Moore spoke with CNN's Anderson Cooper about the potential deployment of federal troops in Baltimore after President Donald Trump said he is placing Washington, DC's, police department 'under direct federal control' and deploying National Guard troops to the nation's capital. 01:57 - Source: CNN Trump will meet Putin one-on-one as a 'listening exercise' President Donald Trump plans to meet one-on-one with Russian President Vladimir Putin as part of their summit on Friday in Alaska. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt characterized the summit as a "listening exercise." 00:38 - Source: CNN Mayors across US react to Trump's warnings of federal intervention Democratic mayors across the US react to President Donald Trump placing DC police 'under direct federal control' and deploying the National Guard to crack down on crime. 01:10 - Source: CNN Baltimore's mayor responds to Trump's claims about his city Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott (D) responded to President Donald Trump's criticism about violence in his city by highlighting historic drops in violent crime. President Trump warned other major cities about federal intervention after he placed the Washington, DC, police department under federal control and deployed the National Guard. 01:05 - Source: CNN
