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LONDON — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy bluntly protested against the U.S. and Russia negotiating over Ukraine’s head, after President Donald Trump unilaterally announced an immediate start to direct peace talks with President Vladimir Putin to end the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine.

Trump said in a post to social media on Wednesday that he spoke with Putin by phone, adding the two leaders “agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately” to end the fighting in Ukraine after nearly three years of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Trump’s announcement came shortly after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told allies that Ukraine cannot liberate all territory occupied by Russian forces and will not be given NATO security protection as part of any peace deal.

“We, as a sovereign country, simply will not be able to accept any agreements without us,” he told reporters, while also adding that Europe needs to be involved.

Zelenskyy also told reporters that 100,000 European troops would be needed as peacekeepers to police a ceasefire in Ukraine if real security guarantees are not provided by the U.S. and NATO. He repeated an idea of a “Plan B” he raised earlier this week — that if Ukraine does not receive security guarantees or NATO membership, then Ukraine must receive enough weapons to simply secure itself.

When asked by a reporter at the Oval Office on Thursday if Ukraine would have a seat at the negotiation table, Trump responded, “Of course they would.”

“We would have Ukraine, would have Russia, and we’ll have other people involved, too,” he said.

Germany protests ‘regrettable’ Trump ‘concessions’ to Putin on Ukraine

NATO ministers quickly pushed back on Trump’s actions.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said it was “regrettable” that “the Trump administration has already made public concessions to Putin before negotiations have even begun.”

Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur concurred. “We must not hand Russia any advantage before negotiations even begin,” Pevkur said in a statement.

Hegseth rejected the premise that Trump has weakened his bargaining position with Putin during a press conference at NATO on Thursday.

“It’s just a cheap political point to say, ‘Oh, we’ve left all the negotiating cards off the table by recognizing some realities that exist on the ground,’” Hegseth said. “President Zelenskyy understands the realities on the ground, President Putin understands the realities on the ground, and President Trump, as a dealmaker, as a negotiator, understands those dynamics as well.”

“By no means is anything that I state here, even though we lead the most powerful military in the world, hemming in the commander in chief in his negotiations to ultimately decide where it goes or does not go — he’s got all the cards he would like,” he continued.

‘Everything is on the table’ in talks: Hegseth

Though Hegseth has called the possibility of NATO membership for Ukraine unrealistic, he said Thursday that those remarks have no bearing on the options Trump could exercise, saying, “Everything is on the table in his conversations with Vladimir Putin and Zelenskyy.”

Moscow launched its attack in February 2022 with the aim of toppling Zelenskyy’s government in Kyiv and annexing swaths of the country. The “special military operation” — as the Kremlin termed the invasion — expanded on Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and its fomentation of, and active military support for, separatist rebellion in parts of eastern Ukraine in 2014.

“I think we’re on the way to getting peace,” Trump said. He did not clarify whether Ukraine and Zelenskyy would be directly involved in any peace talks.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview Thursday that Ukraine will be involved in talks over the settlement of the war, but the U.S. will be the main intermediary with Russia during the talks.

“Of course, we understand that Washington is our main vis-a-vis in this process,” Peskov said.

“One way or another, Ukraine will of course participate in talks,” he added.

Putin has repeatedly demanded that Ukraine be sidelined in the talks, having dismissed Zelenskyy as “illegitimate.” That deviates from years of U.S. and allied policy, under which former President Joe Biden was guided by the “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine” principle, with the former president also refusing to speak directly with Putin while the war continued.

Putin, Trump did not discuss Europe’s participation, Kremlin says

The call between Putin and Trump did not involve a discussion of Europe’s participation in negotiations aimed at settling the Ukrainian conflict, Peskov said in another interview Thursday.

“This was not discussed in any way. And European affairs were not touched on in any way during yesterday’s conversation,” Peskov said.

Europe will “need to talk to Washington to somehow stake out its place,” he said.

Ukraine and American allies in Europe have called for a unified negotiating front.

“We are looking forward to discussing the way ahead together with our American allies,” said a joint statement from the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Poland, Italy, Spain, the U.K., Ukraine, the European Union’s European External Action Service and the European Commission.

“Our shared objectives should be to put Ukraine in a position of strength,” the statement added. “Ukraine and Europe must be part of any negotiations.”

Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign affairs chief, said on X, “Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity are unconditional.”

Trump spoke with Zelenskyy after Putin call

Trump spoke with Zelenskyy after his phone call with Putin. The Ukrainian leader said in a post to social media that the two discussed “opportunities to achieve peace, discussed our readiness to work together at the team level, and Ukraine’s technological capabilities — including drones and other advanced industries.”

Addressing the conversation, Trump said on Truth Social that Zelenskyy, “like President Putin, wants to make PEACE.”

Trump separately hinted at the expiry of Zelenskyy’s presidential term. Ukraine was due to hold presidential elections last year, but the vote was delayed as the country is still under martial law as a result of Russia’s invasion. At “some point you’re going to have an election,” Trump said.

During his remarks Thursday, Zelenskyy acknowledged Trump calling Putin first was “not very pleasant” but said what mattered now was that Trump meet him before meeting Putin.

“We’ve already had three conversations with President Trump, so I don’t consider this call a priority or see it as him choosing to talk to Russia first. Still, it’s not very pleasant in any case,” he said. “If calls are just calls, I understand, but meetings are our priority. Ukraine, America, and only after those meetings, after working out a plan to stop Putin, would it be fair to talk with the Russians.”

Trump said a meeting between Zelenskyy, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio was scheduled during the weekend Munich Security Conference event in Germany.

Trump said he would meet with Putin in Saudi Arabia, though did not set a date.

The State Department said that Ukraine-Russia envoy Keith Kellogg will begin a 10-day visit to Germany, Belgium and Ukraine on Thursday.

Earlier Thursday, Peskov told reporters that Moscow had begun preparing a negotiating group to organize a meeting between Trump and Putin.

“Definitely started. And as the president makes the appropriate decisions, we will inform you,” Peskov said.

When asked if a visit by U.S. representatives to Moscow is expected in the near future, Peskov said: “Not yet. So far, there are no specific agreements in this regard.”

More reaction to Trump, Hegseth remarks

Hegseth preceded Trump’s latest remarks by telling allies in Belgium on Wednesday that Ukraine cannot liberate all territory from Russian occupation, and that Kyiv will not be given NATO security protection as part of any peace deal.

“The bloodshed must stop and this war must end,” Hegseth said. His address was the most detailed delineation of the Trump administration’s desired peace deal since the president returned to the Oval Office.

Pro-talk signals from the U.S. raised concerns in Ukraine and abroad that Kyiv will be forced into territorial and political concessions in exchange for an end to the fighting.

John Bolton — Trump’s former national security adviser — for example, said on X that the president’s approach is tantamount to a “sell out” of Ukraine. “Trump has effectively surrendered to Putin on Ukraine.”

The latest remarks from Trump and Hegseth also stoked concerns inside Ukraine. “It’s a bad sign that he has talked first to Putin, not to Zelenskyy,” Oleksandr Merezhko — a member of the Ukrainian parliament and the chair of the body’s foreign affairs committee — told ABC News.

“Such a phone call is in itself a reward for Putin,” he added. “It’s sort of a break in his political isolation.”

Still, Merezhko said Trump’s approach does “not quite” mean a total exclusion of Ukraine. “The principle ‘nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine’ is more about not taking decisions without Ukraine which have influence upon Ukraine,” he said.

Pressure for peace is building within and without. A Gallup poll published in November indicated that most Ukrainians favored a rapid end to the devastating war. Zelenskyy’s public rhetoric largely reflects this sentiment, though the president has warned that no peace deal is sustainable without concrete U.S. security guarantees.

“This war of attrition is only going to make us weaker,” Iuliia Mendel — Zelenskyy’s former press secretary — told ABC News. “For a long time, Ukraine has been at the stage when negotiations are urgent to save the nation.”

Moscow and Kyiv maneuvering for leverage

Both Moscow and Kyiv are maneuvering for leverage in preparation for revived talks. This week, Russia and the U.S. concluded a prisoner swap described by Trump as a goodwill gesture that could help advance peace talks.

Zelenskyy, meanwhile, met with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Kyiv to discuss a potential deal to secure U.S. access to hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Ukrainian minerals.

Russian and Ukrainian leaders have both expressed readiness to resume negotiations, though neither side has indicated willingness to make significant concessions.

This week, Zelenskyy suggested Ukraine would be ready to give up territory it seized in Russia’s western Kursk region in exchange for the liberation of some Ukrainian territory occupied by Moscow’s troops.

Peskov dismissed the idea as “impossible” at a Wednesday briefing with journalists. “Russia has never discussed an exchange of its territories and never will,” Peskov said.

“Naturally, Ukrainian units will be ousted from this territory. Everyone who is not eliminated will be ousted,” Peskov added.

ABC News’ Will Gretsky, Anastasia Bagaeva, Nataliia Popova, Zoe Magee, Tanya Stukalova, Tom Soufi Burridge, Patrick Reevell and Matt Seyler contributed to this report.

Months after she was announced to be President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Education, Linda McMahon is on the hot seat in Capitol Hill on Thursday as she faces senators over the future of the agency, which the president has vowed to kill.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is holding its hearing to grill McMahon, a businesswoman with close ties to Trump who has no teaching experience.

Trump has repeatedly claimed the Department of Education has been mismanaged and has damaged education, calling it a “con job” during a news conference on Wednesday.

The president is expected to sign an executive order directing McMahon to submit a proposal for diminishing the department, and then the president said she should “put herself out of a job,” even though such an action would require an act of Congress.

Democratic senators have said they intend to scrutinize the nomination based on 76-year-old McMahon’s lack of experience in public education.

McMahon was interrupted by protesters during her opening statement, in which she defended her nomination and pushed for more school choice.

“If confirmed as secretary, I will work with Congress to reorient the department toward helping educators, not controlling them,” she said.

McMahon confirms that only Congress can shut down DOE

At an executive order signing event last week, Trump said, “I told Linda, ‘Linda, I hope you do a great job and put yourself out of a job.’”

“I want her to put herself out of a job,” Trump added.

The president has maintained that states should have control over their schools.

However, abolishing the agency can only be done if Congress passes legislation to eliminate it. Experts say it is illegal to dismantle the department without congressional authorization, which would require 60 Senate votes in favor of doing so.

HELP Committee Chairman Bill Cassidy, R-La., and ranking member Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., both pressed McMahon on whether she believes dismantling the agency can be done without Congress. McMahon responded that only Congress would be able to do so.

“It is set up by the United States Congress, and we work with Congress. It clearly cannot be shut down without it,” McMahon told Sanders.

However, she told Cassidy she is “all for the president’s mission of returning education back to the states” and said the states would still receive federal funding.

“We want to be working with Congress. We’d like to do this right. We’d like to make sure that we are presenting a plan that I think our senators can get onboard with and our Congress would get on board with that would have a better-functioning Department of Education. But it certainly requires congressional action,” McMahon said.

McMahon pressed on DEI crackdown

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., questioned McMahon on Trump’s executive order that prohibits diversity, equity and inclusion programs and how it would affect schools.

Murphy cited the closure of ethnic clubs at West Point and asked if the federal government would go after public schools that also had after school clubs dedicated to minority groups.

The nominee said she would have to “assess” the programs.

“I mean, you’re saying that it’s a possibility that if a school has a club for Vietnamese-American students or Black students where they meet after school, that they could be potentially in jeopardy of receiving federal funding,” Murphy said.

“Again, I would like to fully understand what that order is and and what those clubs are doing,” McMahon said.

“That’s pretty chilling. I think schools all around the country are going to hear that,” the senator responded.

McMahon’s journey from WWE matriarch to DOE nominee

McMahon co-founded WWE and is also the company’s former president and CEO.

Trump said he chose McMahon for being a “fierce advocate” for parental rights in education who will fight “tirelessly” to expand school choice and “spearhead” his effort to send education decisions back to the states, according to the president’s official nomination statement. The president also praised McMahon’s leadership and “deep understanding” of both education and business.

McMahon’s personal financial wealth is unclear, but she reported owning assets that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars and that could surpass $1 billion. The Trump loyalist was co-chair of his presidential transition team and is a long-time donor who has given tens of millions of dollars to support pro-Trump causes.

McMahon previously worked in the first Trump administration as head of the Small Business Administration. She had previously made two unsuccessful bids for Senate when she ran against current Senate Democrats Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy in 2010 and 2012, respectively. She is also chairwoman of the America First Policy Institute board but will leave that position if confirmed as secretary of education.

McMahon has advocated apprenticeship and workforce training programs, school choice and parental rights. Although she is not currently an educator, she received her teaching certification from East Carolina University and sat on the Connecticut State Board of Education before her first unsuccessful Senate bid. She has also had two stints on the Board of Trustees at Connecticut’s Sacred Heart University, where she is currently the treasurer.

McMahon’s scandals cast shadow over nomination

Meanwhile, McMahon’s years as a wrestling executive came with their share of alleged scandals, which has brought her experience with young people under scrutiny.

A 2024 lawsuit brought by five plaintiffs — John Does who served as the WWE ringside crew when they were teenagers — accused her and her husband, Vince McMahon, of turning a blind eye to sexual abuse by an announcer and executives at the company. If confirmed by the Senate, McMahon would be tasked with overseeing sexual misconduct investigations within education programs.

The McMahons have denied the claims.

After questioning McMahon about the Title IX law, which prohibits sexual discrimination within education programs, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., detailed the WWE allegations brought by five plaintiffs and said she is concerned about sexual assault survivors on campus.

Invoking her college-aged grandchildren, McMahon said sexual assault survivors can trust her to protect them.

“They certainly can trust me to support them,” McMahon said. “You have my absolute commitment … [to] protect those investigations to make sure that those students are treated fairly.”

Laura Brevetti, Linda McMahon’s attorney, told ABC News that the FBI investigated the decades-old allegations at the time and found no grounds to investigate them further, calling the lawsuit “baseless.”

Linda McMahon’s allies have said they believe she will be an agent of change, a disrupter and the dismantler whom the Department of Education needs. Skeptics also claimed that the federal agency spends too much on education without adequate academic results.

But many in the education community fear that if McMahon helps Trump abolish the agency, it could adversely impact the millions of students who rely on critical programs overseen by the department that are intended to help vulnerable students succeed, such as Title I funding for students from low-income communities.

A federal judge in Boston said he denied the request to block the buyout offer because the federal unions who brought the case lacked standing to sue and because the District Court lacks jurisdiction to review the case.

Three federal employee unions — with the support of 20 Democratic attorneys general — have argued in a lawsuit that the Office of Personnel Management’s deferred resignation offer is an “unlawful ultimatum” to force the resignation of government workers under the “threat of mass termination.”

According to U.S. District Judge George A. O’Toole Jr., the federal unions who challenged the policy are not directly impacted by the buyout offer; rather they are subject to collateral impacts such as a reduction in union membership and needing to answer their members’ questions about the policy.

“The unions do not have the required direct stake in the Fork Directive but are challenging a policy that affects others, specifically executive branch employees. This is not sufficient,” the judge wrote.

The judge also determined that the district court lacks jurisdiction to review the dispute because the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute sets out an administrative review process before courts can take over.

“According to this complex scheme, disputes must first be administratively exhausted before the employing agency and the relevant administrative review board and any further challenges are properly heard in a court of appeals,” the order said.

O’Toole Jr. did not include any interpretation about how the buyout deadline is impacted in his order.

“This Boston Buyout Ruling is the first of many legal wins for the President. The Court dissolved the injunction due to a lack of standing. This goes to show that lawfare will not ultimately prevail over the will of 77 million Americans who supported President Trump and his priorities,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday.

During an hour-long hearing Monday, a lawyer for the Department of Justice framed the deferred resignation offer as a “humane off-ramp” for federal employees before President Donald Trump enacts sweeping changes to “rebalance and reorganize the federal workforce.”

“President Trump campaigned on a promise to reform the federal workforce,” DOJ attorney Eric Hamilton said, outlining Trump’s plan to reduce the size of the federal government and his return-to-office executive order. “We understand these announcements may have come as a disappointment for some in the federal workforce.”

Hamilton argued that any further delay of the buyout would cause irreparable harm because the Trump administration plans to enact the next steps of reshaping the federal government as soon as the buyout window closes.

Elena Goldstein, a lawyer representing the unions that brought the challenge, hammered the Trump administration for attempting to enforce an “unprecedented program” with a “slapdash exploding deadline”

“For the last two weeks, confusion has rained for millions of career civil servants,” Goldstein said. “This is a program of unprecedented magnitude that raises questions about the rationality of OPM’s decision-making.”

The buyout offer, part of Trump’s effort to trim the size of government through billionaire Elon Musk’s newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, was sent out two weeks ago in an email with the subject line “Fork in the Road” — the same language Musk used when he slashed jobs at Twitter after taking over that company in 2022.

The offer from the Office of Personnel Management offered full pay and benefits until September for any federal employee who accepted a deferred resignation by Feb. 6, with no obligation to work after they accepted the agreement.

While Goldstein acknowledged that Trump has the right to downsize the federal government, she emphasized that OPM has not gone through any of the steps necessary to carry out such a sweeping move — including analyzing the cost and benefits of their approach, evaluating its impact on the government’s function, and accessing potential conflicts of interest for Musk. She added that the exact terms of the buyout are “shifting” for thousands of employees who have gotten inconsistent guidance from their agency.

“OPM appears to be making this up as they are going along,” she said. “When the government wants to decide, there are ways to do this correctly … none of that happened here in the two weeks since they enacted this program.”

Arguing for the government, Hamilton criticized the plaintiffs’ argument as “legally incoherent and at odds with their theory of the case,” because a further delay of the buyout would “insert more uncertainty” into the lives of federal employees.

While the plaintiffs raised concerns that the buyout program violates federal law by using money that Congress never appropriated, Hamilton attempted to push back on the claim that the buyout changes the government’s financial obligations.

“Nothing about the voluntary resignation changes anything about the federal government’s financial obligations. It just changes what employees are expected to do and not do during their period of employment,” Hamilton said.

Goldstein argued that a preliminary injunction is necessary to prevent what she said was an unlawful offer to reshape the federal government while the Trump administration continues to “put additional pressure on employees.”

“This is an unprecedented action taken on an unprecedented timeline,” she said.

Just hours ahead of Thursday’s original deadline for employees to accept the offer, Judge O’Toole — who was nominated to the bench by President Bill Clinton — temporarily blocked the offer until Monday so he could consider issuing a temporary restraining offer pausing the order.

“I enjoined the defendants from taking any action to implement the so-called ‘Fork Directive’ pending the completion of briefing and oral argument on the issues,” Judge O’Toole said in his ruling. “I believe that’s as far as I want to go today.”

The Trump administration, in response, “extended” the deadline for the offer, which more than 65,000 federal employees have already taken.

The unions who brought the lawsuit argued that Trump exceeded his authority as president with the offer, which they described as a “slapdash resignation program.”

According to the plaintiffs, Trump’s offer violates federal law, lacks congressionally appropriated funding, and does not offer employees reassurance that the president would follow through with the offer. Their claim in part relies on a federal law from the 1940s called the Administrative Procedure Act that governs how federal agencies create and enforce rules.

“In the tech universe, ‘move fast and break things’ is a fine motto in part because they’re not playing with the public’s money, and it’s expected that most initiatives are going to fail,” Loyola Marymount law professor Justin Leavitt told ABC News. “Congress knows that, so in 1946 they basically said, ‘When agencies do stuff … they have to be careful about it. They’ve got to consider all aspects of the problem.”

The plaintiffs also argued that the buyout is unlawful because it relies on funding that Congress has yet to appropriate, violating the Antideficiency Act.

“Defendants’ ultimatum divides federal workers into two groups: (1) those who submit their resignations to OPM for a promised period of pay without the requirement to work, and (2) those who have not and are therefore subject to threat of mass termination,” the lawsuit said.

Lawyers for the federal government have pushed back on those claims, arguing that Trump has the legal authority to provide the buyout for employees within the federal branch, and that any further delay would do more harm than good.

“Extending the deadline for the acceptance of deferred resignation on its very last day will markedly disrupt the expectations of the federal workforce, inject tremendous uncertainty into a program that scores of federal employees have already availed themselves of, and hinder the Administration’s efforts to reform the federal workforce,” DOJ attorney Joshua E. Gardner wrote in a filing last week.

An Elon Musk ally hired to overhaul the U.S. Department of Treasury has a lengthy record of undertaking hardline reforms in the private sector that demoralized staff and made them fear for their jobs, according to interviews with several former employees at his tech firm.

Tom Krause, the CEO of Silicon Valley-based Cloud Software Group, oversaw layoffs at his company in each of the last three years while instituting a return-to-office mandate, rigid performance ratings, and a request that weekly updates be sent from workers directly to Krause, the former employees told ABC News — echoing the sort of reforms that Musk’s new Department of Government Efficiency has begun undertaking within government agencies.

One former Cloud Software Group employee said she hid her pregnancy for fear it could make her a target of layoffs. An ex-manager said they dreaded filing performance reviews of subordinates, knowing some workers may fall victim to the next cycle of cuts. Another former employee said they avoided expressing unease in company emails or in the messaging app Slack out of concern that it could jeopardize their job.

“They’re taking business practices popular in boardrooms and on golf clubs, and they’re taking them into government,” Kathleen Roan, a former senior content designer at Cloud Software Group who retired in 2024, told ABC News.

Krause in recent days has vaulted into a key position at the Treasury Department, overseeing its $5 trillion payment system, which sends funds to tens of millions of Americans for programs like Medicare and Social Security, the agency’s website says.

In a press release, the agency said Krause brings decades of experience “managing balance sheets” to the agency’s effort to “maximize payment integrity.”

Neither Krause nor Cloud Software Group responded to a request for comment from ABC News.

A ‘hatchet man’

Several former employees ABC spoke with praised Krause as a savvy business leader, and one said they enjoyed their tenure at the company. But most of them requested that they not be identified due to concerns about reprisals.

“There was a whittling away of the things that made you feel like you were a valued employee and then finally ‘Oh, now we’re going to start eliminating jobs,’” Roan said of her time at the company under Krause. “They saw people as expendable.”

Cloud Software Group company was established in 2022 through the acquisition of enterprise software firm Citrix in a private equity-backed $16.5 billion deal, followed by a merger with TIBCO Software.

Krause, who had previously served as president of software at Palo Alto-based Broadcom, was named CEO of the new firm.

Within months, in January 2023, the company cut 15% of its workforce.

“The feeling was that he was there to cut expenses down and be a hatchet man, similar to what’s happening now in the government,” a former human resources employee said. “Everyone was on edge.”

Some of the cost-cutting measures at Cloud Software Group under Krause were first reported by The American Prospect.

Within months of Krause’s arrival, the company also requested that employees return to the office, multiple former employees said.

At the same time, the company closed some offices in an effort to reduce overhead costs, multiple former employees told ABC News. The closures left some workers without an office nearby, making them exempt from the return-to-office requirement, a former employee said.

On Inauguration Day, Trump signed an executive order calling on federal agency heads to mandate in-office work. Musk backed that policy in an op-ed he co-authored in the Wall Street Journal, predicting that mandatory return to work “would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome.”

‘A much higher level of business discipline’

Employees at Cloud Software Group lost some perks, too.

David Morgan, a former client support provider at Cloud Software Group, said the firm ended his quarterly bonuses, which amounted to $16,000 each year. Workers also stopped receiving “thank you” days, an extra allotment of paid time off, Morgan said.

“Everything we were told would be benefits at the time of hiring was slowly removed,” Morgan said.

An Air Force veteran with a disability, Morgan said he received one day of notice before he lost his job as part of a round of layoffs in January 2024, after having been assured that his position had been safe over the months prior.

In a post on LinkedIn that month, Krause said the company had improved but still required personnel changes.

“Our focus on adding value for our long-standing customers while driving a much higher level of business discipline and accountability is bearing fruit — with customer retention and financial results for our first fiscal year as Cloud Software Group coming in ahead of plan,” Krause said.

“But change often means difficult decisions,” he wrote. “While we have a number of areas of the business where our plans involve additional hiring to support our goals, they also mean a pragmatic look at those places where we simply need fewer or different resources.”

In a direct message to Krause over LinkedIn days later, Morgan wrote, “It’s challenging to reconcile my dedication and commitment to the company with the feeling of being let go in a way that seemed to lack empathy.” It does not appear that Krause responded, according to a screenshot of the conversation reviewed by ABC News.

Another policy shift under Krause brought the implementation of employee-performance ratings on a scale of one to three, multiple former employees said.

The ratings took a toll on one former manager, who said the company required them to label at least one subordinate as a low performer. “I had to give one person a low score, even if I thought they didn’t really deserve a low score,” they said. “It was miserable.”

Rating systems have reportedly been deployed as part of the Trump administration’s recent push to cut staff. Senior staff across the Department of Health and Human Services were told to rank thousands of employees in probationary periods, with as much as 40% to be deemed non-mission critical, the Washington Post reported.

‘It’s very alarming’

Daniel Keum, a professor of management at Columbia University Business School, said the apparent overlap between cost-cutting initiatives at Cloud Software Group and some federal agencies exemplifies the Trump administration’s use of tactics borrowed from the private sector.

“In tech, there’s a mentality that you have to break things to make them a lot better,” Keum told ABC News. “When transposed into federal agencies, that mentality becomes very dicey.”

Nearly all former employees who spoke to ABC News expressed shock or concern about the role at the Treasury taken up by Krause, though one expressed indifference and another voiced support.

“It’s very alarming,” said Roan, the former Cloud Software Group design architect.

“He should absolutely not have anything to do with the U.S. Treasury Department,” said Morgan.

In contrast, a former account executive at the company applauded the choice of Krause for the Treasury role, citing his financial acumen.

“I don’t think you can find a better person to swim in the weeds [and] sit in the edifice of the Treasury Department,” the person said.

In January, Cloud Software Group conducted another round of layoffs. That same month, Krause sent an email to all employees asking them to voluntarily send him a message at the end of each week “telling me what you accomplished,” according to a copy of the email reviewed by ABC News.

The approach draws on best practices from “two great entrepreneurs and CEOs that lead the most valuable companies in the world,” Krause wrote, naming Musk and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.

In a separate email in recent days, Krause told employees that he plans to continue in his role at the company during his time at the Treasury, according to a copy of the email reviewed by ABC News that was first reported by CRN.

“I am honored to serve our country,” Krause wrote. “Let me be clear — as CEO of Cloud Software Group, I am committed to our company and to you, our employees.”

Despite verbal assurances from Secretary of State Marco Rubio about allowing lifesaving humanitarian aid to continue, international aid and development work funded by the U.S. government have almost entirely come to a halt, multiple leaders in humanitarian aid confirmed to ABC News.

Many organizations say they are now worried food from U.S. farmers that had been designated for some of the poorest countries and programs to help malnourished children in conflict zones is at risk of perishing.

One humanitarian aid leader, who asked that ABC News not use their name as many organizations are worried about retribution from the Trump administration, described sitting on over 1,000 tons of food in Mozambique that needs to be distributed. “It’s utterly, utterly wasteful,” the leader said on the phone.

The problem is threefold. The State Department last week promised “waivers” that would allow some aid programs focused on lifesaving help, including food, water and nutrition, to continue despite widespread stop-work orders issued by the Trump administration.

But organizations have been told they must wait for the State Department or U.S. Agency for International Development to inform them that their specific programs have been approved under these waivers and given the green light to go forward. While some organizations have received limited waivers for some of their programs in certain countries, others have not.

Plus, thousands of USAID staff members have been told to return home from posts abroad, and hundreds more in Washington, D.C., could be put on administrative leave. Partnering organizations and international nongovernmental organizations say their emails and questions are going unanswered. On top of all of the confusion, there is the lack of actual cash to pay for programs.

When asked about the urgent warnings from humanitarian aid partners that the waiver system was not working, Secretary of State Marco Rubio doubled down and questioned the organizations’ competence.

“If it saves lives, if it’s emergency lifesaving aid — food, medicine, whatever — they have a waiver. I don’t know how much clearer we can be. And if they’re not applying it, then maybe they’re not a very good organization and maybe they shouldn’t be getting money at all,” Rubio told reporters last Tuesday.

But various USAID officials and humanitarian aid leaders insisted to ABC News that despite Rubio’s public statements, waivers were not working.

“Right now, there is no USAID humanitarian assistance happening. There are waivers put in place by Secretary Rubio for emergency food assistance and a number of other sectors, but they are a fraud and a sham and intended to give the illusion of continuity, which is untrue,” a USAID official in the humanitarian division said on a call with reporters on Friday.

“There is no staff left anymore to actually process waiver requests or to move money or to make awards or to do anything,” the official added. “We’ve ceased to exist, and any assertions to the contrary, by anyone, are untrue.”

One executive for a humanitarian aid organization described conversation with lawmakers who were, they said, in disbelief to hear that organizations who are trying to continue lifesaving work delivering food and water were still locked out the federal payment system and unable to access cash. “Surely, there is cash?’ I had to say, ‘No, no, there is no cash.’” the humanitarian aid leader told ABC News. “We are having to first get through that disbelief that this would actually be happening in this way.”

Organizations across the globe have described being locked out of federal payment systems or unable to draw down funds, even for services already rendered. Many have not been able to access funds since December.

One leader in humanitarian aid described a conversation with lawmakers, saying they said, “Surely, there is cash.”

“I had to say, ‘No, no, there is no cash.’ We are having to first get through that disbelief that this would actually be happening in this way,” the humanitarian aid leader told ABC News. Other leaders, too, have described talking to allies on Capitol Hill who were shocked to learn that the cash had been cut off.

The impacts of the global freeze on American aid are widespread. While the U.S. spends around 1% of its federal budget on foreign aid, it is still the largest contributor of humanitarian aid worldwide.

Gena Perry, executive director of the American Soybean Association’s World Initiative for Soy in Human Health, told ABC News there is about 60,000 metric tons of soy product worth $23 million for the Department of Agriculture’s Food for Progress program that “can’t be delivered right now,” following the stop-work orders.

As of Friday, the foremost U.S. emergency food aid program, Food for Peace, remained subject to stop-work orders. As a result, aid agencies estimate over 500 million metric tons of U.S. food commodities, from American farmers and manufacturers, are stuck in various locations and not being distributed.

According to the World Food Program, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, there are an estimated 4.5 million children facing acute malnutrition. Humanitarian aid partners estimated more than 70 sites for testing and treating tens of thousands of malnourished children are being shuttered, as well as 92 health facilities.

Amid the conflict in Sudan, an estimated 48 health facilities serving hundreds of thousands of people are now closed, according to multiple aid organizations.

Many nonprofit and aid organizations have worried about going on the record and talking to reporters about the impacts of the freeze, out of fear they will be singled out and face retribution. While some of the largest organizations are frantically working to move money around to keep their operations afloat, others are already facing real financial consequences and are at risk of shutting down immediately.

“We’re in the midst of a global refugee crisis affecting more than 120 million people all over the world. … These stop-work orders and this foreign aid freeze puts a stop to all that people who were, a week ago, getting assistance, getting food, getting healthcare, getting treatment for their trauma,” Noah Gottschalk, senior director of international advocacy at HIAS, a global Jewish refugee and immigrant aid organization, told ABC News. “So, it’s an incredible slap to the face for some of the world’s most vulnerable people, people who have already experienced so much suffering.”

Gottschalk said his organization alone has had to stop programs for survivors of sexual violence in Latin America and stop healthcare support to children across Africa. The organization is unsure which of its programs will be given the green light to go forward. He described how partners and colleagues are waiting to hear if work distributing vaccines and vouchers for food or running schools, for example, will be deemed “lifesaving.”

Beyond humanitarian concerns, aid organizations and diplomats are worried about national security risks because of the sudden freeze.

“The U.S. is abandoning some of the most desperate people in the world right now, and it absolutely will create a vacuum. And I’m deeply concerned about who is going to fill that vacuum, whether it’s armed groups, whether it’s cartels, human traffickers,” Gottschalk added.

Work done by the U.S. military in Syria to secure camps holding thousands of Islamic State fighters has been frozen during the chaotic funding freezes. Nonprofit organizations have reported security guards walking off the job at some of these ISIS camps after the initial stop-work orders.

“We see it in Syria and Sudan — already places completely disrupted by conflict, internal conflict where communities were relying on emergency food aid, cash assistance to buy food in order to keep people alive. It will result in higher risk of conflict. There’s no doubt about it,” one international nonprofit leader told ABC News.

Other experts in international development have warned the funding freeze could make the crisis at the U.S. southern border worse. Aid organizations told ABC News that funding for “narcotics interdiction” in Colombia was paused, which had totaled over $380 million annually. There is a real risk that cartels can fill the vacuum and worsen the mass migration in the region.

The White House and State Department have insisted they are successfully rooting out waste. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News this week, “President Trump’s main goal since Day One: ensuring that every penny that goes out from Washington, D.C., aligns with his ‘America First’ principles, and that’s certainly true when it comes to foreign aid. The American taxpayers have been funding just useless priorities overseas.”

While it is common practice for incoming administrations to restructure and reprioritize aid, the Trump administration has instead effectively embarked on a wholescale shuttering of programs, many of which had long enjoyed bipartisan support.

“An incoming administration will always, you know, reassess activities and essentially map out a vision and a strategy around how it wants to use development as a soft-power tool,” one executive with a humanitarian aid organization told ABC News. “I think what you’re seeing now is blatant lies about how stuff is being used, and secondly, the disruptive way they are burning down the house in this fashion will actually lead to really negative, perhaps unintended but certainly avoidable, negative consequences.”

While it appears that all eyes are on the federal government as President Donald Trump’s second term enters its first full month, many of the offices responsible for keeping the country’s national agencies accountable are finding themselves leaderless.

The inspectors general for at least 17 agencies were terminated in late January, with one such official receiving a two-sentence letter citing “changing priorities,” according to a copy of the note obtained by ABC News.

“It’s a very common thing to do,” Trump told reporters about the firings five days after being inaugurated.

In the press gaggle aboard Air Force One on Jan. 25, Trump continued that he was not firing “all of them,” specifically mentioning that Michael Horowitz, the inspector general of the Department of Justice, would be kept.

Concerns have been mounting since from some researchers who wonder what will happen next at internal watchdog offices that have been a staple of Washington accountability for nearly five decades.

“They have saved our agencies and the American people literally millions and millions and millions of dollars,” George Washington University professor Kathryn Newcomer told ABC News about the IGs. “They are saving way more than we are spending on them.”

What is an inspector general?

Offices of inspector general in their current form date back to 1978, when a federal law allowed for their creation.

“There were some scandals back in the 60s into the early 70s in which there was fraudulent use of government property,” Newcomer said.

Then-President Jimmy Carter, who signed the bill into law, described the role of inspectors general as “perhaps the most important new tools in the fight against fraud,” according to the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency.

In addition to state and local agencies, there are now more than six dozen federal inspectors general offices at entities of all sizes, from the Department of Defense and the Department of Transportation to the Farm Credit Administration and the National Science Foundation.

“Inspectors general are essentially in two roles,” A. Sprightley Ryan, who served as the inspector general for the Smithsonian Institution more than a decade ago, told ABC News. “They’re sort of like an internal cop and an internal auditor.”

In recent years, investigative reports from inspectors general have explored staffing challenges at air traffic control centers operated by the Federal Aviation Administration, analyzed whether funds being used to support Ukraine were being properly accounted for and looked into allegations involving the architect of the Capitol.

There are two ways in which federal inspectors general are typically appointed, Ryan explained. For some agencies, their inspector general is appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, while at other departments, the person is appointed by the individual entity’s leadership.

“The key is that they are to be independent of partisan influence and independent of undue influence from either the president or the Congress, so they are in this very vulnerable space that they have to walk,” Newcomer said.

Ryan said that in her time as an inspector general, politics did not play a role.

“One of the reasons I loved my job at the Smithsonian is that it was essentially non-political,” she explained.

How will government efficiency align with government transparency?

The removal of inspectors general from their positions came as one of the new administration’s initial actions.

“I was surprised that it happened so quickly,” said Robin Kempf, a University of Colorado Colorado Springs associate professor who once worked for the Kansas Office of Medicaid Inspector General. She added that Trump’s dismissals of inspectors general are “disabling the system of accountability.”

The firings also occurred not long after a new entity called the Department of Government Efficiency was created through an executive order.

“President Trump was elected with a mandate from the American people to make this government more efficient,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday in a media briefing. “He campaigned across this country with Elon Musk, vowing that Elon was going to head up the Department of Government Efficiency.”

The exact role of this department, which is known as DOGE, remains uncertain. Led by Elon Musk, this 18-month agenda within the Executive Office of the President has been described to streamline “federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity,” according to the executive order.

“We’re going to look at the receipts of this federal government and ensure it’s accountable to American taxpayers,” Leavitt said.

DOGE does not have an inspector general of its own, but Newcomer told ABC News that DOGE would have benefited from partnering with inspectors general.

“The IGs have the institutional knowledge of where money can be saved,” Newcomer said. “They have the institutional knowledge of where are the weaknesses that need to be strengthened so we don’t lose more money. They’re the people that the DOGE should have brought in to say, ‘Let’s work together. You can help us because you have that institutional knowledge.’”

With numerous inspectors general now out of work, Ryan said that vacancies in their former offices can impact agency productivity and employee morale.

“When I first read about DOGE, I laughed,” Ryan said. “I was like, OK, so they want to have inspectors general. Well guess what? They already exist, because the purpose of an inspector general office is to promote efficiency [and] effectiveness.”

In 2018, the Government Accountability Office found inspector general vacancies that resulted in the appointment of an acting or interim replacement did not impact the office’s ability to carry out their duties and responsibilities, but could result in varied response to personnel management and independence of the office with the agency.

“I’ve actually been in contact with some of my alums who work in these offices, and they’re going to work every day, and are going to continue to work,” Newcomer said. “The people that are in the acting positions are civil servants who have been in their organizations for a very long time and want to continue providing the good work.”

Have oustings of inspectors general happened before — and is that legal?

While a president can fire an inspector general, the Inspector General Act of 1978 states that terminations can only happen after the plans are communicated to Congress 30 days in advance.

“It is illegal and it’s unheard of,” Newcomer said. “I am hoping that the United States Congress steps up.”

Congress strengthened the law two years ago, requiring an administration to provide detailed reasoning for terminations of an inspectors general.

“The notice should explain to Congress exactly why this is happening,” Kempf told ABC News. “It’s like a political safeguard, so that if Congress feels that this is inappropriate, the president perhaps can change their mind. And that happened during the Reagan administration.”

In 1981, President Ronald Reagan dismissed more than a dozen inspectors general, yet reversed and hired back at least five inspectors generals after accusations by Republicans and Democrats of politicizing the role, according to The New York Times.

In 2009, just a few months after taking office, President Barack Obama fired Corporation for National and Community Service Inspector General Gerald Walpin. The Project on Government Oversight argued that the process surrounding Walpin’s removal should have led to “teachable moments.”

President Joe Biden in 2024 notified Congress of his intent to remove the inspector general of the Railroad Retirement Board, Martin Dickman, according to a Congressional Research Service report. He was fired following an investigation into workplace harassment and abuse, according to The Hill.

During Trump’s first term, he dismissed the inspectors general of five departments in the span of six weeks in 2020. In his second administration, Trump nearly tripled his previous terminations of inspectors general in one day.

“As with any organization, if it’s been decapitated, it’s weaker,” Ryan said.

Trump said new inspectors general would be installed, telling reporters that these replacement watchdogs will be “very good.”

Some Democrats and watchdogs have expressed concern over potential replacements as loyalists, but Newcomer told ABC News, “It’s not a Democratic thing or Republican thing to say that we want efficient government.”

“There’ll be just a lot more acting heads of the offices, but people are going to step up,” she added. “I have faith in the American people, and I have faith in the good civil servants who are going to keep coming to work every day.”

ABC News’ Ben Siegel and Katherine Faulders contributed to this report.

NEW ORLEANS — The anticipation surrounding Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans is not just about which team will win, it’s whether or not the city can pull the game off without a serious security breach.

New Orleans has hosted 10 Super Bowls in previous years, but Sunday’s game at the Superdome is different. Just over a month before Sunday’s kick-off, the city was the target of a terrorist attack on New Year’s Day in which a driver racing down Bourbon Street killed 14 people, injured 57 others, and heightened fears among locals that the city is unprepared for the estimated 100,000 visitors expected to arrive this week.

“New Orleans never had a reputation as a high target type place” for terrorism, “it was always ‘the Big Easy,’” said Eric Cook, executive chef and owner of St. John, a restaurant in the city’s Central Business District that is just a short walk from the stadium. The attack, he said, “really made everyone realize we’re all vulnerable at any time. I have concerns about it, I really do.”

Security concerns were heightened this week after President Donald Trump announced he is planning to attend the game, a first for any sitting president.

NFL Chief Security Officer Cathy Lanier said the NFL changed its security plan since the attack and is “constantly monitoring what is going on in the environment and security worlds” in the days leading up to the game. She said more than 2,700 state, federal, and local law enforcement will be present in and around the Superdome and private drones are prohibited. She declined to talk in specific about other measures the league is taking, citing security concerns.

In the weeks following the Bourbon Street attack, the FBI gave the game a Special Event Assessment Rating (SEAR) 1 rating, “defined as a significant event with national and/or international importance that requires extensive federal interagency support,” according to a threat assessment the agency released in late January.

The FBI said the game, along with days of activities leading up to kick-off, make it “an attractive target for foreign terrorist organizations, homegrown violent extremists, domestic violent extremists, lone offenders, hate crime perpetrators, and those engaged in other reportable targeted violence due to their potential to cause mass casualty incidents and draw attention to ideological causes.”

The report warns that a copycat attack is possible since “vehicle ramming has become a recurring tactic employed by threat actors in the west.” Other factors contributing to the threat environment is unrest in the Middle East, the high number of pre-game events in the city, the use of unauthorized unmanned aircraft systems, and the potential of cyberattacks “designed to facilitate short-term financial gain or highly visible, symbolic disruptions.”

Eric DeLaune, a special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in New Orleans, is tasked with coordinating federal efforts around the Super Bowl. “In the days ahead, there will be a significant increased law enforcement presence in New Orleans, some of which will be visible and obvious,” he told reporters Monday.

A congressional delegation led by Alabama Rep. Dale Strong, the chair of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emergency Management and Technology, this week toured the site of the Bourbon Street attack and the Superdome before a briefing by the NFL and law enforcement officials.

“This tragedy could happen in any state, any city—that is why it is so important that we invest in local law enforcement and give them the capabilities they need to prevent crimes before they happen,” Strong said in a statement

Guns allowed, but not coolers

The Bourbon Street attack triggered a state of emergency from the state, which Gov. Jeff Landry followed up weeks later with an executive order that established a wide security perimeter around Bourbon Street, from Canal to St. Ann Streets and Royal to Dauphine Streets. Coolers and ice chests are prohibited and bag checks conducted by the Louisiana State Police will start Wednesday at every entry point leading to Bourbon Street.

For French Quarter residents like Glade Bilby, who has called the neighborhood home for more than 40 years and is president of French Quarter Citizens, a non-profit that focuses on quality of life issues, the added security is “welcome.” He said, however, the security focus on Bourbon Street is limiting.

Another attack “could happen anywhere,” he said. “If this happened on Barracks, Gov. Nichols, it still affects the French Quarter which is an international brand. If you’re really intent on doing evil, you’ll be able to do it no matter what.”

Bilby is among many here who have been vocal all week about the contraction established by Landry which prohibits coolers into the security perimeter while state law allows people to carry in firearms without a permit. “That’s very problematic. It ties one hand behind law enforcement’s back,” Bilby said.

When Landry took office last year, he signed into law legislation to allow for the carrying of a concealed handgun without a permit or training. He rejected pleas from lawmakers in New Orleans to make the French Quarter and other entertainment districts in the city exempt. That means, according to Metropolitan Crime Commission President Rafael Goyeneche “there’s nothing that can be done legally with respect to people bringing firearms into the French Quarter.”

If law enforcement discovers a checked bag contains a handgun, “they have no recourse but to let them walk into the French Quarter, and that poses a real threat,” Goyeneche told WWL radio last month.

Landry’s office did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment. He has not commented on rejecting the carve-out on his gun legislation for the French Quarter but said upon signing the gun bill: “It’s fundamentally clear—law-abiding citizens should never have to seek government permission to safeguard themselves and their families.”

New Orleans City Councilmember Joe Giarrusso said the city will continue to advocate to state lawmakers that an exception should be made to prohibit conceal carry in the French Quarter because the environment is so unique.

“You have so many tourists packed into a small space and we’re encouraging people to drink alcohol inside and outside. That’s the ethos of what is going on there,” he said. “Alcohol and guns don’t mix. This is not a partisan issue.”

Investigations pending

Besides the refusal to carve out the French Quarter as a gun-free zone, concerns remain that the city hasn’t learned a lesson from the security gaps that safety officials have said made it easier for Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a U.S.-born citizen from Texas, to drive a truck for at least three blocks in the early morning of New Year’s Day.

Two investigations — one by the city council and a second launched by Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill — are looking into why protective columns designed to block vehicle traffic were removed and why other anti-vehicle barriers were not deployed.

“The People of Louisiana deserve answers,” said Murrill. “We are committed to getting a full and complete picture of what was done or not done, and more importantly, what needs to change so we can prevent this from ever happening again.”

New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick told the city council she hired former New York Police Commissioner William J. Bratton to serve as a consultant to investigate the security lapses.

Bratton did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment on the investigation.

Still, for all the promises and pending investigations and final reports, the big game will still proceed Sunday. Cook said an outcome without a major safety incident will be critical for businesses like his own that saw traffic drop following the New Year’s Day attack.

“We hope the success of this weekend will generate more trusting folks to come down here and visually see that New Orleans is open for business and we’re safe and we’re prepared,” Cook said.

Giarrusso admitted that New Orleanians are “weary and wary” but have no choice but to move forward.

“The whole point of terrorism is to prevent people from doing what in free society people are allowed to do,” he said. “We have to find a sweet spot of finding reasonable safety protection for people and ensuring we’re leading our lives the way we’re supposed to.”

As Elon Musk continues to dismantle government agencies, threaten workers with layoffs and gain access to government data, congressional Republicans on Wednesday blocked Democratic efforts to compel him to answer for his actions under oath.

At the same time, protests demanding accountability continued.

Musk, who has not made any public appearances since the inauguration, has publicly called for slashing federal government spending and, through his non-government organization Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has frozen funding for several agencies including USAID the international aid agency.

Designated a special government employee by the White House, Musk claims he has been checking with President Donald Trump about his tactics.

“I went over it with him in detail, and he agreed that we should shut it down,” Musk said Monday about his effort to curtail USAID.

On Wednesday, more than 100 people protested in front of the Department of Labor, which they said is Musk’s latest target.

Organized by the AFL-CIO, Democratic lawmakers, and other federal employee groups, demonstrators held signs saying, “nobody elected Musk,” “Elon owns Trump,” and “checks and balances.”

David Casserly, a Department of Labor staffer told ABC News’ Jay O’Brien that what Musk is doing is “not a good thing for the American people” and he had a question for the 77 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump.

“Is this what you voted for? Is this what you really want? Some unelected billionaire coming in and deciding to cut things he had never heard of until yesterday,” he said

Meanwhile, fireworks over Musk’s actions exploded in Congress.

Rep. Gerry Connolly, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, tore into Musk at a hearing as he moved to subpoena the controversial billionaire.

“It’s a puzzling role for many people, certainly on this side of the aisle, and I think for some on yours, who is this unelected billionaire that he can attempt to dismantle federal agencies, fire people, transfer them, offer them early retirement and have sweeping changes to agencies without any congressional review, oversight or concurrence,” he said.

Republicans on the committee pushed back and engaged in a shouting match with Democrats over Musk. When GOP chairman Rep. James Comer put the subpoena motion to a vote, it failed along party lines.

Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna of California, who has shown support for DOGE in the past, abstained from voting.

On X, Musk dismissed the Democrats’ effort to force him to testify.

“How is this reality? Lmaooo,” he posted.

Comer and other Republicans came to Musk and DOGE’s defense contending, without evidence, that the federal government was wasting taxpayer dollars and those agencies needed to be reviewed and scaled back.

“Elon Musk trimmed the fat on X and we have the chance to do the same here,” Comer said about Musk’s deep cuts at the social media giant.

Musk’s $44 billion purchase of Twitter in 2022 has been seen by some business analysts as an unsuccessful investment as the company’s value has gone down sharply over the years with users and advertisers dropping the platform.

The mutual fund Fidelity marked down its estimate of X’s value by 78.7% as of the end of August, according to a financial disclosure.

Republicans have maintained that Musk is not in charge and answers to Trump.

When asked about Democrats’ concerns and anger over DOGE, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday said Trump campaigned to make the government more efficient and defended Musk’s involvement in it.

While Musk won’t be taking questions from leaders anytime soon, he has spent a lot of time on his social media platform making his case.

Last Thursday he reposted an X post that had a screenshot from a news article talking about DOGE aides looking at the Medicare payment system.

“Yeah, this is where the big money fraud is happening,” Musk wrote in his post without any further details or evidence to back his claim.

The Medicare system wasn’t the only government agency he put on notice this week.

The Treasury Department said that officials connected to DOGE have been granted “read-only” access to the sensitive Treasury system that manages trillions of dollars in government payments.

Leavitt told reporters Wednesday that DOGE is not allowed to write new code.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the federal agency responsible for forecasting the weather, researching and analyzing climate and weather data and monitoring and tracking extreme weather events like hurricanes, is now being scrutinized by Musk’s team, several sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

DOGE is looking for anything tied to DEI and that they removed anything DEI-related from bulletin boards, including posters and signs, the sources said. They also checked bathroom signs to ensure they complied with Trump’s executive orders.

A former NOAA employee told ABC News that he is concerned that representatives from DOGE will employ what he called the Musk’s strategy of breaking things now and fixing them later. He said he’s worried that NOAA’s irreplaceable climate and weather data could be damaged or lost and that DOGE may be following the Project 2025 playbook.

Trump has tried to distance himself from the plan, even though his nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, was one of its authors.

Project 2025 calls for breaking up NOAA and privatizing forecast operations. In the document, the authors wrote that NOAA is “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity.”

As these moves take place, questions have been raised about how exactly Musk and his team are operating.

Musk initially wanted an office in the White House West Wing but told people he thought what he was given was too small, multiple people familiar with his comments told ABC News. So, instead, he took an office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, the sources said.

Musk moved beds into both the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and the United States Office of Personnel Management, according to sources. The move is intended to allow both Musk and his staff to sleep there if working late, the sources said.

It follows a familiar practice at tech companies in Silicon Valley.

Musk’s team is staffed largely by engineers and young people with little experience in government policy. At least one as young as 19 years old, according to sources.

Trump was asked Tuesday about the access Musk’s team, including the younger members, had to government data and facilities and he responded he thought it was a good move.

Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill have repeatedly discounted Musk’s claims about DOGE’s powers.

“It has no authority to make spending decisions, to shut down programs or ignore federal law. This is not debatable. This is an indisputable fact. No authority for spending decisions to shut down programs or ignore federal law,” Sen. Chuck Schumer said Tuesday.

ABC News’ Rachel Scott, Matthew Glasser, Will Steakin, Katherine Faulders and Max Zahn contributed to this report.