Medicaid is quickly emerging as a political lightning rod as House Republicans negotiate on a massive bill to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda.

Some Republican lawmakers are worried about the level of spending cuts being sought by fiscal hawks to offset the cost of Trump’s policies, arguing the current deal could force potentially unworkable cuts on Medicaid and other federal safety net programs.

‘I’m concerned that $880 billion out of [the House Energy & Commerce Committee] is likely very steep cuts to Medicaid – and it’s the very thing President Trump asked us not to do,’ Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., told Fox News Digital on Tuesday.

GOP lawmakers are working to pass a broad swath of Trump policies – from investments in defense and border security to extending his 2017 tax cuts and eliminating taxes on tips – via the budget reconciliation process. The mechanism allows the party in control of both houses of Congress to pass a tax and budget bill without help from the opposing party.

But conservative spending hawks are looking for deep cuts in federal dollars to offset money going toward Trump’s priorities. The current resolution advancing through the House would aim to cut government spending by at least $1.5 trillion, while allocating $4.5 trillion toward Trump’s tax cuts.

An amendment added after conservatives balked at that deal would cut funding going toward Trump’s tax cuts by $500 billion if at least $2 trillion total spending cuts were not reached. 

Even before the additional cuts, however, some Republicans like Bacon are concerned that the $880 billion that the Energy & Commerce Committee is tasked with cutting will negatively impact their constituents.

Conservatives have pushed back, arguing that significant cuts could be found in Medicaid work requirements. But skeptics of that argument say that the level of spending cuts being sought go past what work requirements can cover.

‘We want to ensure that it’s not going to hurt… our hospitals, or our organizations that serve the developmentally disabled, and we’re asking for clarity on where the $880 billion in savings come from,’ Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., the only House Republican representing part of New York City, told Fox News Digital.

She did agree with GOP rebels that there was ‘mismanagement’ and waste to root out in those programs.

Malliotakis and other Republicans on the Ways & Means Committee tasked with writing tax policy are also uneasy about the new amendment that could cut funds allocated to their panel.

‘I don’t think that is doable without affecting beneficiaries, and I’ve expressed that concern to leadership and in talking to some of my colleagues,’ Malliotakis said.

Another House Republican who declined to be named told Fox News Digital that ‘there’s a bunch of us’ who think the proposed cuts ‘are too big.’

‘They’re trying to sell us $1.5 trillion, but in reality, there’s another $500 billion attached to it that they’re trying to cut. And it’s not going to pass,’ the GOP lawmaker said.

Meanwhile, Rep. Rob Bresnahan, R-Pa., who unseated a Democrat in a close race last year, wrote on X over the weekend, ‘I ran for Congress under a promise of always doing what is best for the people of Northeastern Pennsylvania. If a bill is put in front of me that guts the benefits my neighbors rely on, I will not vote for it.’

The budget reconciliation process allows legislation to advance with only GOP votes by lowering the threshold for Senate passage from two-thirds to a simple 51-seat majority. The House already operates on a simple majority.

But currently, Republicans can lose just one vote in the House to pass anything on party lines – meaning they can afford almost no dissent to get their reconciliation bill over the line.

Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., a conservative on the House Budget Committee who would not have supported the resolution last week without the last-minute amendment, told reporters last week, ‘Medicaid’s got to be in it. You don’t get to the [$1.5 trillion figure], much less two, without it.’

‘And it’s not cuts to Medicaid. Work requirements have an $800 billion savings on it… able-bodied 40-year-old men who can work don’t need to be on Medicaid,’ Norman said.

Democrats are waiting to pounce on the discord.

The House Majority PAC, which is aligned with House Democratic leadership, released a memo on Tuesday accusing Republicans of seeking to make ‘deep cuts’ to Medicaid ‘to fund $4.5 trillion in tax cuts to Elon Musk and other billionaires.’

‘In battleground congressional districts across the country, House Republicans are putting Medicaid on the chopping block – a move that would rip life-saving health care away from tens of thousands of their own constituents – roughly half of whom are children,’ the memo said.

But according to Ways & Means Republicans, the average American household could see taxes raised by over 20% if the Trump tax cuts expired.

Nearly everyone agrees that the federal government has become this bloated monster that needs to be cut down to size.

The massive bureaucracy, attacked by some as evil, is absurdly overstaffed and wastes massive amounts of money.

What President Trump is doing in trying to shrink the size of government is popular – even if his billionaire budget-slasher, Elon Musk, is not – and many of the court battles are likely to be resolved in his favor.

But the equation is turned on its head when actual people feel the impact. And the media start highlighting sad cases of devastated folks. And Republican lawmakers start objecting to the cutbacks that hit home.

That’s why it’s so hard to cut the federal budget. It’s not like going into SpaceX and firing a bunch of software engineers. The political pressures can be intense.

Virtually every program in the federal budget is there because some group, at some time, convinced Congress it was a good idea. There are noble-sounding causes – cancer research, aid to veterans, subsidies for farmers.

In fact, farmers are threatened by the near-abolition of USAID – while most people hate foreign aid, food programs provide a crucial market for American farmers, many of whom are now stuck with spoiling surpluses or loans they can’t repay.

Now there’s plenty of game-playing that goes on with government programs. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that agencies could cut one of every 10 employees without damaging their core functions. 

Anyone who’s looked at the endless cycle of conferences, conventions, training confabs, office renovations and the like knows how much fat there is in these budgets. When you throw in lucrative payments to well-connected contractors, that figure skyrockets.

But when agency officials come under fire, they immediately insist that any cutbacks will instantly hurt the poor and downtrodden, or working-class folks living paycheck to paycheck. It used to be called the Washington Monument defense, the notion that any attempt to reduce funding for the Interior Department would cause the memorial’s immediate shutdown.

NIH, for instance, does world-class research that benefits the country. But the battle between Musk’s DOGE and the institute centers on how much is spent on indirect costs.

Musk says his aim is ‘dropping the overhead charged on NIH grants from the outrageous 60 percent to a far more reasonable 15 percent.’

But an NBC story is headlined: ‘NIH Cuts Could Stall Medical Progress for Lifesaving Treatments, Experts Say.’

The piece quotes Theodore Iwashyna, a physician at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, as saying his ‘father had pancreatic cancer, and the care plan developed for him existed only because of research funded through organizations like the NIH.’

Iwashyna says the overhead is needed for ‘computers, whiteboards, microscopes, electricity, and janitors and staff who keep labs clean and organized.’

Alabama Sen. Katie Britt, whose state is getting $518 million in NIH grants, mainly to the University of Alabama at Birmingham, is raising objections. The conservative Republican told a reporter she wants the administration to take a ‘smart, targeted approach’ so as not to endanger ‘groundbreaking, lifesaving research.’

The examples are legion. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski has asked the administration not to restrict funding for diversity programs among American Indian tribes.

As the New York Times puts it, ‘some Republicans’ have sought ‘carve outs and special consideration for agriculture programs, scientific research and more, even as they cheered on Mr. Trump’s overall approach.’

Musk’s DOGE team seems to be using a meat-ax method. Why lay off hundreds of FAA technicians and engineers just weeks after the fatal plane crash at Reagan National Airport, when there’s already a major shortage of air traffic controllers?

FEMA, which is already stretched thin after the Los Angeles wildfires and the Kentucky flooding, is preparing to fire hundreds of probationary workers, reports the Washington Post. Such workers, who have been with the government for one or two years, basically have no rights. 

But there has been zero effort to assess them. Some were told their performance was the issue, but showed the Post their evaluations. ‘Above fully successful,’ said one, for a fired GSA worker. ‘An outstanding year, consistently exceeding expectations,’ said the review for a fired NIH staffer.

But viewed from a different angle, the hometown paper and other outlets buy into the notion that federal employees should have tenure for life. Everyone in Washington knows that before Trump it was virtually impossible to fire such employees, even for cause. 

By contrast, Southwest Airlines just announced a 15% cut of its corporate workforce. No one is rushing to interview those laid off, because this sort of downsizing is routine in the private sector. But the Beltway ethos is that federal workers are entitled to their jobs.

Now intellectual honesty requires the observation that even radical cuts to the federal payroll won’t have much impact on the $840 billion budget deficit or the $36 trillion federal debt. The bulk of the budget consists of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, defense spending and interest on the debt.

Can Elon Musk and DOGE at least make progress on rooting out waste, fraud and abuse? Maybe. But the level of pain being inflicted on ordinary Americans, including in red states, and the natural tendency of politicians to shield local residents from that pain, and the media’s relentless spotlight on those suffering, are going to be a giant obstacle.

DOGE’s Elon Musk opened up in an interview alongside President Trump with Fox News Sean Hannity about a dinner party where he said he realized how ‘real’ Democratic animosity toward Trump can be.

‘I happened to mention the president’s name and it was like they got shot with a dart in the jugular that contained like methamphetamine and rabies,’ Musk said in the Tuesday night interview while recounting a situation where he mentioned Trump’s name at a dinner party and quickly received pushback.

Musk imitated people at the party going crazy and questioned why they couldn’t have a normal conversation.

‘It’s like they’ve become completely irrational,’ Musk said, adding in the interview that he didn’t realize the severity of ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ was until he attended that dinner party.

During another point in the interview, Hannity asked if Musk would recuse himself from DOGE efforts if there was ever a conflict of interest.

‘If there’s a conflict he won’t be involved,’ Trump said. ‘I wouldn’t want that and he won’t want it.’

‘Right, and also I’m getting sort of a daily proctology exam,’ Musk added. ‘It’s not like I’ll be getting away for something in the dead of night.’

Musk and Trump sat down for a wide-ranging interview with Hannity where they discussed the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) work, the first 100 days of the Trump administration and more. It marks the duo’s first joint television interview.

‘He’s been so unfairly attacked,’ Musk said of Trump during the interview. ‘It’s really outrageous.’

‘I’ve spent a lot of time with the President, and not once have I seen him do anything mean or cruel or wrong.’

DOGE chief Elon Musk revealed details about his thought process on endorsing President Trump during a sit-down interview with Trump and Fox News anchor Sean Hannity on Tuesday night that the president said he had not heard before.

‘I was going to do it anyway,’ Musk said during the interview that aired Tuesday night when Hannity mentioned that his endorsement of Trump came after an attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania on the campaign trail.

‘That was it?’ Hannity said.

‘That was a precipitating event,’ Musk said. 

‘That sped it up a little bit?’ Trump then said to Musk. ‘I didn’t know that.’

Musk responded, ‘It sped it up, but I was going to do it anyway.’

Musk announced that he ‘fully supports’ former President Trump after gunshots rang out at his Pennsylvania rally in July in a move that many, including some Democrats, believe played a significant role in Trump’s campaign.

‘Not even just that he has endorsed [Trump], but the fact that now he’s becoming an active participant and showing up and doing rallies and things like that,’ Dem. Sen. John Fetterman told the New York Times in October, explaining that the enormously successful Tesla and SpaceX CEO is an attractive figure for the kinds of voters Harris needs to win.

‘I mean, [Musk] is incredibly successful, and, you know, I think some people would see him as, like, a Tony Stark,’ said Fetterman, referencing the popular Marvel Comics character. ‘Democrats, you know, kind of make light of it, or they make fun of him jumping up and down and things like that. And I would just say that they are doing that at our peril.’

In an interview with CNN, Fetterman added, ‘Endorsements, they’re really not meaningful often, but this one is, I think. That has me concerned.’

Fox News Digital’s Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report

The U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals put a final end to former President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan on Tuesday.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey originally sued the Biden administration over its nearly $500 billion effort to wipe away student loans, known as the SAVE plan. The court’s Tuesday ruling found that Biden’s secretary of education had ‘gone well beyond this authority by designing a plan where loans are largely forgiven rather than repaid.’

Bailey noted in a statement that the ruling has no active impact beyond blocking future presidents from attempting Biden’s maneuver.

‘Though Joe Biden is out of office, this precedent is imperative to ensuring a President cannot force working Americans to foot the bill for someone else’s Ivy League debt,’ Bailey said in a statement.

The Supreme Court of the United States denied the Biden administration’s request to lift a block on the SAVE plan last year. A federal appeals court in Missouri had earlier blocked the entire SAVE program from being enforced while litigation over the merits continues in the lower courts. The Department of Justice, which is part of the Biden administration, most recently asked the high court for emergency relief.

The Biden administration argued the court went too far when it issued a nationwide injunction, which effectively put a temporary freeze on the SAVE plan.

‘Our Administration will continue to aggressively defend the SAVE Plan – which has helped over 8 million borrowers access lower monthly payments, including 4.5 million borrowers who have had a zero dollar payment each month,’ a White House spokesperson told Fox News Digital at the time. ‘And, we won’t stop fighting against Republican elected officials’ efforts to raise costs on millions of their own constituents’ student loan payments.’

Biden introduced SAVE after the Supreme Court struck down his initial student loan forgiveness plan. The White House said that the SAVE plan could lower borrowers’ monthly payments to zero dollars, reduce monthly costs in half and save those who make payments at least $1,000 yearly. Additionally, borrowers with an original balance of $12,000 or less will receive forgiveness of any remaining balance after making 10 years of payments.

Fox News’ Greg Wehner contributed to this report.

Read the full 8th Circuit ruling here:

The Senate confirmed Howard Lutnick on Tuesday to serve as President Donald Trump’s secretary of commerce. 

The Republican-controlled Senate voted to confirm Lutnick on Tuesday, less than a week after senators voted to invoke cloture on his nomination. He needed a simple majority for a full Senate confirmation, getting confirmed on a 51- 45 tally on Tuesday.

Lutnick passed his procedural vote last week after the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee voted 16-12 to motion for cloture on Feb. 5. 

Lutnick said he aligns with Trump’s ‘trade and tariff agenda,’ which seeks to remedy trade imbalances by imposing reciprocal tariffs. His confirmation indicates a milestone for Trump’s America First policy agenda. 

Lutnick, chair and CEO of investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald, is one of the wealthiest people to serve in a presidential administration. Lutnick vowed to divest his financial interests upon confirmation to remain impartial. 

‘My plan is to only serve the American people. So I will divest, meaning I will sell all of my interests, all of my business interests, all of my assets, everything,’ Lutnick said. ‘I’ve worked together with the Office of Government Ethics, and we’ve reached agreement on how to do that, and I will be divesting within 90 days upon my confirmation.’

During his confirmation hearing on Jan. 29, Lutnick said he would sell his businesses and elect someone else to lead them once confirmed. Lutnick aligned closely with Trump’s trade and tariff policies during the hearing. He said it’s ‘nonsense’ that tariffs create inflation and advocated for reciprocity. 

‘We are treated horribly by the global trading environment. They all have higher tariffs, non-tariff trade barriers and subsidies. They treat us poorly. We need to be treated better. We can use tariffs to create reciprocity,’ Lutnick said.

Trump last week directed federal agencies to explore the implementation of reciprocal tariffs to remedy tariff imbalances imposed by countries that sell American products. The presidential memorandum directed Lutnick to study reciprocal trade relations within 180 days. Lutnick said Thursday he will have the report ready by April 1. 

Trump also announced last week a 25% tariff on all steel and aluminum imports from all countries, adding up to a 35% tariff for Chinese steel and aluminum imports. The tariffs are set to begin March 12. 

Trump nominated Lutnick to serve as commerce secretary two weeks after he was elected. Lutnick was a co-chair of Trump’s 2024 presidential transition team. 

‘I am thrilled to announce that Howard Lutnick, Chairman & CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, will join my Administration as the United States Secretary of Commerce. He will lead our Tariff and Trade agenda, with additional direct responsibility for the Office of the United States Trade Representative,’ Trump said in the announcement.

Trump praised Lutnick’s leadership during the presidential transition and said he ‘created the most sophisticated process and system to assist us in creating the greatest Administration America has ever seen.’

President Donald Trump issued an unsmiling warning to bureaucrats on Tuesday, ordering that leaders of government agencies begin to be ‘radically transparent’ about spending.

The White House published a memo entitled ‘Radical Transparency About Wasteful Spending’ on Tuesday afternoon, directed at the heads of executive departments and agencies.

The memo begins by arguing that the American government ‘spends too much money on programs, contracts, and grants that do not promote the interests of the American people.’

‘For too long, taxpayers have subsidized ideological projects overseas and domestic organizations engaged in actions that undermine the national interest,’ the note continues. ‘The American people have seen their tax dollars used to fund the passion projects of unelected bureaucrats rather than to advance the national interest.’

‘The American people have a right to see how the Federal Government has wasted their hard-earned wages.’

Trump continued the memo by ordering that all heads of executive departments and agencies must ‘take all appropriate actions to make public, to the maximum extent permitted by law…the complete details of every terminated program, cancelled contract, terminated grant, or any other discontinued obligation of Federal funds.’

‘Agencies shall ensure that such publication occurs in accordance with all applicable laws, regulations, and the terms and conditions of the underlying contract, grant, or other award,’ Trump continued.

The memo came as Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) commission continues to audit government agencies with a mission to reduce waste. On Monday night, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared on ‘Hannity’ to express support for DOGE’s audits.

‘[L]isten to the words from those Democrat politicians, you would think you are listening to President Trump, Elon Musk and our entire administration, who are saying the exact same things that Democrat politicians promised the American people they would do for decades,’ Leavitt said. ‘President Trump is just the first president in our lifetimes to actually do it.’

‘And now you see the Democrat Party and the mainstream media spiraling out of control about a very simple promise: rooting out waste, fraud and abuse from our federal bureaucracy,’ she continued. ‘This is a promise President Trump campaigned on. He is now delivering on it.’

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday to expand access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) and other fertility treatments through the reduction of out-of-pocket costs.

IVF has become unaffordable for many Americans, and Trump’s executive order directs the Domestic Policy Council to find ways to make IVF and other fertility treatments more affordable.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt posted about the order shortly after it was signed.

‘PROMISES MADE. PROMISES KEPT: President Trump just signed an Executive Order to Expand Access to IVF!’ she wrote on X. ‘The Order directs policy recommendations to protect IVF access and aggressively reduce out-of-pocket and health plan costs for such treatments.’

Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., expressed gratitude on X after learning the president had expanded access to IVF.

‘Thank you, @POTUS! Yet another promise kept,’ Britt wrote. ‘IVF is profoundly pro-family, and I’m proud to work with President Trump on ensuring more loving parents can start and grow their families.’

Trump pledged on the campaign trail that if he won a second term, he would mandate free in vitro fertilization treatment for women.

‘I’m announcing today in a major statement that under the Trump administration, your government will pay for — or your insurance company will be mandated to pay for — all costs associated with IVF treatment,’ Trump told the crowd at Alro Steel in Potterville, Michigan,  back in August. ‘Because we want more babies, to put it nicely.’

IVF treatments are notoriously expensive and can cost tens of thousands of dollars for a single round. Many women require multiple rounds, and there is no guarantee of success.

Trump’s announcement, which was short on details, came after he faced intense scrutiny from Democrats for his role in appointing Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, sending the issue of abortion back to the states. 

Trump has tried to present himself as moderate on the issue, going as far as declaring himself ‘very strong on women’s reproductive rights.’

Fox News Digital’s Bradford Betz contributed to this report.

Initial discussions between Trump administration officials and Russia in Saudi Arabia Tuesday marked a ‘significant milestone’ in securing peace between Russia and Ukraine, according to the White House press secretary. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff met in Riyadh with Russian president Vladimir Putin, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Putin’s foreign affairs advisor Yuri Ushakov to hash out ways to end the conflict. Ukraine was absent from the negotiations in Saudi Arabia. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt declined to provide specifics about the discussions, but she said the Trump administration was committed to brokering a peace deal to end the conflict between the two countries. 

‘What I will tell you is that today, sitting down at the table was a significant first step toward peace,’ Leavitt told reporters at the White House on Tuesday. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during a joint press conference with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Tuesday that an invitation to the talks wasn’t extended to Ukraine and that he was postponing a scheduled trip to Saudi Arabia until March. 

Zelenskyy has stressed that Ukraine must be involved in negotiations, and said Sunday that Ukraine wouldn’t accept a peace deal if his country were absent from negotiations. 

But Leavitt said that everyone would have a seat at the negotiating table — including other European allies — as the Trump administration seeks to advance a peace deal. 

‘We’re ensuring that all parties are heard,’ Leavitt said in an interview with Fox New’s ‘America Reports’ Tuesday. ‘But you have to speak to both sides of the war in order to truly negotiate a deal and problem solve. And this is a significant first step toward peace.’

Leavitt said that President Donald Trump was in correspondence with Zelenskyy, and spoke with other European allies like French President Emmanuel Macron Monday. Additionally, she said that Trump will meet with the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the White House next week. 

Trump and Zelenskky also spoke over the phone Wednesday about the negotiations, and Zelenskyy said he relayed that he believes Putin isn’t interested in peace with Ukraine. 

‘I said that [Putin] is a liar,’ Zelenskyy said in an interview with NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ that aired Sunday. ‘And he said, ‘I think my feeling is that he’s ready for these negotiations.’ And I said to him, ‘No, he’s a liar. He doesn’t want any peace.”

While Zelenskyy voiced gratitude for U.S. support, he said that there is no ‘leader in the world who can really make a deal with Putin without us, about us.’ 

‘I will never accept any decisions between the United States and Russia about Ukraine,’ Zelenskyy said on ‘Meet the Press.’ 

But Trump has offered reassurances that Zelenskyy would be involved in peace conversations, and told reporters Sunday on the tarmac at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Florida that Ukraine would get a seat at the negotiating table. 

The first action the U.S. plans to take following the meetings with Russian officials is to ‘reestablish the functionality of our respective missions in Washington and in Moscow,’ Rubio told reporters from The Associated Press and CNN. 

‘For us to be able to continue to move down this road, we need to have diplomatic facilities that are operating and functioning normally,’ Rubio said, according to a State Department transcript. 

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and Trump vowed on the campaign trail in 2024 that he would work to end the conflict if elected again. 

Fox News’ Emma Colton and Andrea Margolis contributed to this report. 

A federal judge on Tuesday declined to block Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing government data or firing federal employees. 

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan declined to grant the plaintiffs’ request to issue a temporary restraining order, citing what she said was their failure to demonstrate evidence of ‘irreparable harm’ caused by DOGE’s access. 

‘Plaintiffs legitimately call into question what appears to be the unchecked authority of an unelected individual and an entity that was not created by Congress and over which it has no oversight,’ Chutkan, an Obama appointee, said Tuesday. 

‘In these circumstances, it must be indisputable that this court acts within the bounds of its authority. Accordingly, it cannot issue a TRO, especially one as wide-ranging as Plaintiffs request, without clear evidence of imminent, irreparable harm to these Plaintiffs. The current record does not meet that standard.’

The decision from Chutkan is a blow to the coalition of 14 Democratic state attorneys general who sued last week to temporarily restrict DOGE’s access to federal data about government employees.

Plaintiffs argued that the leadership role held by Musk, a private citizen, represents an ‘unlawful delegation of executive power’ and threatened what they described as ‘widespread disruption’ to employees working across various federal agencies and government contractors.

‘There is no greater threat to democracy than the accumulation of state power in the hands of a single, unelected individual,’ said the lawsuit, filed by New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez.

Attorneys general from Arizona, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington also joined him in the request.

While Judge Chutkan at times appeared sympathetic to the views brought by Torrez and other plaintiffs during Monday’s hearing, she also suggested she was not convinced that plaintiffs had adequately satisfied the high legal standard of ‘imminent harm’ required for a temporary restraining order.

‘The things I’m hearing are troubling indeed, but I have to have a record and findings of fact before I issue something,’ Chutkan said Monday.

The hearing is the latest in a growing flurry of emergency lawsuits filed across the country seeking to block or restrict DOGE’s access to sensitive government data.

Similar legal challenges are playing out in federal courts across the country, from New York and Maryland to Virginia and D.C., with plaintiffs citing fears of privacy breaches, layoffs and possible retaliation from DOGE.

DOGE, the Musk-led agency, was created via executive order earlier this year. Its status as a temporary organization within the White House gives DOGE and its employees just 18 months to carry out its goals of optimizing the federal government, streamlining its operations, and, of course, doing it all at a lower cost.

DOGE’s wide-ranging mission, combined with its lack of specifics, have sparked fresh concerns from outside observers, who have questioned how, exactly, the group plans to deliver on its ambitious optimization goals in such a short amount of time.

But Musk and his allies have wasted little time racing to do just that. They’ve spent the past month racing to deliver on what they see as one of President Donald Trump’s biggest campaign trail pledges: reducing bloated federal budgets, aggressively slashing government waste, and firing or putting on ice large swaths of federal employees. 

The Justice Department, for its part, argued on Monday that the DOGE personnel in question are ‘detailed’ U.S. government employees who are entitled to access the government data under provisions of the Economy Act.

Recent court victories have also buoyed DOGE’s operations – allowing them, at least for now, to continue carrying out their sprawling operation.,

As Chutkan noted Monday, fears and speculation alone are not enough to curtail DOGE access: plaintiffs must prove clearly, and with evidence, that their workings have met the hard-to-satisfy test of permanent or ‘irreparable’ harm.

Late last week, U.S. District Judge John Bates, a George W. Bush appointee, also rejected a request to block DOGE from accessing records of three government agencies, writing in his own opinion Friday that plaintiffs ‘have not shown a substantial likelihood that [DOGE] is not an agency.’

For plaintiffs, the TRO defeats have made it increasingly unclear what, if any, hope they might have to secure near-term injunctive relief.

Plaintiffs representing the 14 Democratic states argued Monday that DOGE’s broad agency access violates the appointments clause of the U.S. Constitution. 

That clause requires Cabinet and other high-level leaders in the U.S. government to be nominated by a president and confirmed by a Senate majority vote – a lengthy process designed to help vet an individual’s fitness to perform in the role to which they were appointed.

They argued that the ‘expansive authority’ granted to DOGE is not ‘merely academic.’

Already, plaintiffs said, Musk has ‘cut billions of dollars from agency budgets, fired agency personnel, and that he has moved to, in his words, ‘delete’ entire agencies.’

Trump ‘does not have the constitutional authority to unilaterally dismantle the government,’ the attorneys general said. ‘Nor could he delegate such expansive authority to an unelected, unconfirmed individual.’

And while Chutkan appeared to share in plaintiffs’ assertion that at least some of DOGE’s actions appear to be ‘serious and troubling,’ she maintained that a deliberate fear is not enough to grant the request to block their access immediately.

‘You’re talking about a generalized fear,’ she said of their DOGE complaints. ‘I’m not seeing it so far.’