Dem. Sen. Chris Murphy was ripped on social media on Thursday morning over a post where he explained how he stayed up most of the night drinking Red Bull because democracy is ‘on the line’ if Democrats do not stop Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) efforts.

‘After taking the 2-5am shift on the Senate floor last night for our overnight protest, got 2 hours of crappy sleep on my office couch and right back at it today,’ Murphy posted on X. ‘We don’t rest. Keep going. Democracy on the line.’

Murphy, whose post was accompanied by a photo of a Red Bull energy drink and video explaining his cause, was on the Senate floor late Wednesday night attempting to block the confirmation of Office of Management and Budget nominee Russ Vought until the ‘crisis’ of Musk’s DOGE crackdown ‘passes.’

Murphy’s post on social media was widely mocked by conservatives who questioned Murphy’s motives on the Senate floor. 

‘So brave,’ Fox News contributor Lisa Boothe sarcastically posted on X.

‘Area man has to work overnight one time,’ New York Post reporter Jon Levine posted on X.

‘Stunning and brave,’ the Trump White House rapid response account posted on X.

‘Imagine bragging about doing something that basically every college student has done at some point,’ conservative journalist John Hasson posted on X.

‘Men used to go to war and now they cry about working overnight and post their little sugar free red bulls like they’re battle scars,’ conservative commentator Ashley St. Clair posted on X. 

‘These clowns are BEYOND pathetic,’ video journalist Nick Sortor posted on X. ‘This is so embarrassing.’

‘The purest form of love can be found in the relationship between Chris Murphy and a camera,’ former Trump campaign senior adviser Tim Murtaugh posted on X.

‘Overwhelmed at your level of Heroism for ‘democracy’ while your constituents in CT have $1300 electric bills,’ radio host Tony Bruno posted on X. ‘You’re a worthless clown!’

Despite efforts from Murphy and his fellow Democrats, Vought was confirmed as the new White House budget chief late Thursday night. 

In an Instagram live post, Murphy explained to his followers that he was not playing the hero.

‘I’m not trying to plead hardship here, right?’ Murphy said. ‘All I did was stay up late.’

Murphy added, ‘So yeah, the USAID workers, the domestic violence workers, the teachers, those are my heroes. But you guys are my heroes too. Because I get paid to do this job, I asked. I raised my hand. I said, ‘make me a United States Senator, I want to defend democracy.’ So I volunteered for this job. I get a paycheck. But the people that are showing up at these protests, the people that are going to show up at these protests, you got other stuff going on in your life. You don’t have to stand up and fight for democracy, but you are because you think the moment is important, and you are despite the fact that they are doing things to try to make you stay home, try to make you afraid of speaking up.’

Murphy’s Senate speech amid the Trump administration’s targeting of USAID after Musk’s DOGE efforts have resulted in the agency being effectively shut down over what the administration argues is wasteful spending. 

‘For decades, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been unaccountable to taxpayers as it funnels massive sums of money to the ridiculous — and, in many cases, malicious — pet projects of entrenched bureaucrats, with next-to-no oversight,’ the White House said Monday.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) will resume important meetings and travel associated with the critical grant-review process amid an agency-wide communications freeze at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

While the agency is working its way back to normalcy, its operations are still not completely back to what they were before President Donald Trump took office. The advisory council and scientific review meetings associated with the NIH’s grant-making process, in which outside scientists provide a final grant review and strategic advice before the finalization of a new program, have continued but will not yet meet in open session.  

When Trump took office, he initiated a freeze on external communications at HHS and all of its sub-agencies. Earlier this week, HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said that ‘several types of external communications’ are no longer subject to the pause, and ‘all HHS divisions have been given clear guidance on how to seek approval for any other type of mass communication.’

NIH is currently taking things day-by-day to ensure they are meeting their obligations under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which governs the operation of federal advisory committees and emphasizes public involvement through open meetings and reporting.

Last week, NIH director Matthew Memoli sent a letter to staff seeking to clarify the ongoing communications pause. According to Memoli, the freeze had been issued to ‘allow the new team to set up a process for review and prioritization,’ but noted that due to ‘confusion on the scope of the pause’ he wanted to provide additional guidance.

In addition to halting announcements, press releases, website and social media posts, new guidance, and new regulations, the freeze also halted public appearances and travel by agency officials, and prohibited new purchases or service requests related to agency work. The move caused anger and confusion among both HHS officials and those in the broader medical community, particularly due to the potential pause of critical health research.

In his memo to staff, Memoli clarified that any research or clinical trials initiated before Jan. 20 can keep going ‘so that this work can continue, and we do not lose our investment in these studies.’ Officials working on these studies may also purchase any ‘necessary supplies’ and conduct meetings related to such work. Although new research projects are still prohibited, NIH staff were told they could continue submitting papers to medical journals and can communicate with those journals about submitted work.

Travel and hiring for such work can continue as well, Memoli indicated, but his office must grant specific exemptions for new hires as Trump also initiated a freeze on the hiring of new federal civilian employees across all agencies during his first week in office. Routine travel planned for after Feb. 1 ‘does not need to be canceled at this time,’ Memoli added. Patients receiving treatment at NIH facilities can also continue to do so. 

NIH can also submit documents to the Federal Register and send correspondence to public officials.

While the pause at HHS has caused a firestorm of concern and criticism, Dr. Ali Khan, a former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientist who is now the dean of the University of Nebraska’s school of public health, told the Associated Press that such pauses are not unusual. Khan said concern is only warranted if the pause was aimed at ‘silencing the agencies around a political narrative.’

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told air force officers in Teheran on Friday that nuclear talks with the U.S. ‘are not intelligent, wise or honorable.’

Khamenei added that ‘there should be no negotiations with such a government,’ but did not issue an order to not engage with the U.S., according to The Associated Press.

Khamenei’s remarks on Friday seem to contradict his previous indications that he was open to negotiating with the U.S. over Iran’s nuclear program. In August, Khamenei seemed to open the door to nuclear talks with the U.S., telling his country’s civilian government that there was ‘no harm’ in engaging with its ‘enemy,’ the AP reported.

President Donald Trump floated the idea of a ‘verified nuclear peace agreement’ with Teheran in a post on his Truth Social platform. In the same post, he also slammed ‘greatly exaggerated’ reports claiming that the U.S. and Israel were going to ‘blow Iran into smithereens.’

‘I would much prefer a Verified Nuclear Peace Agreement, which will let Iran peacefully grow and prosper. We should start working on it immediately, and have a big Middle East Celebration when it is signed and completed,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social.

In 2018, during his first term, Trump exited the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran Nuclear Deal, saying that it was not strong enough to restrain Iran’s nuclear development. At the time, President Trump argued that the deal, which was made during former President Barack Obama’s second term, was ‘one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into.’

Just days before his call for a ‘verified nuclear peace agreement’ with Iran, Trump signed an executive order urging the government to put pressure on the Islamic republic. He also told reporters that if Iran were to assassinate him, they would be ‘obliterated,’ as per his alleged instructions.

According to the AP, on Friday, Khamenei slammed the U.S. because, in his eyes, ‘the Americans did not hold up their end of the deal.’ Furthermore, Iran’s supreme leader referenced Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA, saying that he ‘tore up the agreement.’

‘We negotiated, we gave concessions, we compromised— but we did not achieve the results we aimed for.’

Iran has insisted for years that its nuclear program was aimed at civilian and peaceful purposes, not weapons. However, it has enriched its uranium to up to 60% purity, which is around 90% the level that would be considered weapons grade.

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi told Reuters in December 2024 that it was ‘regrettable’ that there was no ‘diplomatic process ongoing which could lead to a de-escalation, or a more stable equation.’

In addition to his remarks on Iran, President Trump made global headlines with his proposal that the US take over Gaza as the Israel-Hamas war rages on. Khamenei, according to the AP, also seemed to reference the president’s remarks on Gaza without mentioning them outright.

‘The Americans sit, redrawing the map of the world — but only on paper, as it has no basis in reality,’ Khamenei told air force officers, according to the AP. ‘They make statements about us, express opinions and issue threats. If they threaten us, we will threaten them in return. If they act on their threats, we will act on ours. If they violate the security of our nation, we will, without a doubt, respond in kind.’

Rep. Val Hoyle, D-Ore., said on Thursday that she is leaving the congressional Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Caucus due to Elon Musk’s cost-cutting measures in the executive branch.

Hoyle made the announcement via a statement and said her intentions on the caucus were to serve as a good steward for her constituents’ tax dollars and to make the government more streamlined and efficient. 

However, she said Musk’s actions, which are separate from the congressional caucus, have made that impossible, and she claimed DOGE’s work is to find funds to give tax breaks to billionaires at the expense of working people.

‘I joined to be a voice for working people and their interests. But it is impossible to fix the system when Elon Musk is actively breaking it, so I have made the decision to leave,’ Hoyle wrote on X late Thursday. 

‘It is impossible for us to do that important work when unelected billionaire Elon Musk and his lackeys [insist] on burning down the government—and the law—to line his own pockets and rip off Americans across the country who depend on government services to live with dignity,’ she wrote in an accompanying statement. 

The newly minted agency, a key promise of President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, is tasked with slashing government waste and providing increased transparency when it comes to government spending. It was created via executive order and is a temporary organization within the White House that will spend 18 months until July 4, 2026, carrying out its mission.

Hoyle said she was alarmed about Musk’s team accessing sensitive Department of Treasury payment systems. She also accused his team of using intimidation tactics to ‘terrorize the hard-working public servants’ who deliver these services.

A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked the DOGE from obtaining access to any payment record or payment system of records maintained within the Treasury’s Bureau of Fiscal Service. On Wednesday, the Justice Department agreed in a proposed court order to limit access to the sensitive records to only two ‘special government employees’ within DOGE, who will have read-only permission. 

Hoyle said that if she thought that she, or Democrats or Republicans on the caucus had any influence, then she would stay. 

‘But, fundamentally, I don’t see how we can actually do this work when Elon Musk is blowing things up,’ she told NewsNation Thursday. ‘It’s like trying to replace your roof when someone’s throwing dynamite through the window.

‘So I’m leaving the DOGE Caucus, I will continue to do the work to find efficiencies, but right now I just don’t think it’s possible with what’s happening.’

DOGE has riled Democrats, particularly around USAID, and Hoyle’s announcement comes just days after DOGE targeted the agency, leading to the firing of 50 top officials and the organization being folded into the State Department. The actions came after Secretary of State Marco Rubio, acting on Trump’s executive order, paused all U.S. foreign assistance funded by or through the State Department and USAID.

The 90-day pause has halted thousands of U.S.-funded humanitarian, development and security programs worldwide and forced aid organizations to lay off hundreds of employees because they cannot make payroll.

DOGE has focused much of its initial work on canceling DEI programs, consulting contracts and lease terminations for federal buildings.

The agency wrote on Tuesday that it canceled 12 contracts with the Government Services Administration and the Department of Education, resulting in a total savings of about $30 million. It also canceled 12 underused leases for savings of $3 million. On Monday, DOGE said it canceled 36 contracts, leading to savings of about $165 million across six agencies.

DOGE posted on Jan. 28 that the group is saving the federal government around $1 billion per day, mostly by stopping the hiring of people into unnecessary positions, deletion of DEI and stopping improper payments to foreign organizations.

Fox News’ Eric Revell, Greg Norman, Anders Hagstrom, Greg Wehner, Chris Pandolfo, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

The now-archived website for the virtually shut down United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has a page devoted to pushing DEI which a former employee whistleblower told Fox News Digital was part of a larger Biden administration effort. 

‘Each of us has a responsibility to address bigotry, gender discrimination, and structural racism and uphold individual dignity… This isn’t just one of our values; it’s our mission—one hand extended out to another to meet people where they are and treat others as equals,’ former USAID administrator Samantha Power, who previously served multiple roles in the Obama administration, is quoted as saying on the archived websites DEI page. 

The website explains that the USAID was ‘committed to a diverse, equitable, inclusive workplace where everyone has an opportunity to thrive’ and that it has implemented a DEI strategy that ‘commits USAID to improving and enhancing diversity throughout the Agency, enhancing inclusion and equity for everyone in the workplace, and strengthening accountability for promoting and sustaining a diverse workforce and an inclusive Agency culture.’

Mark Moyar, a USAID whistleblower who worked in the department from 2018 to 2019, spoke to Fox News Digital about how Power and others in the department made DEI a top priority. 

Samantha Power’s emphasis on DEI was part of a larger Biden administration effort to infuse DEI into every federal agency and we saw this with very negative effects all over the place and you have people taking time off from their jobs to attend these indoctrination sessions and clearly pushing the message that people are divided into oppressor groups and victim groups and that there’s this white rage and white extremism running all over the place, which is basically not non existent,’ Moyar explained. 

Moyar told Fox News Digital that ‘far left theories’ were given ‘legitimacy’ in the wake of the George Floyd movement in 2020 and that when DEI became a ‘central’ focus at USAID it resulted in other countries taking the United States less seriously. 

‘It’s particularly disturbing that not only were they pushing within the organization, they were actually funding DEI events all over the world, you know, DEI comic books or DEI workshops and so I think this can only undermine our image abroad because most people outside of this country recognized DEI for the silliness that it is and the divisiveness that it causes,’ Moyar, author of the book ‘Masters of Corruption: How the Federal Bureaucracy Sabotaged the Trump Presidency’, said. 

‘We also saw this as well with women’s empowerment that everything for Samantha Power had to be viewed through a gendered lens. So you had all these gender consultants as well as DEI consultants taking huge amounts of taxpayer money to do this sort of analysis. And I don’t think they really have anything to show for it and I think you’ll find what we found in other places where this has been pushed, that DEI only makes things worse. It divides people and group tensions between groups are worse than they were before.’

USAID found itself on the chopping block in recent weeks as part of President Trump’s plan to rid the federal government of waste along with his campaign pledges to rid DEI from the federal bureaucracy. 

‘For decades, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been unaccountable to taxpayers as it funnels massive sums of money to the ridiculous — and, in many cases, malicious — pet projects of entrenched bureaucrats, with next-to-no oversight,’ the White House said Monday.

Musk has meanwhile slammed the agency as a ‘viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America,’ and reported in an audio-only message on X on Sunday that ‘we’re in the process’ of ‘shutting down USAID’ and that Trump reportedly agreed to shutter the agency.

Democrats have slammed the Trump administration’s efforts on USAID. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., accused Trump of starting a dictatorship while she protested outside USAID headquarters on Monday. 

‘It is a really, really sad day in America. We are witnessing a constitutional crisis,’ Omar said. ‘We talked about Trump wanting to be a dictator on day one. And here we are. This is what the beginning of dictatorship looks like when you gut the Constitution, and you install yourself as the sole power. That is how dictators are made.’

Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton contributed to this report

Despite Democratic tactics to delay the confirmation vote, the Senate confirmed Russell Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Republicans backed Vought’s nomination, arguing he proved a qualified candidate for the role since he previously held the position during President Donald Trump’s first term. Democrats, however, raised multiple concerns about his nomination and said his views on the Impoundment Control Act, which reinforces that Congress holds the power of the purse, disqualified him from the role. 

Democrats held a 30-hour-long protest against Vought’s nomination, delivering speeches in the middle of the night on Wednesday in an attempt to delay the confirmation vote. 

The Senate, in a chaotic final floor vote on Thursday evening, voted to confirm Vought to lead the OMB, 53 to 47.

Democratic senators repeatedly injected themselves during the confirmation vote, protesting the nomination until the last second.

‘No debate is permitted during a vote,’ Sen. Ashley Moody, R-Fla., told the lawmakers.

The OMB is responsible for developing and executing the president’s budget, as well as overseeing and coordinating legislative proposals and priorities aligned with the executive branch. 

Vought appeared before the Senate Budget Committee and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee for confirmation hearings, where he defended statements asserting that the Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional. 

The law, adopted in 1974, stipulates that Congress may oversee the executive branch’s withholdings of budget authority. But Vought encountered criticism from Democrats for freezing $214 million in military aid for Ukraine in 2019 — a decision that ultimately led to Trump’s first impeachment.  

‘You’re quite comfortable assuming that the law doesn’t matter and that you’ll just treat the money for a program as a ceiling … rather than a required amount,’ Senate Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., said Wednesday. ‘Well, the courts have found otherwise.’ 

In the 1975 Supreme Court ruling Train v. New York, the court determined the Environmental Protection Agency must use full funding included in the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, even though then-President Richard Nixon issued orders to not use all the funding. 

Even so, Vought told lawmakers that Trump campaigned on the position that the Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional — and that he agrees with that. 

Vought’s statements on the issue left Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., ‘astonished and aghast’ during one confirmation hearing. 

‘I think our colleagues should be equally aghast, because this issue goes beyond Republican or Democrat,’ Blumenthal said on Jan. 15. ‘It’s bigger than one administration or another. It’s whether the law of the land should prevail, or maybe it’s up for grabs, depending on what the president thinks.’

Vought also faced questioning from Democrats on his views regarding abortion as an author of Project 2025, a political initiative conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation released in 2023 that called for policy changes that would implement a national ban on medication abortion. 

Other proposals included in Project 2025 include eliminating the Department of Education; cutting diversity, equity and inclusion programs; and reducing funding for Medicare and Medicaid. 

‘You have said that you don’t believe in exceptions for rape, for incest, or the life of the mother,’ Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said during a confirmation hearing on Wednesday. ‘Is that your position?’

‘Senator, my views are not important,’ Vought said. ‘I’m here on behalf of the president.’ 

Trump repeatedly has stated that he backs abortion in certain instances, and stated that ‘powerful exceptions’ for abortion would remain in place under his administration.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.