Washington, D.C
DC, federal employees and Trump's Department of Government Efficiency: What we know so far
President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to restructure federal agencies and cut bureaucracy could have a major impact on the D.C. area, where the government is the largest employer.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk and conservative activist Vivek Ramaswamy will lead a new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE for short, Trump announced Tuesday night. Despite its name, the group will function outside of government and not be a government agency.
“These two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies,” Trump said in a statement.
News4 is working to learn more about how DOGE could affect federal employees and the DMV. Here’s what we know so far.
What is the Department of Government Efficiency and how will it work?
Trump said in his statement that Musk and Ramaswamy will offer the White House “advice and guidance” and will partner with the Office of Management and Budget to “drive large scale structural reform and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before.” He added the move would shock government systems.
It’s not clear exactly how the organization will operate. It could come under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which dictates how external groups that advise the government must operate and be accountable to the public.
Federal employees are generally required to disclose their assets and entanglements to ward off any potential conflicts of interest, and to divest significant holdings relating to their work.
The arrangement would likely allow Musk and Ramaswamy to continue working in the private sector and serve without Senate approval.
Trump didn’t immediately provide details about how the two men would work together or who might pay for the operations of the group.
Trump had made clear Musk would likely not hold any kind of full-time position, given his other commitments.
“I don’t think I can get him full-time because he’s a little bit busy sending rockets up and all the things he does,” Trump said at a rally in Michigan in September. “He said the waste in this country is crazy. And we’re going to get Elon Musk to be our cost cutter.”
Here are five things to know about Elon Musk.
How many federal employees are there in the D.C. area and what could job cuts mean for the DMV’s Black middle class in particular?
Of more than 2 million full-time federal workers across the U.S., more than 300,000 are concentrated in the D.C. metro region.
For generations of Black residents of the DMV, federal jobs have been a powerful driver of wealth and stability. Federal job cuts could be particularly devastating to Black communities in our region, as the News4 I-Team reported.
More than 18% of federal workers are Black, according to the most recent statistics from the Office of Personnel Management. That’s higher than the proportion of Black Americans that make up the country’s population, at just over 12%.
Unionized federal employee Aleseia Saunders, a mother of three who works for the Department of Education, told News4 her family constantly worries about changes to the federal workforce.
“What’s going to happen to my household? What’s going to happen to my paycheck? What’s going to happen to my career?” Saunders asked.
Black Americans have been drawn to federal jobs in part because of benefits that have often eluded Black employees in private workplaces, Howard University political science professor Marcus Board previously told News4.
“They have worker protections, federal worker protections, that are guaranteed by the federal government, and so it’s one of the few places where they can be sure that they’re going to be supported, protected and taken care of,” he said.
What do we know about the goals of the Department of Government Efficiency?
The president-elect has often said he would give Musk a formal role overseeing a group akin to a blue-ribbon commission that would recommend ways to slash spending and make the federal government more efficient.
Musk has said he wants to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, which is more than the discretionary budget of $1.7 trillion. He has provided few details about what he’d like to cut, though he has attacked relatively small recipients of federal money, such as the Education Department and NPR.
“This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people!” Musk said in the statement released by Trump’s transition team.
On X, he added: “Threat to democracy? Nope, threat to BUREAUCRACY!!!”
Ramaswamy has called for mass layoffs at federal agencies, a tactic that could sidestep legal protections that otherwise insulate the federal civil service from targeted political cuts.
Ramaswamy campaigned for president in the Republican primaries on eliminating federal agencies, and his initial targets included the FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Education Department; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; and the Food and Nutrition Service within the Agriculture Department.
Trump said he wanted the department to help deliver “drastic change.” He compared its ambitions to those of the World War II project to develop atomic weapons.
“It will become, potentially, ‘The Manhattan Project’ of our time,” Trump said. “Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of ‘DOGE’ for a very long time.”
He gave a deadline of July 4, 2026, for the department to conclude its work.
What does the acronym DOGE reference?
“DOGE” is a nod to a meme and the dogecoin cryptocurrency associated with Musk.
How will the Government Accountability Office interact with the Department of Government Efficiency?
The Government Accountability Office (GAO), the main federal government watchdog, indicated it would provide any necessary information to the new entity.
“GAO has cooperated and shared information in the past when presidential or congressional commissions have been established to address the federal government’s programs and operations, as well as fiscal and other challenges. We will take that same approach with any new commissions formed and stand by ready to assist the new Congress and the Executive branch,” Gene Dodaro, United States Comptroller General and head of the GAO, said in part in a statement.
What do Project 2025 and Trump’s previous Schedule F executive order have to do with the Department of Government Efficiency?
Project 2025 is the right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation’s sweeping plan for the incoming president. Its guidebook for Republican presidents has been published every four years for decades.
The document lays out the return of Trump’s Schedule F executive order, which was reversed by President Joe Biden. It would strip job protections from career officials in policy roles, make it easier to fire civil servants and require loyalty to the president.
Though former Trump officials helped craft Project 2025 and the plan praises Trump’s prior administration, the president-elect has distanced himself from the plan. He said in his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris that he had not read the document and will not read it.
The News4 I-Team asked experts on both sides of Project 2025 how the dismantling would affect the D.C. area’s Black middle class. News4’s Tracee Wilkins reports.
News4 sends breaking news stories by email. Go here to sign up to get breaking news alerts in your inbox.
Facing a possible overhaul to the federal workforce, Department of Housing and Urban Development employee Ashaki Robinson previously told News4 she loves her job and doesn’t want to even consider leaving it.
“It has created such a stability. People talk about my ‘good government job.’ My good government job has paid for a lot of things,” she said.
This article includes reporting by NBC News’ David Ingram and Vaughn Hillyard, The Associated Press’ Colleen Long and Jill Colvin, and NBC Washington’s Tracee Wilkins and Caroline Tucker
One family, four generations with DC Metro
As Metro celebrates 50 years of service, one D.C. family is marking the milestone with a legacy of their own — four generations who have all worked on the system, helping keep the region moving for decades.
WASHINGTON – D.C. residents got on their first Metro train 50 years ago on March 27, 1976. Here’s a look back at the beginning.
Connecticut Avenue; NW; looking south. evening traffic-jams are aggravated by metro subway construction in Washington D.C. ca. 1973 (Photo by: HUM Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
View of the Metro Center subway station (at 13th and G Streets NW) during its construction, Washington DC, November 16, 1973. (Photo by Warren K Leffler/PhotoQuest/Getty Images)
Standing in the cavernous tunnel, planners wearing hard hats discuss the construction progress of the Metro Center subway station at the intersection of 13th and G Streets in Washington, DC, November 16, 1973. (Photo by Leffler/Library of Congress/In
WASHINGTON, DC – NOVEMBER 07: FILE, Metro construction miners and blasters on a jumbo drill outside the hole they are working on at Rock Creek Parkway and Cathedral Ave NW in Washington, DC on November 7, 1973. (Photo by James K.W Atherton/The Washin
WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 4: FILE, View of the Post Office at North Capital and Mass Avenue NE, and 1st NE where subway tunnels were being constructed in Washington, DC on March 4, 1974. (Photo by Joe Heiberger/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC – AUGUST 29: FILE, Workers rig a pipe at the entrance to the Rosslyn Metro Station in Washington DC on August 29, 1974 (Photo by Larry Morris/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 27: FILE, The crowd at Rhode Island Station on opening day of the Washington Metro on March 27, 1976. (Photo by James A. Parcell/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 28: FILE, Reverend Leslie E. Smith of the Episcopal Church, right, and George Docherty of New York Avenue Presbyterian church hold a joint service at the new Metro Center station in Washington, DC on March 28, 1976. (Photo by D
WASHINGTON, DC – JULY 1: FILE, An aerial view of metro construction where it crosses the Washington Channel. The Potomac River, the Pentagon and Northern Virginia can be seen in the distance. (Photo by Ken Feil/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 27: FILE, A packed train of commuters on the Silver Spring metro on the Red Line on January 27, 1987. (Photo by Dudley M. Brooks/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC – JULY 4: FILE, Thousands of people press their way into the Smithsonian Subway station after the Independence Day fireworks in Washington, DC on July 4, 1979. (Photo by Lucian Perkins/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Among the liquor store, barber shop and dry cleaners at the Watergate Complex’s retail plaza, there is a new pop-up museum dedicated to the scene of the crime that toppled Richard Nixon’s presidency.
Among the liquor store, barber shop and dry cleaners at the Watergate Complex’s retail plaza, there is a new pop-up museum dedicated to the scene of the crime that toppled Richard Nixon’s presidency.
The temporary exhibit features the work of artist Laurie Munn — portraits of members of the Nixon administration and those connected to the Watergate break-in. The exhibit features members of Congress, the media and some who were on Nixon’s enemies list.
Keith Krom, chair of the Board of Directors of the Watergate Museum, told WTOP the exhibit was first featured in the gallery in 2012 for the 40th anniversary of the break-in at the Democratic National Committee.
“When she (Munn) learned about our museum effort, she offered to reassemble them as a way for us to expand awareness of the museum,” Krom said.
Krom, who lives in the Watergate, said his favorite portrait is of one of the special prosecutors, whose firing sparked the “Saturday Night Massacre” in 1973.
“I had the pleasure of being a student of Archibald Cox,” Krom said. “He served as my mentor for my third-year writing project.”
Krom said during this time, at the Boston University School of Law, he spent a great deal of time with him.
“I didn’t realize how much he must have gone through. Here he was, this one man, who was challenging the president of the United States over something pretty serious,” Krom said.
The pop-up opened in October and was recently extended to stay open until April 25. Krom said the hope is to find it a permanent location within the Watergate Complex, where they can “present the history of Watergate, but with two perspectives.”
The first would be on the building’s “architectural significance to D.C.,” he said.
“You may not like the design, you actually may hate it,” Krom said. “But you cannot deny that it changed D.C.’s skyline.”
The secondary focus would, of course, be on the mother of all presidential scandals that changed the course of American history.
“That’s where that suffix ‘-gate’ started and continues to be used for almost every scandal that comes out today,” Krom said.
The inspiration for the museum spawned from an interaction from a tourist outside the Watergate.
“He says, ‘This is the Watergate, right?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s one of the buildings,’” Krom recalled.
The tourist then asked Krom, “So where’s the museum?”
“I was like, ‘Oh, we don’t have a museum.’ And he literally just looked at me and said, ‘That’s so sad.’ And he got on his bike and rode away,” Krom said.
While the self-proclaimed political history nerd said he “still gets goose bumps” when he drives by the Capitol at night, Krom hopes that when people leave the museum, “they’ll walk away with a new appreciation for how our government works, the guardrails that are in place.”
“Maybe an understanding that those guardrails themselves are kind of frail, and they probably need our collective help in making sure they last — that’s what we hope to accomplish,” Krom said.
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According to the National Park Service at the National Mall, famous cherry blossoms around the nation’s capital have hit peak bloom conditions. The National Park Service X account for the National Mall proclaimed this morning, “PEAK BLOOM! PEAK BLOOM! PEAK BLOOM!”
It became apparent yesterday that the bloom would be at peak today. “Despite a sunny afternoon and patches of blue sky, the cherry blossoms remain at Stage 5: Puffy White,” the Park Service wrote on X yesterday. Stage 5, “Puffy White”, is the final stage blossoms go through before being in full bloom. They start at Stage 1 as a “Green Bud”, grow into Stage 2 with “Florets Visible”, and then florets become extended at Stage 3. In Stage 4, there is “Peduncle Elongation” which sets the stage for the puffy blossoms to appear in Stage 5. Puffy White and Peak Bloom are defined as when 70% of the blossoms on the trees reach that stage.
Peak bloom varies annually depending on weather conditions; the most likely time to reach peak bloom is between the last week of March and the first week of April. According to the Park Service, extraordinary warm or cool temperatures have resulted in peak bloom as early as March 15 in 1990 and as late as April 18 in 1958.
The planting of cherry trees in Washington DC originated in 1912 as a gift of friendship to the People of the United States from the People of Japan. In Japan, the flowering cherry tree, or “Sakura,” is an important flowering plant. The beauty of the cherry blossom is a symbol with rich meaning in Japanese culture.
Dr. David Fairchild, plant explorer and U.S. Department of Agriculture official, imported seventy-five flowering cherry trees and twenty-five single-flowered weeping types from the Yokohama Nursery Company in Japan. After experimenting with growing them on his own property in Maryland, he deemed that the cherry tree would be perfect to plant around the Washington DC area. This triggered an interest by a variety of individuals to plant the tree around Washington. In 1909 the Mayor of Tokyo, Yukio Ozaki, donated 2,000 trees to the United States on behalf of his city. When the trees arrived, they were riddled with disease and insects and to protect other agriculture, they were burned. The Tokyo Mayor made a second donation of trees in 1910, this time amounting to 3,020 trees. This started the forest of cherry trees that now line the Potomac basin around Washington DC. In a gesture of gratitude back to Japan, President Taft sent a gift in 1915 of flowering dogwood trees to the people of Japan. Thousands of trees have been added since, including another gift of 3,800 trees from Japan in 1965.
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