This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says that the $2.7 trillion in Medicare and Medicaid fraud that already has been uncovered by President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency is just part of "a very long list of fraud, waste and abuse that DOGE is identifying on a daily basis."

The question was raised during a recent White House briefing, when she was asked specifically about the $2.7 trillion revealed by a House subcommittee run by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.

She said:

"Elon Musk also talked about yesterday about Social Security payments that are going out the door for people who are no longer with us," she continued, "I would say that is certainly fraud. There's also a lot of contracts they've identified that, just as a hypothetical example, are a million bucks, but only $500,000 went out the door. So where's the rest of that cash?"

That's what DOGE works on "every single day," she said, noting, "This is what Trump campaigned on doing."

It was a hearing Wednesday by the Department of Government Efficiency subcommittee in the House that confirmed since 2003, a "staggering" $2.7 trillion had been paid by taxpayers for "improper Medicare and Medicaid payments, including to individuals overseas who are not eligible to receive them."

An Express Tribune report said the committee's goal is the review how "billions" of taxpayer dollars have been "squandered."

The subcommittee's work is part of a wide agenda in the Trump administration to remove inefficiency, fraud, waste, corruption and even criminal conduct that is costing American taxpayers.

Prominent in leadership is Elon Musk and the DOGE.

Among topics reviewed by the subcommittee were the efforts to prevent fraud and abuse, ways that accountability can be integrated into the government, eliminating "self-certification" where recipients confirm their own processes and "continuous auditing."

The report noted Rep. William Timmons, R-S.C., was critical of Joe Biden's rash spending procedures, and accused him of being irresponsible with tax money.

The report noted since its creation, DOGE already has canceled more than $1 billion in unnecessary contracts. Massive cuts also have been made at U.S. Aid for International Development and are being proposed in the Department of Education and other agencies.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

President Donald Trump has been handed a huge victory in his lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize Board, which awarded honors to publications based on their coverage of what turned out to be a made-up conspiracy theory, and then its refusal to rescind them.

RedState said the victory comes from an appellate court decision in Florida that unanimously affirmed a trial court's decision to keep the case alive.

The Pulitzer Board had demanded that the case, brought by Trump in 2022 over the panel's stunning awards to the New York Times and Washington Post for their "Russia collusion" stories, which all explained claims that Trump's 2020 campaign colluded with Russia, be dismissed.

That theory, at the time, was supported by no evidence. In fact, it was a political spin created by his opponent during that election, the Democrat party and others.

Judge Ed Artau explained that not only did the trial court have jurisdiction over the defendants, the statements at the heart of the claim are actionable.

"Artau notes that numerous entities had squashed the Russia collusion narrative. But the Pulitzer Prize Board, in defiantly issuing a statement refusing to rescind the awards for reporting based more on fantasy than reality, further pushed the assertion of collusion," the report explained.

"As noted in the President's complaint, Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Attorney General William Barr, the House of Representatives' Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and the United States Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence all concluded 'there was no evidence of collusion between President Trump, the Trump Campaign, and Russia,'" Artau explained. 'In other words, as the President asserts, '[t]he Russia Collusion Hoax was dead, at least until Defendants [as members of the Pulitzer Prize board] attempted to resurrect it' by conspiring to publish a defamatory statement falsely implying that the President colluded with the Russians."

The ruling knocked down the board's claim their statements were opinion, "The board members vouched for the truth of reporting that had been debunked by all credible sources charged with investigating the false claim that the President colluded with the Russians to win the 2016 presidential election."

At issue now will be whether the defendants "acted with actual malice or reckless disregard for the truth."

Trump lawyer Quincy Bird said, "Today's ruling is an unequivocal victory for President Trump in his pursuit of justice against the Pulitzer Prize board members for their dishonest and defamatory conduct. President Trump is committed to holding those who traffic in fake news, lies, and smears to account, and he looks forward to seeing his powerful cases through to a just conclusion."

In fact, now in the White House, Trump has instructed his press secretary to call out lies pushed by the media, and she already has done so several times, publicly humiliating various agencies.

The Washington Post eventually corrected a bunch of its reports."

The lawsuit charges that the awards essentially rewarded publications "for lying to the American public."

Among the board's wild claims included that the Times and Post had "deeply resourced" and "relentlessly reported" on the "Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connection to the Trump campaign."

However, real sourcing and real relentless reporting confirmed there were no connections.

Even after the conspiracy theory was debunked, the Pulitzer board claimed none of the articles was "discredited by the facts that emerged…"

The reports were mostly based on the Steele dossier, which was an opposition-research fabrication created with the funding of the Democrats, including 2016 candidate Hillary Clinton.

Axios described the scenario as "one of the most egregious journalistic errors in modern history."

Trump recently secured a settlement in a lawsuit against ABC, and a jury found CNN liable for defamation for its own false report.

A separate action against "60 Minutes' remains pending.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

President Donald Trump delivered his unvarnished thoughts on the subject of Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., during a question-and-answer session in the Oval Office shortly after Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was confirmed in the Senate as Health and Human Services secretary.

McConnell was the only Republican in the Senate to vote "no" on Trump's nominee.

"I feel sorry for Mitch. He wanted to go to the end and he wanted to stay leader. He's not equipped mentally," Trump stated. He went on to claim that McConnell staying in leadership would have been the death of the Republican Party, saying, "If I didn't come along the Republican Party wouldn't even exist right now."

The 47th president then claimed that the only reason McConnell – who is 82 and has had many health issues in recent years – stayed in power was because he could raise money. "He gave a lot of money to senators. So he had a little loyalty based on the fact that as a leader you can raise a lot of money."

Trump also suggested that McConnell stayed in that leadership position through contributing campaign money that some GOPers in Congress didn't even want to take.

"Senators would call me and they'd say 'He wants to give me $20-25 million, can I take it?' I'd say, 'Take the money.' So he engendered a certain amount of, I don't even call it loyalty. He was able to get votes."

Trump claims that he himself pushed McConnell out of power in the Senate. "I was the one that got him to drop out of the leadership position. So he can't love me. He's not voting against Bobby [Kennedy], he's voting against me. But that's all right."

And it's clear that McConnell doesn't love Trump. He spoke about his break from president in a primetime interview on "60 Minutes" while promoting a biography he cooperated with. The interview was conducted by Lesley Stahl, the correspondent Trump cited as the reason for his refusal to return to the program.

McConnell's votes against his own party are extraordinarily rare. In data compiled by reporter Gabe Fleisher, only a handful of times has a senator dissented from their own party to vote "no" on cabinet-level confirmations. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, who aligns with Democrats virtually all the time, voted against Russ Feingold and Ron Kirk in the Obama administration, and former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in the Biden administration.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, voted against Education Secretary Betsy DeVoss and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt in Trump's first term. She voted against Pete Hegseth for the role of defense secretary last month.

This makes Mitch McConnell the first senator in history to vote against three cabinet nominees put forward by a single administration. But his obstruction of President Trump's agenda is for naught. All cabinet nominees that have been voted on by the full Senate have so far passed. It remains to be seen which way McConnell will vote on Linda McMahon's confirmation to lead the Department of Education, which Trump wants to significantly reduce or do away with altogether.

WATCH:

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

A published column in Israel National News has revealed the stunning amount of American taxpayer moneys that were delivered to terrorists and terror-supporting regimes under Joe Biden's administration.

The report from Daniel Greenfield reveals that USAID, the entrenched team of bureaucrats that President Donald Trump is now disbanding and eliminating, moving only its necessary functions to the State Department, gave $9.3 billion to Islamic terror states that killed 3,000 American soldiers. "And over $18 billion to Islamic terrorist states."

The report noted over the last two years alone, USAID "doled out $2.3 billion for 'humanitarian assistance'" to Rep. Ilhan Omar's native Somalia.

"Last year it reported a request for $1.6 billion in aid and even in December 2024, with the Biden administration on the way out the door, it sent an additional $29 million," Greenfield reported. "USAID support for Somalia had doubled under the Biden administration and with $3.3 billion from USAID allocated in the last 5 years."

The report noted beneficiaries of the funding included Somalia and "other terrorist entities" of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Houthis in Yemen, and Hamas in Gaza.

USAID dispatched $2.1 billion to Gaza since the terrorists there attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Another $3.7 billion was sent to Afghanistan "since the Taliban took over" in the hours following Biden's catastrophic withdrawal of American troops, a scheme that left behind, under the control of the terrorists, Americans, American allies, and billions of dollars worth of American war machinery.

"The money was so unaccountable that USAID refused to cooperate with SIGAR: the government watchdog tracking spending in Afghanistan intent on blocking money from aiding terrorists," Greenfield reported.

And he said while the U.S. was "at war" with the Houthis, and the Islamic terrorists were firing on U.S. Navy ships, USAID transferred $2.7 billion to Yemen in 2024. Over five years, that total was $3.4 billion.

"Other Islamic terrorist states that have heavily drawn on USAID include Pakistan which harbored Osama bin Laden, but benefited from $600 million in the last five years. While some American towns and cities lacked clean drinking water, USAID labored to build plants for Pakistan's majority Muslim population even while it engaged in the persecution of Christians," he reported.

And the now-disintegrating agency gave over $700 million to Iraq over the last five years despite its being governed by "Iranian puppets whose militias have been firing on American soldiers."

Syria? It got $3.4 billion from USAID, and the agency sent $1.1 billion to Lebanon, which is run by Hezbollah.

"While USAID is unable to function in Iran, between Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, over $8 billion was sent to Iranian puppet regimes aligned with terrorism," he reported.

The listing did not include tax money sent to countries that are "actively in conflict with the U.S."

Greenfield questioned, "Is sending $18 billion to Islamic terror states really helping our national security … ."

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Democrats lost in the 2024 election. In a big way. They lost, of course, the White House, and the power to run all executive branch agencies and departments. They lost the majority in the Senate, where Chuck Schumer now is relegated to holding news conferences, claiming to want to find government "corruption" and such. And they left the GOP majority intact in the U.S. House.

So now they are left to relying on leftist and activist judges installed by Joe Biden or Barack Obama in his first two terms in the White House, to try to hold back President Donald Trump's wave of transparency, cost-cutting and efficiency.

A commentary at the Federalist explains to what level the Democrats have been reduced.

"What's happening right now is that Democrats, having been thrown out of power by American voters in a landslide victory for Trump, have decided they're going to deploy a widely-used tactic from Trump's first term to thwart the president's agenda: use the federal judiciary. Under the false pretext that the lower federal courts are part of a 'coequal branch of government' with the executive, they're aiming to shut down Trump's reform efforts with a fusillade of preliminary injunctions."

A top legal expert says the scheme ultimately will collapse, but the nature of American government means that will take some time.

The Federalist noted the "dozens" of lawsuits from Democrat attorneys general and "various left-wing groups."

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

A pastor has used his Sunday sermon to threaten Elon Musk, who heads President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency and is cracking down on all sorts of fraud and inappropriate spending by the government.

For instance, in conjunction with the president he's closed down most of the U.S. Agency for International Development for having spent millions and millions of dollars on things like LGBT comic books and DEI plays overseas.

A report in the Gateway Pundit identified the preacher as Steve Caudle of the Greater Second Missionary Baptist Church in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

He said, "In this nation I am worried we are on the verge of bloodshed. This is an attempt to take us back to a day we do not want to go and we will not go. Therefore there will be conflict. I pray that the peace of God will win out and overcome the madness that is attempting to take over this nation. And I will say to you beloved no one likes violence. But sometimes violence is necessary."

He presumptively assigned God to have the opinion, apparently, that wasteful government spending is good.

He continued, "When Elon Musk forces his way into the United States Treasury and threatens to steal your personal information and your Social Security check, there is a possibility of violence.

"Sometimes the devil will act so ugly, that you have no other choice but to get violent. And fight," he said.

He claimed Jesus already endorsed violence by a New Testament verse stating, "The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force."

One online analysis suggests the verse means, "The kingdom is invaded, in such sort that sinners, publicans, harlots, Gentiles, 'by the fervour of their repentance, seize it by force, away from the Pharisees and Jews, who thought that it belonged to them alone.'"

The preacher said, "This is the Christian thing to do."

Musk was brief in his response:

This tells me that he is trying to hide MASSIVE fraud," he said.

The Gateway Pundit suggested: "Alert the FBI."

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

President Donald Trump has hit the brakes on Joe Biden's $5 billion spending plan to install electric vehicle charging stations nationwide, after only 55 units were made operational since 2021.

The Federal Highway Administration has issued a memo that directs states to stop the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program.

It was part of Biden's big-ticket Bipartisan Infrastructure Law from 2021.

The Washington Examiner explained the memo "seeks to implement an executive order declared by President Donald Trump on Inauguration Day targeting the Green New Deal, or progressive environmental policies that found their way into legislation signed by Biden in 2021."

The so-called "Deal" was a campaign to defeat "global warming," which suddenly became "climate change" when the global warming faded.

The Biden law planned 500,000 chargers in the country by 2030. The report revealed, however, that by December 2023 not a single unit had been installed. By February 2025, the number reportedly was 55.

Trump's executive orders on the day of his inauguration included one ending the Green New Deal, a name that came from a 2019 resolution from leftists Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass.

Trump said at the time, "Today, we will end the Green New Deal, and we will revoke the electric vehicle mandate, saving our auto industry and keeping my sacred pledge to our great American autoworkers. …In other words, you'll be able to buy the car of your choice."

Trump's order directed federal agencies to "immediately pause the disbursement of funds appropriated" through the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and he specifically cited the "funds for electric vehicle charging stations."

Electric vehicles have largely been significantly more expensive than internal combustion vehicles. They are much heavier, creating the danger of catastrophic damage and injury in accidents, their batteries require costly replacement at times, and their driving range is more limited, especially in cold weather.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

A federal judge in Massachusetts, at the request of government employee unions who stand to lose money, has interfered with President Donald Trump's effort to fulfill his mandate to cut the size of government.

The judge, George A. O'Toole has blocked a buyout program that millions of federal workers were offered – to resign by end of day Thursday but still be paid through the end of September.

The gorilla in the room is that there will be layoffs anyway, depending on how many workers accept a buyout.

But O'Toole has put that on ice now, at least until a hearing he has scheduled on Monday.

Just the News said Trump's Office of Personnel Management had sent the offer to millions of federal government workers last week, offering pay and benefits through September for quitting now.

Not included in the offer were military personnel, national security and immigration workers, and postal workers.

Already, some 40,000 workers had signed up for the program, and administration officials suggested the final number could be as high as 100,000.

The Gateway Pundit said the judge insisted on seeing "more court proceedings on the program's legality."

In fact, previous presidents have taken similar actions.

The report explained, "In the meantime, O'Toole, Jr., who Bill Clinton nominated, has at least temporarily saved hundreds of thousands of federal employees from potential termination as the Trump Administration plans massive layoffs for those who refuse to accept the buyout offer."

The fight was brought to the judge by the American Federation of Government Employees and multiple other unions, who stand to lose significant revenue if 40,000 of their members no longer are paying union dues.

Department of Government Efficiency chief Elon Musk "has pointed out this is a fair and generous deal, especially compared to what happens when private sector workers get canned," the report said.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

The Office of Special Counsel has concluded that the Internal Revenue Service improperly removed agents from the Hunter Biden case, and then issued illegal gag orders to keep them quiet.

The information comes from a letter Tristan Leavitt, chief of Empower Oversight, wrote to Sen. Chuck Grassley, chief of the Senate's committee on the judiciary.

It involves retaliation against IRS agents who had been assigned to work on the Hunter Biden case, then removed.

Hunter Biden has been involved in a long list of criminal counts in recent years. He was convicted by a jury in a case involving his illegal purchase of a gun, and he later pleaded guilty to a long list of tax charges that erupted when he refused to pay income taxes on massive amounts of revenue.

There had been evidence of political influences on the cases as they developed.

His father, Joe Biden, then issued a presidential pardon granting him a free pass on the offenses.

Now a letter to Grassley, from Empower, explains that it filed a whistleblower retaliation complaint with the Office of Special Counsel on behalf of IRS Agent Gary Shapley 20 months ago. IRS Agent Joseph Ziegler filed a similar complaint.

"These career law enforcement officers alleged that the IRS improperly removed them from the Hunter Biden investigation in retaliation for their protected whistleblower disclosures. The removal also extended to the entire IRS International Tax and Financial Crimes ("ITFC") group led by SSA Shapley, including case agent SA Ziegler. At long last, the career nonpartisan staff at OSC responsible for investigating whistleblower retaliation has finally reached some conclusions. OSC confirmed in a December 30, 2024 email to counsel for the whistleblowers that it found the IRS issued illegal gag orders and improperly removed them from the Hunter Biden investigation as reprisal for their protected disclosures."

A report at Just the News explained the two agents "blew the whistle on political interference in the Hunter Biden criminal investigation" and then the IRS "wrongly retaliated."

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

"Wow."

That is DOGE leader Elon Musk's reaction to the discovery that Chelsea Clinton, daughter of former President Bill Clinton and twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, has allegedly received some $84 million in U.S. taxpayer funding.

"USAID gave Chelsea Clinton tens of millions of dollars and partnered with their sex trafficking organization The Clinton Foundation," wrote author and journalist Liz Crokin on X.

"In 2010, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton helped oversee $4.4 billion that Congress had earmarked for 'recovery' efforts in Haiti by the USAID in 2010."

"So USAID was funding organizations sex trafficking kids and lining the pockets of their family members all while the USAID also funded media organizations to cover up that they were sex trafficking kids AKA Pizzagate and all with YOUR hard earned taxpayer money!"

Crokin continued: "The level of corruption and criminality – including crimes that are deemed capital offenses with death penalty as a potential punishment – are astounding and unprecedented.

"We must demand accountability and justice for these crimes."

"The depravity and sickness of these people requires a public preparation for the crimes. Put on the Armour of God," wrote one commenter.

In May 2023, Chelsea Clinton was in the news pushing for multiple shots for every child.

She said there's a problem with "vaccine hesitancy" as well as those who simply reject vaccinations.

"No one should die of polio, measles, or pneumonia – including in this country, where we also need people to vaccinate their kid," she indicated.

In 2018, as WND reported, Chelsea Clinton said she "abhors" the actions of President Donald Trump in his first term, and floated the idea of her own possible run for office in the future.

"At federal level, as much as I abhor so much of what President Trump is doing, I have a great amount of gratitude for what my congresswoman and my senators are doing to try to stop him at every point," Clinton said.

"While I disagree with the president … I think my family … is being really well represented," she added. "But if that were to change, if my city councillor were to retire, if my congresswoman were to retire, my senators, and I thought that I could make a positive impact, then I think I would really have to ask my answer to that question [of whether to run for office]."

"For me it's a definite no now, but it's a definite maybe in the future because who knows what the future is going to bring."

Chelsea could not hold back on her disdain for Trump's initial term in the Oval Office, with special emphasis on what was happening at U.S. border with Mexico.

"I'm outraged every day by something our president has done or said or left undone or neglected, or who he has recently bullied on Twitter or television.

"For me, sometimes, I think I'm just so fundamentally my mother's daughter that I'm far more outraged by the Trump administration ripping children away from their families at the border and not having reunified those children with their families now for months, than I am about anything he has ever done to my families."

She continued: "In some ways I think this is the greatest sin of the moment in our country and we very much are doing everything we can to stop this from happening."

Clinton was also in the news in 2018 for controversial remarks on abortion.

She claimed the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision helped add $3.5 trillion to the U.S. economy.

"It is not a disconnected fact, to address this t-shirt of 1973, that American women entering the labor force from 1970 to 2009 added three and a half trillion dollars to our economy. Right?" Clinton said. "The net, new entrance of women – that is not disconnected from the fact that Roe became the law of the land in January of 1973. So, I think, whatever it is that people say they care about, I think that you can connect to this issue."

In direct response, evangelist Franklin Graham said on Facebook: "What a lie. Hitler probably also claimed that killing the Jews would be good for their economy."

"Legalizing abortion hasn't added anything to our country, it has only taken away," Graham continued. "It has cost this nation more than 60 million lives – lives precious to God. Just think of the contribution these people would have made. There will be another high cost. I believe God will judge America for allowing the heinous murder of our own children in the womb. And to everyone who has had an abortion, that is murder in God's eyes. But I am happy to tell you the wonderful news that God will forgive you. He can take the shame and guilt you have been carrying around all these years and take it away if you are willing to turn to Him and put your faith and trust in His Son Jesus Christ. Not only will He forgive you, He will save you for eternity – and you will be reunited one day in Heaven with that child."