The continued effort to smear the Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE) and its associated federal job cuts has formally pivoted to the ridiculous. In an over-the-top piece for NBC Nightly Information, Senior White Home Correspondent Kelly O’Donnell politicizes the firings whereas utterly burying the lede.
Watch because the report opens by flimsily linking the firings to the current rash of airplane crashes, and that includes a now-former worker’s considerations over public security (click on “develop” to view transcript):
TOM LLAMAS: We’re again now with rising questions tonight about air security. The Trump administration has fired a whole lot of FAA staff, a part of its effort to reshape the federal workforce. Here is Kelly O’Donnell.
KELLY O’DONNELL: With alarming, real-world incidents, the essential mission of public security faces an inner take a look at because the federal workforce is underneath scrutiny and hit with job cuts. President Trump’s Division of Authorities Effectivity and Elon Musk’s DOGE group proceed to make cuts, together with on the Federal Aviation Administration. Near 300 FAA staff terminated this weekend, in line with a union that represents staff there. 28-year-old Jason King was at FAA for eight months.
Whenever you have been doing all your job at FAA, did you imagine you have been serving to to make the general public safer?
JASON KING: I truly did.
O’DONNELL: King, an Military veteran with a service-related incapacity, says he worries cuts may very well be too deep.
KING: Even for the individuals which might be nonetheless there, their workload has drastically elevated, and I feel that is the place a giant a part of my concern for public security is available in.
This was the rest of the tone all through this politicized report, as O’Donnell jumped from the FAA, to the CDC, and to FEMA. Ominous and foretelling some kind of catastrophe.
O’Donnell then pivoted to DOGE staff requesting entry to methods on the Inside Income Service, full with ominous graphics paying homage to The Matrix, and an assurance by White Home Deputy Chief of Workers Stephen Miller that non-public monetary knowledge will likely be safe.
This report served little function besides to proceed to additional the hassle to unsettle the general public because the Trump administration strikes forward with the reforms that the American public voted for, and which polling suggests they approve of. In so doing O’Donnell buried the lede, which might’ve calmed the general public’s considerations over cuts on the FAA relative to air journey, but in addition utterly unwound the premise of the story.
And by buried, I imply actually. As in on the finish of the report:
TOM LLAMAS: And Kelly, is there new response tonight to the firings on the FAA with this new airplane crash?
KELLY O’DONNELL: We’ve heard from a Democratic senator who mentioned at the moment that these cuts have injected pointless danger, however a spokesperson for the Division of Transportation says the FAA is constant to rent air visitors controllers, and has retained staff who carry out vital security capabilities. Tom.
LLAMAS: All proper, Kelly O’Donnell at The White Home for us. Kelly, thanks.
The media will proceed to marvel why they’ve misplaced the general public’s belief, not stopping to contemplate that tales like these had a big half in that lack of belief.
Click “develop” to view the total transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on NBC Nightly Information on Monday, February seventeenth, 2025:
TOM LLAMAS: We’re again now with rising questions tonight about air security. The Trump administration has fired a whole lot of FAA staff, a part of its effort to reshape the federal workforce. Here is Kelly O’Donnell.
KELLY O’DONNELL: With alarming, real-world incidents, the essential mission of public security faces an inner take a look at because the federal workforce is underneath scrutiny and hit with job cuts. President Trump’s Division of Authorities Effectivity and Elon Musk’s DOGE group proceed to make cuts, together with on the Federal Aviation Administration. Near 300 FAA staff terminated this weekend, in line with a union that represents staff there. 28-year-old Jason King was at FAA for eight months.
Whenever you have been doing all your job at FAA, did you imagine you have been serving to to make the general public safer?
JASON KING: I truly did.
O’DONNELL: King, an Military veteran with a service-related incapacity, says he worries cuts may very well be too deep.
KING: Even for the individuals which might be nonetheless there, their workload has drastically elevated, and I feel that is the place a giant a part of my concern for public security is available in.
O’DONNELL: Different federal job cuts may be linked to public security. 400 layoffs at Homeland Safety, together with 200 positions at FEMA, the Federal Emergency Administration Company. A whole lot fired from the Facilities for Illness Management together with about two dozen who assist outbreak response, in line with company sources.
Protests throughout the nation turning this President’s Day vacation right into a day of motion, from the winter chill of Albany to sunshine in Orlando.
PROTESTERS: We win!
O’DONNELL: The west coast, to the nation’s capital.
PROTESTER: The individuals are going to really feel it will definitely.
O’DONNELL: In the meantime, an worker affiliated with DOGE is anticipated to hunt entry to an IRS system that holds delicate info. In the present day Trump adviser Stephen Miller insisted Individuals’ private monetary knowledge will likely be safe.
STEPHEN MILLER: I provide you with full and whole assurance on that time. We’re speaking about performing a primary anti-fraud evaluate to make sure that individuals are not participating of large-scale theft of federal taxpayer advantages.
TOM LLAMAS: And Kelly, is there new response tonight to the firings on the FAA with this new airplane crash?
O’DONNELL: We’ve heard from a Democratic senator who mentioned at the moment that these cuts have injected pointless danger, however a spokesperson for the Division of Transportation says the FAA is constant to rent air visitors controllers, and has retained staff who carry out vital security capabilities. Tom.
LLAMAS: All proper, Kelly O’Donnell at The White Home for us. Kelly, thanks.
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