Elon Musk has left the government building, but DOGE remains. The Washington Post’s William Wan reports on what he learned speaking to federal-government employees who lost their jobs amid cuts. Some Republican senators have concerns about elements of the GOP megabill, such as what cuts to Medicaid could mean for election prospects in 2026. NBC’s Sahil Kapur breaks their objections down. David Armstrong with ProPublica speaks to In Conversation about how a life-saving pill’s eye-popping price tag tells the story of prescription-drug pricing in America — and why it’s so difficult to change. Plus, how a glacier broke off and engulfed an Alpine village, Texas legislators passed a bill defining what it means to be a man or woman, and a new Scripps National Spelling Bee winner was crowned. Today’s episode was hosted by Shumita Basu.
Full Episode
Good morning. It's Friday, May 30th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today. On today's show, some Senate Republicans aren't on board with the big budget bill. Why a cancer drug that costs a quarter to make is being sold for nearly $1,000 a pop. And the Scripps National Spelling Bee has a new champion in its 100th year. Can you get the winning word?
But first, the Elon Musk era of Doge is coming to a close. The White House said his off-boarding process started Wednesday night, and it caps a tumultuous few months of the tech mogul cutting his way through Washington by dramatically reducing the size of the workforce, canceling contracts, grants, and leases, and attempting to shut down several federal agencies altogether.
Musk made no secret of his ambitions, as he spelled out to now Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick back in October.
How much do you think we can rip out of this wasted $6.5 trillion Harris-Biden budget? Well, I think we can do at least $2 trillion. Yeah!
That target was never reached. Doge does claim to have saved $175 billion so far, which amounts to 2.5 percent of the federal budget. But that figure has been difficult for journalists to confirm, and many outlets have identified cases of double counting and other errors in Doge's accounting.
As Musk returns to his usual day job, thinking about electric cars and getting to Mars, there are many people who were affected by his short tenure in D.C. and have no job to return to. Analysis from The New York Times puts the confirmed and planned job losses at around 280,000, largely achieved through buyouts, early retirements and firing threats.
Many of these now ex-federal workers are struggling to figure out next steps. Washington Post reporter William One and his colleagues spoke with more than 30 former and current federal workers about the chaos of the last few months, the mass firings that left people feeling demoralized, devalued, and deeply anxious. And please be advised, this story mentions suicide.
You have people locked out of their offices suddenly, or in some cases, they are showing up to offices and having to line up. And the way they find out whether they still have a job or not is they swipe their badge. And if their badge doesn't work, then they're out of a paycheck.
One reports that the tactics the Doge team deployed to cut the federal workforce are unusual for both the public and private sector. Some people were fired, rehired, and then fired again. Others were locked out of their offices by police or fired for political, quote, disloyalty.
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