DOGE’s HHS Overhaul & Maine Sports Standoff | 3.28.25

Summary

Morning Wire: DOGE’s HHS Overhaul & Maine Sports Standoff | Episode Summary

Release Date: March 28, 2025
Hosts: John Bickley & Georgia Howe
Presented by: The Daily Wire

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Introduction

In this episode of Morning Wire, hosts John Bickley and Georgia Howe delve into significant developments within the federal government, focusing on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) overhaul spearheaded by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Additionally, the podcast examines the contentious standoff in Maine over transgender policies in sports and President Trump's escalating actions against elite law firms. These discussions are interwoven with insights from Daily Wire reporters and notable political figures, providing listeners with a comprehensive overview of current political and cultural battles.

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1. DOGE’s Overhaul of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

John Bickley opens the discussion with a report on DOGE’s aggressive cost-cutting measures within HHS. DOGE claims to have saved $100 billion, equating to approximately $800 per taxpayer. This initiative includes significant workforce reductions and departmental restructuring aimed at enhancing efficiency.

Key Points:

• Job Cuts: Secretary Kennedy announced a reduction of 10,000 jobs from HHS, representing a 20% workforce decrease. This includes:
  • FDA: 3,500 positions
  • NIH: 1,200 positions
  • CDC: 300 positions
  • CMS: 2,400 positions
• Departmental Restructure: Elimination of 13 out of 28 existing divisions, consolidating core functions into the new Administration for a Healthy America (AHA).

Notable Quotes:

• John Bickley [00:03]: “Doge continues its cost cutting mandate, saying they've already saved $100 billion. That's 800 bucks per taxpayer."
• Secretary Kennedy [02:54]: “When I arrived, I found that over half of our employees don't even come to work as part of President Trump's DOGE Workforce Reduction Initiative."
• Cabot Phillips [03:30]: “Putting the money and the personnel in there is not alone going to solve the problem. And what I found when I came to HHS was really a sprawling bureaucracy.”

Insights: Cabot Phillips highlights that despite significant funding increases under the previous administration, inefficiencies persisted, leading to the current overhaul. Kennedy emphasizes that the focus is not merely on budget cuts but on eliminating wasteful spending and streamlining operations to prioritize chronic disease prevention over pandemic responses.

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2. Maine Sports Standoff Over Transgender Policies

The podcast shifts focus to Maine, where Governor Janet Mills faces backlash for defying President Trump’s order to remove males from female sports categories—a stance supported by the majority of Maine voters.

Key Points:

• Governor’s Defiance: Despite overwhelming public support for Trump's directive, Governor Mills refuses to comply, arguing that the order lacks legal authority.
• Public Opinion: Polls from the American Parents Coalition reveal that 63% of Maine residents support dividing school sports based on biological sex, with 60% favoring ballot measures to protect girls' sports.
• Legislative Actions: Concurrently, Maine Democrats are advancing unrelated policies, such as the installation of tampons in boys' bathrooms, amidst ongoing censorship of Representative Laurel Libby for her pro-Trump stance on sports policies.

Notable Quotes:

• Pam Bondi [07:21]: “You can't create laws by thinking them, by tweeting them, by issuing press releases, by issuing executive orders. Congress makes the laws.”
• Steve Robinson [07:12]: “She said that order has no power and it's not law. And she also said that she just won't comply.”
• Tim Peercitep [08:28]: “The letter stipulated that if there is no voluntary compliance on the part of Maine, it's going to be referred to the Justice Department for prosecution...”

Insights: Despite being a traditionally liberal state, Maine exhibits significant support for traditional gender-based sports divisions, reflecting a broader national sentiment. The governor’s refusal to comply with federal directives underscores the tension between state autonomy and presidential authority, with potential legal repercussions looming.

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3. President Trump’s Actions Against Elite Law Firms

John Bickley and Georgia Howe discuss President Trump’s ongoing campaign against elite law firms perceived as antagonistic towards his administration. These actions include executive orders that bar certain firms from federal contracts and revoke their attorneys' security clearances.

Key Points:

• Targeted Firms: The latest executive order targets Jenner & Block, particularly focusing on partner Andrew Weissman, who was instrumental in the Mueller investigation.
• Legal Pushback: Previous orders, such as those against Perkins Coie, were blocked by federal judges citing violations of the First Amendment.
• Repercussions for Firms: Firms are required to make pro bono commitments to avoid sanctions, with examples like Paul Weiss agreeing to $40 million in pro bono work.

Notable Quotes:

• Chuck Grassley [11:28]: “I just think that the law firms have to behave themselves… Our elections are very dishonest, very corrupt.”
• Steve Robinson [12:35]: “Are amount to coercion? Are those the law firms you're talking about? They're not babies. They're very sophisticated people.”

Insights: Trump’s aggressive stance against law firms reflects a broader strategy to dismantle legal challenges and investigations previously initiated against his administration. By targeting firms with strong Democratic ties, Trump aims to exert pressure and limit their influence in political and legal arenas.

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4. Republican Efforts to Limit Judicial Power

The episode further explores Republican initiatives in Congress to curb the authority of district judges, whom they accuse of judicial overreach hindering Trump's policy agenda.

Key Points:

• Legislative Efforts: Republicans seek bipartisan support to pass legislation that would restrict district courts from issuing broad injunctions that disrupt federal policies.
• Grassley's Position: Senator Chuck Grassley emphasizes the need for agreement across party lines to address what he perceives as an escalating issue since Trump’s presidency.

Notable Quotes:

• Chuck Grassley [13:34]: “We've had Democrats speak out about this in the past and Republicans speak out about it. So I would hope we would get a bipartisan agreement to a piece of legislation."
• Georgia Howe [14:14]: “We've really seen them throw wrenches in Trump's plans to this point.”

Insights: The Republican-led push to limit judicial discretion underscores a contentious debate over the balance of power between the judiciary and the executive branch. This legislative effort highlights ongoing struggles to implement and sustain Trump's policy objectives in the face of judicial interventions.

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Conclusion

Today's episode of Morning Wire provided an in-depth analysis of significant governmental and cultural conflicts shaping the current political landscape. From DOGE’s sweeping reforms of HHS to the fierce debate over transgender policies in Maine and Trump’s legal battles against elite law firms, the discussion underscored the persistent tensions between different branches of government and varying public opinions. The hosts effectively synthesized complex issues, offering listeners a clear understanding of the challenges and strategies at play in these pivotal areas.

Stay tuned for more updates and detailed coverage on the stories that matter to you.

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Note: All timestamps correspond to the original podcast episode’s transcript.

Transcript

[John Bickley]

Doge continues its cost cutting mandate, saying they've already saved $100 billion. That's 800 bucks per taxpayer. The sheer amount of works important to.

[Georgia Howe]

Government, it is astonishing.

[John Bickley]

It's mind blowing. I'm Daily Wire Editor in Chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe.

[Amanda Presto Giacomo]

It's Friday, March 28, and this is Morning Wire.

[John Bickley]

Trump takes presidential action against the elite law firms that targeted him. We've taken against a number of law firms that have participated either in the weaponization of government, the weaponization of the.

[Tim Peercitep]

Legal system for political ends, or have.

[John Bickley]

Otherwise engaged in illegal or inappropriate activities.

[Amanda Presto Giacomo]

And voters in Maine overwhelmingly support taking men out of women's sports. But the state's governor is still defying Trump's order.

[Pam Bondi]

You can't create laws by thinking them, by tweeting them, by issuing press releases, by issuing executive orders. Congress makes the laws.

[John Bickley]

Thanks for Waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned, we have the news yous need to know.

[Brandon]

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[Amanda Presto Giacomo]

The Trump administration and Doge are continuing their efforts to slash federal spending with major cuts to the health department announced Thursday.

[John Bickley]

Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips is here with the latest. Hey Cabot. So it's full steam ahead for Doge. This time. It's RFK making some very significant cuts. What are we seeing from him and his department?

[Cabot Phillips]

Well, we just saw one of the largest cuts to the federal workforce since Donald Trump took office. This time it was the Department of Health and Human Services on the chopping block. Secretary Kennedy announced Thursday morning that they'd be cutting 10,000 jobs from across the department. When all is said and done, that'll be 20% of the entire HHS workforce. Among others, the FDA will let go 3,500 employees, though Kennedy did stress that the cuts would not impact inspectors looking at drugs, medical devices and food. The NIH will lose 1200 workers to CMS, 300 the CDC 2400. The list goes on. The overhaul will also eliminate 13 of the department's 28 existing divisions and create a new Administration for a Healthy America. According to Kennedy, the cuts will save taxpayer money and force health agencies to become more efficient.

[Secretary Kennedy]

When I arrived, I found that over half of our employees don't even come to work as part of President Trump's DOGE Workforce Reduction Initiative. We're going to streamline HHS to make our agency more efficient and more effective. We're going to eliminate an entire Alphabet soup of departments and agencies while preserving their core functions by merging them into a new organization called the Administration for a Healthy America, or aha.

[Cabot Phillips]

The Daily Wire's Michael Knowles spoke with Kennedy at the White House yesterday. Here he is with an example of just some of the wasteful spending he says he's encountered within the agency.

[Secretary Kennedy]

Putting the money and the personnel in there is not alone going to solve the problem. And what I found when I came to HHS was really a sprawling bureaucracy. We have over 100 communications departments. We should have won.

[Cabot Phillips]

And it's worth noting, according to Kennedy, a lack of funding is not the problem with American public health. He noted how America ranks last in health among 40 developed nations, but actually spends two to three times more per capita on each patient. He went on to describe how certain agencies were selling patients medical data for profit, colluding with the very drug companies they were supposed to be regulating, and even withholding information from the Secretary himself in an effort to slow his efforts at reform. He also noted that HHS funding increased by nearly 40% under the Biden administration as staffing went up nearly 20% during that time. So he's arguing that this week's cuts will simply reduce the workforce to where it was pre pandemic.

[John Bickley]

So we've heard maga that we have maha and now we've got aha.

[Cabot Phillips]

The list grows. Yeah.

[John Bickley]

And these weren't the only cuts this week, right?

[Cabot Phillips]

Right. Far from it. A day earlier, Kennedy moved to pull nearly $12 billion in Covid funding that had been allocated to state health departments, NOS and a variety of international groups. Those funds were being used for COVID testing, Covid vaccines, et cetera. According to a DHS spokesman, quote, the COVID 19 pandemic is over and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago. Instead, they say, quote, hhs is prioritizing funding projects that will deliver on President Trump's mandate to address our chronic disease epidemic. And epidemic is the key word there. Remember, According to the CDC, six in 10Americans suffer from a chronic disease. Four in 10 suffer from at least two. Kennedy says the HHS must focus not just on treating existing illnesses, but addressing the actual root causes of those illnesses and hopefully preventing them before they happen.

[John Bickley]

Some major changes at HHS and DOGE continues to leave its mark on the federal government. We've got to hear a little bit from the Doge team last night. What did we hear from them?

[Cabot Phillips]

Yeah. Elon Musk appeared on Fox with seven members of DOGE to talk about their process for eliminating federal waste. He says the agency has already saved taxpayers more than $100 billion and that his team routinely uncovers wasteful expenditures exceeding a billion dollars. According to Musk, his agency is focused heavily on eliminating fraud within Social Security. Windows Engineer, for example, said 40% of calls to the agency are fraudulent.

[John Bickley]

What happens is they call in, they claim to be a retiree, then they.

[Georgia Howe]

Convince the first, the Social Security person.

[John Bickley]

On the phone, to change the way the money's flowing. It actually goes to some fraudster.

[Georgia Howe]

This is happening all day, every day.

[John Bickley]

Well, no signs of slowing down from the Doge team, that's for sure. Kevin, thanks so much for reporting.

[Cabot Phillips]

Anytime.

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[John Bickley]

Public universities in Maine are backing down from their transgender policies. But Democrat Gov. Janet Mills is still refusing to comply with Trump's order on girls sports.

[Amanda Presto Giacomo]

Here with the details is Daily Wire reporter Amanda Presto Giacomo. So, Amanda, what did Governor Mills say this week about Trump's order?

[Steve Robinson]

Hey, Georgia. Yeah, she said that order has no power and it's not law. And she also said that she just won't comply. Here she is speaking to reporters on Monday.

[Pam Bondi]

My issue is about the rule of law, pure and simple. It's not about transgender sports. It's about who makes the laws and who enforces the laws. I read the Constitution. It doesn't allow him to make laws out of whole clothes.

[Steve Robinson]

Now it is True that Congressional Republicans have been slow to codify Trump's order on girls sports. However, Title IX separates sports based on sex to ensure equal opportunity. And it was only during the Biden administration that the federal government decided to interpret Title IX through the lens of so called gender identity. And Trump, of course, is very much not on board with that. Additionally, a total of eight public universities in Maine have said that they will comply with Trump's order. That change was made in response to the Department of Agriculture threatening to withhold federal funding over this issue. Now, other investigations have been opened by different departments into these transgender policies in Maine. And Health and Human Services said that they actually did find Title IX violations and they gave the state 10 days to comply with Trump's order. That letter was sent on March 19. I spoke to Maine Wire's editor in chief, Steve Robinson, about potential consequences over all of this non compliance, and here's what he told me.

[Tim Peercitep]

The letter stipulated that if there is no voluntary compliance on the part of Maine, it's going to be referred to the Justice Department for prosecution, which could mean that you see indictments come out for the Commissioner of Education in Maine, Pender Macon, maybe the governor, the head of the Maine Principals Association. I don't know. Pam Bondi was pretty aggressive in New York when the state was giving away driver's licenses to non citizens. So the ramifications for the people of Maine, I don't think, have been totally contemplated by the people who are making these decisions. I think there's a lot of ego and stubbornness here. They're not used to being told that they're wrong or that they don't have the authority to do something. So this is an unusual situation for them to be in.

[Amanda Presto Giacomo]

Now, we know the majority of Americans disapprove of having boys and girls sports, but Maine is a more liberal state. Do we know how they feel there?

[Steve Robinson]

Yeah, we do. New polling from the American Parents Coalition, which was exclusively shared with the Daily Wire, shows that Maine residents side with Trump on this issue. 63% said that school sports participation should be based on biological sex. And 60% said that they would support a ballot measure to protect girls sports, including 64% of independents. Here's what Robinson told me about what he's personally seeing in Maine.

[Tim Peercitep]

Well, I would say all the activism has been in favor of Representative Laurel Libby, in favor of Trump, in favor of keeping boys out of girls sports. I don't think you've seen any counter demonstrations. It really seems like the national attitude of basically 80, 20, 90, 10, is reflected here in Maine, even if Maine is a blue state.

[Steve Robinson]

Robinson mentioned state Representative Laurel Libby there. She was actually censured by state Democrats for her Facebook posts that drew attention to this issue. She posted public images of a male taking first place in girls pole vaulting at states after he formally competed with boys. Now, despite Maine residents being clearly opposed to allowing males and girls sports, Maine Democrats just voted on Tuesday to continue Libby's censure. That means she's still barred from speaking on the House floor. And just last week, Maine Democrats pushed a bill that would effectively install tampons in middle and high school boys bathrooms. So as of now, Democrats in Maine are digging in on this issue despite its unpopularity.

[Amanda Presto Giacomo]

Well, a risky move for them. Amanda, thanks for reporting.

[Steve Robinson]

You're welcome.

[Amanda Presto Giacomo]

President Trump is taking action against top law firms that have ties to people who drove investigation and litigation against him.

[John Bickley]

Here to talk about the chaos breaking out among elite law firms is Daily Wire reporter Tim Peercitep. So Trump targeted another law firm on Monday. His executive orders are really a source of some distress for these legal elites, if you will. What's going on here?

[Georgia Howe]

Well, at some level, it's legal payback. So on Monday, Trump signed an executive order targeting the law firm Jenner and Block. The order is similar to a few others he signed in recent weeks. It blocks the firm from entering federal buildings and revokes its attorney's security clearances. It also bars federal agencies from contracting with the firm. The president spoke about these orders this week. Here's what he said.

[Chuck Grassley]

I just think that the law firms have to behave themselves. And we've proven that we have others that want to make a settlement. Also. They having to do with the election and other things. They behave very badly. Our elections are very dishonest, very corrupt.

[Georgia Howe]

A federal judge blocked one of these Trump orders earlier this month. That one targeted Perkins Coie, the Clinton tied law firm at the center of the Russian collusion conspiracy in 2016. The judge in that case is Beryl Howell. She was appointed by Barack Obama and she called Trump's order unlawful and a violation of the First Amendment.

[John Bickley]

So what's behind this? Why is the president going after these particular firms?

[Georgia Howe]

Well, they all have deep ties to the Democratic Party and Trump's top antagonists. In fact, Trump's latest order singles out Andrew Weissman. He was a partner at Jenner and block from 2021 to 2022, but before that, he was a top deputy for special counsel Robert Mueller. Weissman was suspected to have really driven forward the investigation into the bogus Russia collusion narrative. Now, these orders don't appear to be final, as in, Trump will negotiate with the law firms if they come to the table. Here's Trump last week.

[Amanda Presto Giacomo]

What do you say to critics who say that your actions towards law firms.

[Steve Robinson]

Are amount to coercion?

[Chuck Grassley]

Well, the law firms all want to make deals. You mean the law firms that we're going after that went after me for four years, ruthlessly, violently, illegally? I mean, are those the law firms you're talking about? They're not babies. They're very sophisticated people.

[Georgia Howe]

And make a deal is what Paul Weiss did. That's another law firm with deep ties, the Democratic Party. To avoid sanctions, Paul Weiss agreed to make several commitments, including $40 million worth of pro bono work for causes the White House supports.

[John Bickley]

A lot of free labor right there. Before we let you go, we've got some more legal news. We have Republicans in Congress trying to limit the power of district judges who have really tripped Trump's administration up to this point. What's the latest there?

[Georgia Howe]

Yeah, they think judicial overreach is a real problem here. Repeatedly since Trump took office, a district court judge has used the case of one or several plaintiffs to issue these sweeping nationwide injunctions. Those rulings have really stifled Trump's agenda. Here's GOP Senator Chuck Grassley on Fox News.

[Chuck Grassley]

We've had Democrats speak out about this in the past and Republicans speak out about it. So I would hope we would get a bipartisan agreement to a piece of legislation. And then I think the professor you had on previous to me said how even Justice Kagan said that this is abuse. So I don't know how much better you can get from both sides of the aisle that we got a problem we have to deal with. And it's really exploded since Trump's become president of the United States.

[Georgia Howe]

Grassley needs Democrats to get on board for this, to beat a potential filibuster and stop district court judges from derailing the president's agenda.

[John Bickley]

We've really seen them throw wrenches in Trump's plans to this point. Tim, thanks so much for joining us.

[Georgia Howe]

Good to be on.

[Amanda Presto Giacomo]

Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news. You need to know.