Elon Musk appears along with Trump to defend government revision: live updates

Employees in New York City drove to clarify that federal money had been granted correctly by FEMA under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Last year, adding that it was not a disaster relief fellow and had not been spent on luxury hotels.

Nevertheless, only two hours after Mr. Musk’s post, Femas Working Director, Cameron Hamilton, announced that the payments In doubt, “everyone has been suspended” – even though most of the money had already been paid out – and that “staff will be held responsible.”

By Tuesday morning, about 24 hours after Mr. Musk’s post, the Trump administration had followed through on part of its promise.

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, who oversees FEMA, said the four employees had been terminated “for bypassing leadership to unilaterally made eerie payments for luxury NYC hotels for migrants.”

Ms. McLaughlin did not specify how employees had undermined leadership, or how payments made previously awarded by Congress constituted unilateral behavior. But she said they fired included two program analysts, a reimbursement specialist and agency’s CFO, Mary Comans, Who Fema’s Website identifies as a “long -time official.”

“Under President Trump and Secretary Noem’s leadership, DHS will not sit unemployed and allow deep -state activists to undermine the will and security of the American people,” McLaughlin said in his statement, referring to Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem.

The quick layoffs emphasized Mr. Musk’s growing influence on the federal government as the Trump administration moves to cut back on public spending and reshape the federal bureaucracy and cleansing officials along the way. Ms. Comans’ firing also seemed to remove FEMA, an agency that Mr. Trump and Mrs. Noem have proposed to be removed by the person responsible for managing his $ 33 billion budget, which helps fund the government’s response to natural disasters.

It remains unclear whether the Trump administration will move to itch federal money back, which was set aside by Congress under Mr. Bid to help New York City respond to the more than 230,000 migrants who have arrived there since 2022. Despite the public statements Liz Garcia, a spokeswoman for the town hall said the city had not been informed of any break in the financing.

Mr. Musk said that the payment of congressional funds to the city, which he said was “discovered” by his government -efficiency team, was illegal and “in gross insubordination to the president’s executive order.”

He seemed to refer to An order Mr. Trump issued on January 20 The instructed Homeland Security Secretary to review and pause distribution of federal funding to non -state organizations that provide services to “removable or illegal foreigners.” It is unclear how the order would apply to payments made to the New York City government.

Mr. Musk, Mr. Hamilton and Ms. McLaughlin did not identify the FEMA payments in question. But they appeared to have referred to payments made by Shelter and service programAs Congress established in 2023 to elaborate on grants to groups and sites that provide shelter and other services to migrants released from DHS -Storage after crossing the border.

The program created under Mr. The bite, as border crossings rose and overwhelmed large cities, has drawn intense criticism from Mr. Trump that false claimed on campaign tracks.

In fact, Congress assigned to the Congress $ 650 million to the shelter program through the Customs and Border Protection Budget for the financial year 2024. Payments issued by the program are managed by FEMA, but are separated from the billions of dollars used by the Agency on disaster relief.

The shelter program has been used by democratic cities Like Denver and Chicago, but also by groups in Republican led states, including Texas and Arizona.

Employees in New York City said Congress allocated $ 237 million to the city last year to help reimburse it for a small part of the more than $ 7 billion that the city and the state have spent on protecting, feeding and delivering others services for migrants.

The city applied for the funds in April 2024, and FEMA began to sell them later in the year, the city’s officials said. The $ 59 million Mr. Musk was referring to in his speech, the city’s officials said, seemed to be a payment from FEMA that the city received last week as part of this allocation. About $ 19 million was spent in hotels, while the rest were used to pay for food, security and gathered shelters, the city’s officials said.

“We have continued to receive previously awarded refunds over the past week,” Ms. Garcia, City Hall spokeswoman, in a statement. “We will discuss this case directly with federal officials.”

New York City is currently protecting 46,000 migrants, largely families with children, in converted warehouses, tent facilities and dozens of hotels, including old hotels in Midtown Manhattan and Budget Motels in other neighborhoods. The city’s officials emphasized that they are not paying “luxury-hotel rates.”

Federal funding accounts for a fraction of the money the city has spent on responding to the migrant crisis. But the uncertainty of the federal foundations seemed to validate early fear among the Democrats in New York City, including Mayor Eric Adams, that Mr. Trump could try to withhold larger amounts of money for housing, transport and infrastructure.

Some former senior officials in FEMA expressed alarms at the layoffs and said employees had been fired just to perform their jobs by distributing federal funds directed by Congress.

But in New York, Republicans, who have long expressed indignation over the use of taxpayers’ money for wandering services, the news.

“You can’t just ignore what commander has said through executive order,” said Nicole Malliotakis representative, a Republican from State Iceland.

Nicholas Fandos and Hamed aleaziz contributed with reporting. Sheelagh McNeill contributed with research.