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 fully burying the lede.
Watch because the report opens by flimsily linking the firings to the current rash of aircraft crashes, and that includes a now-former worker’s considerations over public security (click on “increase” to view transcript):
TOM LLAMAS: We’re again now with rising questions tonight about air security. The Trump administration has fired tons of of FAA staff, a part of its effort to reshape the federal workforce. This is Kelly O’Donnell.
KELLY O’DONNELL: With alarming, real-world incidents, the essential mission of public security faces an inner check because the federal workforce is underneath scrutiny and hit with job cuts. President Trump’s Division of Authorities Effectivity and Elon Musk’s DOGE workforce proceed to make cuts, together with on the Federal Aviation Administration. Near 300 FAA staff terminated this weekend, in accordance with a union that represents staff there. 28-year-old Jason King was at FAA for eight months.
If you had been doing all your job at FAA, did you imagine you had been serving to to make the general public safer?
JASON KING: I really 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 folks which can be nonetheless there, their workload has drastically elevated, and I believe 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 type of catastrophe.
O’Donnell then pivoted to DOGE staff requesting entry to methods on the Inside Income Service, full with ominous graphics harking back to The Matrix, and an assurance by White Home Deputy Chief of Workers Stephen Miller that non-public monetary knowledge might be safe.
This report served little goal 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 additionally fully 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 aircraft crash?
KELLY O’DONNELL: We’ve heard from a Democratic senator who stated at the moment that these cuts have injected pointless threat, however a spokesperson for the Division of Transportation says the FAA is continuous to rent air visitors controllers, and has retained staff who carry out important security features. Tom.
LLAMAS: All proper, Kelly O’Donnell at The White Home for us. Kelly, thanks.
The media will proceed to surprise 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 “increase” to view the complete 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 tons of of FAA staff, a part of its effort to reshape the federal workforce. This is Kelly O’Donnell.
KELLY O’DONNELL: With alarming, real-world incidents, the essential mission of public security faces an inner check because the federal workforce is underneath scrutiny and hit with job cuts. President Trump’s Division of Authorities Effectivity and Elon Musk’s DOGE workforce proceed to make cuts, together with on the Federal Aviation Administration. Near 300 FAA staff terminated this weekend, in accordance with a union that represents staff there. 28-year-old Jason King was at FAA for eight months.
If you had been doing all your job at FAA, did you imagine you had been serving to to make the general public safer?
JASON KING: I really 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 folks which can be nonetheless there, their workload has drastically elevated, and I believe 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 accordance 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 data. In the present day Trump adviser Stephen Miller insisted People’ private monetary knowledge might be safe.
STEPHEN MILLER: I offer you full and complete assurance on that time. We’re speaking about performing a fundamental anti-fraud overview to make sure that individuals are not partaking 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 aircraft crash?
O’DONNELL: We’ve heard from a Democratic senator who stated at the moment that these cuts have injected pointless threat, however a spokesperson for the Division of Transportation says the FAA is continuous to rent air visitors controllers, and has retained staff who carry out important security features. Tom.
LLAMAS: All proper, Kelly O’Donnell at The White Home for us. Kelly, thanks.
