CNN
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Donald Trump carried out his presidential campaign promising to abolish entire federal agencies and departments, but it is not so easy for a president to simply end an organization that was created and financed every year by Congress, which is supposed to be the president’s counterpart.
So the president and his allies, led by Elon Musk, have found a different way of achieving many of the same objectives: to put in a coma the agencies that Republicans have been attacking for a long time, leaving aside their staff, stopping their operations and launching a review of your activity. Then, perhaps, ask Congress to eliminate them completely.
The list of government agencies with life support or that are target of direct attacks after two weeks of Trump 2.0 resembles this:
Consumer Financial Protection Office (CFPB)
The CFPB was created by Congress after the great recession to protect consumers from financial abuse, and the agency has been causing the anger of Republicans for a long time. All his work has been paralyzed and the director, Rohit Chopra, was fired last weekend, before he finished his five -year mandate.
The Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Besent, interim director of the agency, ordered a review of the agency’s policy to guarantee “coherence” with the new administration.
United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
Created by John F. Kennedy and Congress to help the world in development and defend the interests of the United States in 1961, USAID employees in 2025 have been blocked at the headquarters and the website has been closed. The agency staff worldwide will be on administrative license on Friday and will be ordered to return to the United States, according to a directive issued Tuesday night.
The freezing of most foreign aid while the Trump administration reviews the agency has caused a domino effect throughout the world among non -profit and help organizations, and has aroused the fear that the United States will be completely withdrawing of its leadership position in international development. Musk described the “evil” agency and Trump said it is directed by the “radical left.”
The Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the fun director of USAID, told the legislators in a letter that “the revision and possible reorganization process of the Usaid activities to maximize efficiency and align operations with the national interest.”
Musk used a more colorful language in a publication on social networks in which he said that he had spent the weekend “feeding Usaid with wood”, an apparent reference to the freezing of foreign aid.
Department of Education
The Department of Education, which exists since the nineteenth century, but which was elevated by Congress to the category of own agency in 1979, is Trump’s next objective. CNN reported that a decree is being written that orders the new secretary, Linda McMahon, who has not yet obtained the Senate’s confirmation vote, which begins to “decrease” the department through an executive action.
“I told Linda: ‘Linda, I hope you do a great job to get out of work.’ I want him to run out of work: the Department of Education, ”Trump told reporters on Tuesday.
A congress divided by a narrow margin probably does not consent to the abolition of the department. But McMahon, who directed the administration of small businesses during Trump’s first mandate and kneaded his fortune as the founder of the WWE, could well achieve his functions, and his own source of employment.
CNN reported Tuesday that Trump’s government could be planning to say good of a possible “reduction of the workforce.”
The fears of these possible layoffs, together with the threat of transferring the agencies to different places and the requirement of working in the office five days a week, regardless of collective agreements, they are also being used by the administration to press workers federals to accept the compensation offer.
Meanwhile, workers who perform certain functions, especially those related to diversity initiatives, have been placed on administrative license or were separated from their positions.
These large -scale layoffs would not necessarily be a precursor to the end of an agency. There will still be the need for a patent and brand office, a transport department and a national security department, among many others. The layoffs and reallocations seem likely to transform the Department of Justice and the FBI, but those agencies will continue to exist.
USAID workers tried to block Musk’s access to a payment system were placed on administrative license and others have resigned. Musk has complained in particular that USAID financial diversity initiatives abroad.
But after the protest of the International Development Community, the freezing of foreign funds was modified to allow exemptions for money that helps save lives, such as the successful program against AIDS that distributes medications in Africa. But the benefactors of help have reported that they have problems getting exemptions.
Rubio, appearing before journalists in Costa Rica, said that if an agency cannot resolve exemptions, he questions his competence and wonders if they are “sabotizing with the purpose of marking a political position.”
It seems that it has been clear that Trump cannot, with a simple line of his Sharpie marker, end a government agency.
But that does not mean that it cannot be twisted and reorganized to become a shadow of what it was. Usaid mission elements could be absorbed by its State Department, despite the fact that the agency was created specifically to be separated from the US diplomatic mission.
“USAID can transfer, reorganize and integrate certain missions, offices and offices in the State Department, and the rest of the agency can be abolished in accordance with the applicable legislation,” Rubio wrote in his letter to legislators.
The decree that is being written to reduce the Department of Education would also press the Congress to approve legislation that ends the department, which mainly distributes federal funds to the States.
Trump told journalists on Tuesday that he wants states to have more power over their educational systems because, in their opinion, American schools are failing.
“We spend more for a student than any other country in the world, and we are at the bottom of the list,” Trump said, and added that “let the states direct the schools”
Ironically, Trump signed a decree in January that would remove states from power over education and exercise more control over what schools teach, threatening to withdraw federal funds to schools that teach what he considers “critical theory of the race ”or other issues based on race or sexuality.
The CFPB has been fighting for its life for most of its existence
In May, the Supreme Court ruled that the CFPB could continue to exist, supporting a unique financing structure that finances the organization through the profits of the Federal Reserve system, and allowing years of rules aimed at protecting consumers.
The CNN report indicates that the CFPB was financed through the Federal Reserve “to safeguard the independence of the office of the whims of any party that controls the Congress”.
But Trump’s decision to complete credit and much more.
The conservative judge of the Supreme Court Samuel Alito did not agree with the Court’s decision on the CFPB financing mechanism, arguing that the Constitution’s appropriation clause should require Congress to finance agencies.
Alito’s opinion will be tested now, when the judicial cases that are expected to challenge Trump’s measures to make their way to the legal system. There have already been numerous demands in opposition to Trump’s first measures and others will follow in relation to these efforts to reduce agencies.
