SCOTUS Unpauses DOGE Layoffs; Post-Elon Power Struggles; Speedrunning an IRS Overhaul

Stories Mentioned in Today’s Roundup

1. Supreme Court clears way for Trump to downsize the federal workforce

   PBS: The Supreme Court cleared the way for plans to downsize the federal workforce despite warnings that critical government services will be lost and hundreds of thousands of federal employees will be out of their jobs.The justices overrode lower court orders that temporarily froze the cuts, which have been led by DOGE.
   

2. This Is DOGE 2.0

   Wired: DOGE 2.0, a new iteration of the organization, is still very much present and continuing its wholesale assault on federal agencies. But without flashy leadership, DOGE technologists are now quietly cycling into federal agencies, spending days or weeks building products and cutting contracts before cycling out once again. This is all done with little oversight from the White House or the United States DOGE Service (USDS), which these technologists purportedly represent.

3. The Fight Between Musk Acolytes and the White House for Control of DOGE

   Wall Street Journal: Weeks after the billionaire left his role at the Department of Government Efficiency amid his feud with President Trump, a small band of Musk loyalists is fighting to preserve the legacy—and power—of the government-slashing office. Trump has told aides he is over DOGE’s aggressive and at-times reckless tactics, according to people familiar with his comments. 
   

4. Core DOGE staffers follow Musk out the door

   Politico: The once-feared crew that barged into offices and slashed jobs at an unprecedented pace is a shell of its former self, owing to departures, lawsuits, bureaucratic roadblocks and, crucially, the loss of its chainsawer-in-chief: Musk. At least eight of the core original DOGE staffers have left government.
   

5. Noah DOGE keeps gaining access to sensitive data. Now, it can cut off billions to farmers

   NPR: A staffer from the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, recently got high-level access to view and change the contents of a payments system that controls tens of billions of dollars in government payments and loans to farmers and ranchers across the United States, according to internal access logs reviewed by NPR.
   

6. DOGE has the keys to sensitive data that could help Elon Musk

   Washington Post: In at least seven major departments or agencies, DOGE secured the power to view records that contain competitors’ trade secrets, nonpublic details about government contracts, and sensitive regulatory actions or other information.

   

7. Inside DOGE’s Dangerously Hasty IRS Modernization Plan

   Notes on the Crises: The agency has spent years attempting to upgrade legacy systems and gradually phase out older programming languages like COBOL. What DOGE is attempting is not modernization in principle, but modernization at reckless speed, divorced from institutional knowledge and technical prudence.
   

8. Trump threatens GOP senators: Vote to defund NPR and PBS, or I’ll withhold my endorsement

   The Independent: With the Senate preparing to vote on the president’s Department of Government Efficiency-proposed $9.4 billion clawback package that slashes foreign aid funding and pulls back $1.1 billion in spending for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which oversees NPR and PBS, some Republicans have expressed reservations about the cuts to media outlets. Donald Trump has given the holdouts an ultimatum: Vote to defund NPR and PBS, or he will withhold his support for their reelection.