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Trump nominees say firing of probationary employees not indiscriminate

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5 months ago

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Dan Bishop, the nominee to be deputy director for budget at the Office of Management and Budget, is pushing back against the idea that the firing of probationary employees was indiscriminate.

The former North Carolina Congressman told Senate lawmakers yesterday during his nomination hearing that there are good reasons for agencies to let go of these employees.

“The folks who are advising the President have made points about believing that the federal employee workforce is not at the right size. It needs to be right sized,” Bishop said in a response to questions from Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) during the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing.

Dan Bishop is the nominee to be the deputy director for budget at OMB.

“The President spoken directly to that or spokespeople for the President have that in the course of making changes, you may find that you need to then move in the other direction to make an adjustment after you’ve after you’ve made the first change, in my view, Senator, that doesn’t make it indiscriminate.”

Democrat lawmakers disagreed with that notion.

Kim said the firing and then rehiring of employees who work at the National Nuclear Security Administration seems to indicate the Trump administration is firing employees indiscriminately.

“They realized, ‘hey, look, that actually probably the nuclear functions the United States is important. I mean we’re seeing just the level in which this is happening,” he said.

The question of whether the Trump administration lawfully terminate probationary employees remains in question. The Merit Systems Protection Board issued a ruling yesterday that six probationary federal workers who were fired will get their positions back — at least for the time being. MSPB found that there’s a credible argument that their firings were unlawful.

The debate over the firing of thousands of federal employees who were still in their probationary period came up time and again during the nomination hearing for Bishop and Troy Edgar, who is slated to be the deputy secretary of the Homeland Security Department.

Same as in the private sector

Democrat lawmakers pressed both of them to better explain the decision by the Trump administration to terminate these employees.

Edgar, however, did say he would look more closely, if confirmed as deputy secretary, at FEMA and the data behind the reason for firing someone.

But Edgar didn’t disagree with the approach to focus on probationary employees.

“If you look at this outside of federal government, the process that you’re talking about whether we’re being indiscriminate or not, this is something that all Fortune, 500 companies do,” he said. “To me, this does not seem out of the norm, and you would normally go to reflect on more junior people, especially if you had to make a head cut reduction and you needed to be able to go through a process to be able to get to that. So to me, this seemed totally logical.”

But Democrat committee members had a different view of why they believe these were indiscriminate firings.

‘Scaring the crap out of people’

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) said she is hearing a lot from her constituents who are concerned about the current efforts by the Trump administration to impact federal services.

“It’s not about red America or blue America, or any of those things. I’m from a purple state. It’s that people watch this chaotic cutting, and let’s just be fair, you fire people and then hire them the next week. That’s indiscriminate. That’s acknowledging you’ve made a mistake. That’s not some review that normal private sector companies would do. I don’t know what damn private sector company that would fire someone on Friday and hire them back on Monday, because, whoops, they made a mistake, but let’s just be honest that this approach is scaring the crap out of people on the benefits they’ve worked their entire life for,” she said.

Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) brought up a specific issue specifically to Edgar around FEMA, but it’s one every agencies if facing that it’s unclear if the Trump administration is considering or even cares about.

“I’m a former governor too. I’ve worked with FEMA closely, and I’ve had this discussion with the secretary whose nomination I supported. It is really important to understand that when you say a local government should do it, I have 2-3-4 towns in New Hampshire, some of them are fewer than 1,000 people. They don’t have the staff or the budget to handle major disasters. So it is going to be really important that, if you are all talking about right-sizing FEMA and making sure that it can do its work, that the investments in resilience continues so that we don’t have the same natural disasters impacting the same infrastructure, over and over again, and it’s going to be important that we have people on the ground who can do the mission of working hand in hand, as they do with local governments,” she said. “So I look forward to trying to work up with you on that, but I hope very much that you will find out what actually happens and works with FEMA, come to us with concrete plans and actually do some analysis before you start firing people because it’s really destabilizing, and it’s going to take a hard it’s going to be hard for the agency to recover, because who’s going to want to go work there?”

Fired probationary employees speak up

Probationary employees also say their firing is only based on one factor, the fact that they were new to their position. Several who submitted comments to Federal News Network said they were told they were fired for performance issues, but didn’t receive any evidence or explanation.

“My agency had as little to say about me specifically as they could. Their exact words went into detail on the nature of probationary employees, and how I had ‘the burden’ of proving my value as an employee to them. Simply, that I had NOT provided to my agency the proof of my qualifications, work performance, etc. It truly was not specific to me in my position, or specific to my park site. Indeed, if it had been, that would’ve only underlaid the lie of it,” wrote one former National Park Service employee. “Arguably, there is only one reason I could THINK of that I would’ve been removed from this park site, with my qualifications or my performance as a reason: that we had not posted my Expanded Professional Associates Program (EPAP) in time. My Evaluation of Performance was [incoming], but had been one task out of many my supervisor had to worry about every day… because the work I was doing was essentially that of 2 people, she was having to pare down that ePAP before proper submission. That, to my knowledge, would be the only possible way that my performance would’ve been determined as inefficient… through insufficient data.”

A former Agriculture Department employee said they received only good performance evaluations during their career.

“Both emails cited performance issues. I have had nothing but good performance records at my previous duty station, and my current duty station has not had the opportunity to evaluate me. Despite this, performance was cited as the reason for my termination,” the person wrote.

And a third former employee, this one from the Department of Veterans Affairs, had a similar experience.

“’The agency finds, based on your performance that you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the agency would be in the public interest.’ This statement is also false. For fiscal year 2024, I received an outstanding performance appraisal to include additional awards as well as in 2024 I received a quality step increase (QSI) for my outstanding performance. Clearly my past performance indicates I have done a phenomenal a job, as I took my position seriously with pride, and enjoyed helping our nation’s veterans,” the person wrote.

The post Trump nominees say firing of probationary employees not indiscriminate first appeared on Federal News Network.

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GOP Senator John Thune Quietly BLOCKS Trump Recess Appointments with Sneaky Procedural Maneuver — Launches Series of Pro Forma Sessions to Keep Senate in Fake “Session” During August Recess

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15 hours ago

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August 3, 2025

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Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R‑SD) has unveiled a procedural scheme to block President Donald Trump from making any critical appointments during the August recess, effectively aiding the Democrats’ obstructionist agenda.

Under the U.S. Constitution, the president can make “recess appointments,” temporary appointments to federal positions, if the Senate is in recess and not conducting business. These appointments don’t require immediate Senate confirmation and can last until the end of the next session of Congress.

But there’s a loophole: if the Senate holds pro forma sessions, very short, symbolic meetings where no actual business is conducted, then technically, the Senate is still in session. That means the president cannot legally make recess appointments during that time.

John Thune has quietly secured unanimous‑consent for a paper‑thin Senate schedule through the Trump appointee confirmation deadline, ensuring only pro forma sessions on five key dates in early August.

Under the agreement, the chamber will adjourn after today’s business and reconvene without conducting any votes or business on:

  • Tue, Aug 5 – 1:00 p.m.
  • Fri, Aug 8 – 1:05 p.m.
  • Tue, Aug 12 – 8:00 a.m.
  • Fri, Aug 15 – 10:15 a.m.
  • Tue, Aug 19 – 10:00 a.m.
  • Fri, Aug 22 – 9:00 a.m.
  • Tue, Aug 26 – 12:00 p.m.
  • Fri, Aug 29 – 7:00 a.m.

WATCH:

Thune’s pro forma blueprint comes amid mounting pressure from Donald Trump, who has demanded the Senate remain open until all 150+ administration nominees are confirmed.

Under the Recess Appointments Clause, a president may only install nominees without Senate approval if both chambers are in formal recess for at least 10 days. By convening the Senate just long enough every few days, Thune blocks the possibility of Trump making unilateral appointees.

The Senate went into its August recess without confirming all of Trump’s pending judicial and district‑level appointments.

By the time lawmakers left town on Saturday evening, no deal had been reached to move dozens of Trump’s nominees, including U.S. district court picks, through final floor votes.

Only a small handful of nominees (such as Jeanine Pirro to be U.S. Attorney in D.C.) had advanced. Otherwise, nominees remained stalled in committees or waiting for cloture roll‑calls on the executive calendar.

Roughly 150–160 executive and judicial nominations, including over a dozen district court judges and U.S. attorney nominations, remained scheduled but unconfirmed.

The post GOP Senator John Thune Quietly BLOCKS Trump Recess Appointments with Sneaky Procedural Maneuver — Launches Series of Pro Forma Sessions to Keep Senate in Fake “Session” During August Recess appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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‘That’s What I Call Results!’: Trump Admin Saves Jobs, Kicks 1500 Non-English-Speaking Truckers Off the Road

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15 hours ago

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August 3, 2025

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Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy revealed that there have been about 1,500 truck drivers who do not speak English taken off the roads as part of a push to ensure foreign truck drivers are not causing accidents.

Back in 2016, the Obama administration stopped enforcing English proficiency requirements for truckers, according to a report from The Daily Signal.

But in May, Duffy issued a guidance making clear that truck drivers who cannot demonstrate a proficiency in English cannot drive.

The 1,500 drivers were taken off the roads within the first 3o days of the rules once more being enforced, according to The Daily Signal.

“Since I took action to enforce language proficiency requirements for truckers, our state partners have put roughly 1,500 unqualified drivers out of service. That’s what I call results!” Duffy posted on X.

“If you can’t read or speak our national language — ENGLISH — we won’t let your truck endanger the driving public.”

He added, “America First = Safety First.”

Duffy’s concerns were far from unfounded.

In January, there was a truck driver involved in a fatal crash that had to use a language interpreter for the post-crash investigation, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

Another incident from 2019 involved a truck driver who could not proficiently speak English speeding through signs that warned of steep grades and dangerous curves, all at more than 100 miles per hour.

Four people died in that crash, per the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

President Donald Trump had likewise insisted with an April executive order that the move centered on public safety.

“They should be able to read and understand traffic signs, communicate with traffic safety, border patrol, agricultural checkpoints, and cargo weight-limit station officers,” the order said of truck drivers.

They also “need to provide feedback to their employers and customers and receive related directions in English,” a position the order called “common sense.”

“It is the policy of my Administration to support America’s truckers and safeguard our roadways by enforcing the commonsense English-language requirement for commercial motor vehicle drivers and removing needless regulatory burdens that undermine the working conditions of America’s truck drivers,” the notice added.

“This order will help ensure a safe, secure, and efficient motor carrier industry.”

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.

The post ‘That’s What I Call Results!’: Trump Admin Saves Jobs, Kicks 1500 Non-English-Speaking Truckers Off the Road appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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Slovenia Imposes Arms Embargo on Israel, Citing Gaza Conflict

Published

16 hours ago

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August 3, 2025

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via Wikimedia Commons

Slovenia has imposed an arms embargo on Israel, banning the export, import, and transit of weapons to and from the country.

This decision was announced by Prime Minister Robert Golob following a government session on July 31, 2025.

Slovenia claims to be the first European Union member to take such a step, citing the EU’s inability to act due to internal disagreements.

The government stated that no permits for military exports to Israel have been issued since October 2023, when the conflict in Gaza began.

Officials emphasized that the embargo is an independent measure to address the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Slovenia has repeatedly called for a ceasefire and increased aid deliveries to the region.

In early July 2025, Slovenia declared two Israeli ministers, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, persona non grata, barring them from entry.

This action was based on their public statements regarding the conflict. Earlier, in June 2024, Slovenia recognized Palestinian statehood, joining countries like Ireland, Norway, and Spain in this move.

The conflict in Gaza started after the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israeli territory, which resulted in over 1,200 deaths and the taking of hostages.

Israel responded with a military operation aimed at dismantling Hamas infrastructure. Reports from Gaza’s health ministry indicate significant casualties, with ongoing international efforts to negotiate truces and provide aid.

Several other nations have taken similar diplomatic steps, including France, Britain, and Canada announcing potential recognition of a Palestinian state. Australia has also indicated that recognizing Palestinian statehood is under consideration.

Israel has criticized these declarations, arguing they could reward Hamas for its actions.

Israeli officials dismissed Slovenia’s embargo as insignificant, noting that Israel does not procure any defense materials from Slovenia.

An unnamed official stated that the country buys nothing from Slovenia, not even minor items.

Within the EU, there is growing pressure for measures against Israel, with Sweden and the Netherlands advocating for suspending parts of the EU-Israel Association Agreement.

The European Commission has proposed limiting Israel’s participation in the Horizon research program, though Germany opposes such steps.

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul expressed concerns about Israel’s potential diplomatic isolation during a visit to Jerusalem.

The United States remains a key ally to Israel, with President Donald Trump warning that recognizing Palestinian statehood might benefit Hamas.

U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff recently met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to advance Gaza truce talks. These efforts aim to address the humanitarian crisis and secure a ceasefire.

The post Slovenia Imposes Arms Embargo on Israel, Citing Gaza Conflict appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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