An analysis of the Trump administration’s efforts to end diversity, equity and inclusion throughout the federal government during the president’s first 100 days in office revealed that nearly 750 DEI employees have been placed on leave or fired for a savings of more than $2 billion.

The analysis provided by the White House showed that the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Education and the Department of Labor saw some of the biggest savings. The trio of agencies fired or placed on leave 256 DEI employees, saving taxpayers over $1.3 billion, the analysis noted.

Overall, the Trump administration let go of 745 employees working in DEI offices or on DEI-related programs throughout the government and saved taxpayers roughly $2.33 billion. 

‘President Trump ordered the end of radical and racist DEI propaganda in government, and the administration is swiftly enacting the president’s order,’ White House principal deputy communications director Alex Pfeiffer told Fox News Digital. ‘Common sense has returned to government.’

In addition to savings and staff cuts, the White House’s analysis highlighted the various grants that were slashed and other changes made as a result of the Trump administration’s efforts to rid the federal government of DEI.

Those programs included race-based grants or quota programs at multiple agencies and race-based promotion commitments. Multimillion-dollar grants for DEI training and DEI-focused activist groups were also among the cuts at most agencies.

At the State Department, a $5 million grant to ‘strengthen organizational capacity leadership and impact for mid-sized autonomous intersex and trans human rights organizations’ was cut. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) saved $1.7 million by eliminating four years of DEI staff training on topics ranging from ‘microaggressions’ to ‘identifying and preventing racism in your marketing.’ 

‘You must accept what has happened and what you have done,’ a narrator of one of the LinkedIn training sessions funded through these grants stated. ‘If you can’t accept what the marketplace is telling you, that this piece of content is sexist, racist, homophobic … you can’t move forward as a leader.’  

Other USDA grants, according to the White House’s analysis, spent money on staff training aimed at ‘cultivat[ing] an Eye for Inequity,’ while Trump administration staff also found ‘DEI Bingo’ cards left over from the Biden administration. The bingo cards included spaces to be checked off, like, ‘I know what the ‘I’ in LGBTQIA+ means’ and ‘I have pronouns in my signature line.’

USDA also dispersed race-based grants, such as money for ‘LATINX Growers’ and ‘Black Women’s Regenerative Farming,’ according to the White House analysis. The analysis also indicated that the USDA spent $600,000 on research into the menstruation of biological males and $361,000 to support queer and trans farmers.

Similar DEI-related materials were found at the Department of Education, including a white board with bullet points about race-centric priorities. Below the heading ‘Projects’ was a bullet point that said ‘Black male resource doc,’ while ‘Goals of the Week’ included ‘Tighten up Black Ed Roundtable’ and ‘PAC pictures.’ Another box on the whiteboard said, ‘Black male political appointees.’ 

The Education Department under President Donald Trump has also slashed grants promoting racial hiring quotas and numerous teacher training sessions on topics like resisting ‘settler patriarchy’ and how America’s education system is one of the ‘settler-colonial realities.’

According to the administration’s analysis of its DEI cuts, almost 100 antisemitic incidents were left unresolved by the former Biden-Harris administration’s Office of Civil Rights within the Education Department. According to the analysis, staffers in the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights were also told by the last administration to ‘sit on’ a civil rights complaint against transgender swimmer Lia Thomas. 

The Biden administration also reportedly neglected Freedom of Information Act requests about its DEI efforts. The White House’s analysis recorded as many as 4,000 outstanding requests sent to the Department of Labor, which, under President Joe Biden, promoted DEI-based hiring and mandatory training programs for staff.

The Health and Human Services Department also saw steep cuts to DEI programs during Trump’s first 100 days. 

At the National Institutes of Health alone, over $350 million in DEI projects were slashed, including grants for studying ‘multilevel and multidimensional structural racism’ and ‘gender-affirming hormone therapy in mice,’ among others.

In addition to all the cuts, the Trump administration has taken steps to rectify the Biden administration’s DEI focus. It ended DEI-related training courses within the DOT online learning management system and disabled an internal email feature at the Department of Transportation that let users list their pronouns. The administration did the same with other pronoun policies at other agencies.

The administration has also taken proactive steps at other agencies, such as removing DEI criteria from more than 2,900 supervisory performance standards at the Energy Department. At the Department of Interior, the agency’s ‘DEIA Council’ was terminated. It had a stated purpose of embedding diversity, equity and inclusion principles into ‘everything’ the agency does.

Trump’s crusade against DEI began on the first day of his second presidency with an executive order, ‘Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing.’ In the order, President Trump accused the Biden administration of forcing ‘illegal and immoral’ DEI programs on the American people. 

‘This was a concerted effort stemming from President Biden’s first day in office,’ Trump’s order insisted. 

A former top aide in President Donald Trump’s first administration is arguing that Republicans raising taxes on wealthy Americans ‘makes no sense.’

Marc Short, the former chief of staff to ex-Vice President Mike Pence, was an integral part of negotiations for Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). He also served in Trump’s first White House as director of legislative affairs from 2017 to 2018.

‘Raising taxes on America’s highest earners and biggest job creators makes no sense. I don’t understand why there are some inside the current administration who are pushing Congress to raise the top rate, because again, these are America’s job creators,’ Short said.

‘So many small businesses file taxes as individuals. And so you’re actually going to be raising taxes on many small businesses, not just individuals.’

Congressional Republicans are working on a massive piece of legislation that Trump has dubbed his ‘big, beautiful bill,’ aimed at advancing his policies on tax, border security, immigration, energy, defense and the national debt.

The tax policy portion is expected to be the costliest, and House negotiators are working on identifying a number of areas to cut a total of at least $1.5 trillion to offset the new spending.

A source familiar with Trump’s thinking told Fox News Digital he’s considering allowing the rate on individuals making $2.5 million or more to revert from 37% to the pre-2017 39.6%. 

It will help pay for massive middle- and working-class tax cuts as well as protect Medicaid, the source said.

The TCJA lowered the tax rate for the top income bracket — currently $609,350 for single filers — to 37%, a cut that’s expiring at the end of this year.

Creating a new, higher tax bracket for people earning significantly more than that would help pay for extending the 2017 tax cuts as well as implementing Trump’s new priorities: eliminating taxes on tips, overtime pay and retirees’ Social Security checks.

But Short, who helped get the 2017 package passed, dismissed those new Trump priorities as short-sighted political sweeteners.

‘I feel like some of the administration’s new requirements are somewhat gimmicky. I’m not sure many Americans who earn their income based on tips are even paying taxes on those tips right now. And I think we should begin to extend that to say no tax on overtime,’ he said.

Short said those changes would create ‘a lot of additional hurdles for businesses to comply with.’

‘I think the no tax on Social Security, it seems like what we’re trying to do is different from 2017, when we passed the Tax Cuts and Job Act,’ he said. ‘We tried to simplify the tax code, make it flatter and fair for all Americans, as opposed to creating carve-outs for certain constituencies.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for a response to Short’s remarks.

Some conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation and Americans for Prosperity are also wary of a potential tax hike for the wealthy.

Richard Stern, director of the Hermann Center for the Federal Budget at the Heritage Foundation, said the group is opposed to efforts to raise tax rates to 40% or higher.

‘Congress needs to get its fiscal house in order, but it must do so by tightening its own belt, not by forcing American taxpayers to tighten theirs. A higher top tax rate would be counterproductive, discouraging hard work and entrepreneurship,’ Stern said.

Americans for Prosperity chief government affairs officer Brent Gardner said in a statement, ‘Raising taxes on any American should be completely off the table.’

President Donald Trump is considering a small tax increase for wealthy Americans to help pay for his priorities to boost the middle and working classes.

A source familiar with Trump’s thinking told Fox News Digital that Trump is considering allowing the rate on individuals making $2.5 million or more to increase by 2.6%, from 37% to 39.6%.

He quietly pushed Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on the idea in a phone call on Wednesday, two people familiar with conversations told Fox News Digital.

It comes as Republicans work on a massive piece of legislation advancing Trump’s priorities on taxes, border security, immigration, energy, defense and the national debt, which the president has dubbed his ‘big, beautiful bill.’

Differing projections show the bill is likely to add trillions of dollars to the country’s deficit over the next 10 years, so fiscal hawks are looking for ways to mitigate that and set up America for a less bloated government down the line by pairing the new priorities with deep spending cuts elsewhere.

The tax portion of the bill is expected to be the costliest portion. 

Republicans are hoping to extend the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) as well as pay for newer Trump priorities like eliminating taxes on tips, overtime wages and retirees’ Social Security.

TCJA previously lowered taxes for the highest bracket from 39.6% to 37%, but that’s set to expire at the end of 2025. Trump wants to restore that top bracket, albeit for people making significantly more money than the current threshold. The current top tax bracket is $609,350 for single income earners.

The source familiar with Trump’s thinking said doing so would help pay for his ‘massive’ tax cuts for the middle and working classes, as well as protect Medicaid coverage for millions of Americans.

Punchbowl News first reported details of the Trump-Johnson phone call.

It’s not clear yet what Republicans will decide, or even if they will ultimately decide to raise taxes on the highest earners – but details are expected to emerge in the coming days.

The Ways & Means Committee, the House’s tax-writing panel, is expected to meet on Tuesday afternoon to advance that portion of Trump’s bill.

Talks about potential tax hikes on the wealthy have triggered a deep rift within the Republican Party. 

Mainstream conservatives have balked at discussions of raising rates on anyone, arguing it would have a negative impact on job creators, while populist and more moderate Republicans have floated such ideas in order to pay for Trump’s priorities to benefit the middle and working classes.

‘Raising taxes on America’s highest earners and biggest job creators makes no sense,’ Marc Short, a former chief of staff to ex-Vice President Mike Pence and a key part of TCJA negotiations, told Fox News Digital.

‘I don’t understand why there are some inside the current administration who are pushing Congress to raise the top rate, because again, these are America’s job creators.’

Other Republicans told Fox News Digital in recent weeks that they believe the idea could be popular, however.

‘I’m open-minded to what the president or the treasury secretary may have in mind. And I would want to see some numbers behind it and how it would have an effect on the economy,’ conservative Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., told Fox News Digital in late April.

‘What I’ve heard from people in the upper tax brackets is, you know, they’re willing to pay more as long as they know that it’s paying the debt down. They don’t want to see it go toward more spending.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House and Johnson’s office for comment.

A pair of hawkish, Trump-supporting Senate Republicans say that any ‘lasting’ Iran nuclear deal would need to be approved by Congress, ideally through a two-thirds majority treaty vote. 

But scoring a two-thirds majority in the Senate for treaty ratification would require Iran to fulfill a series of steep demands. In addition to getting rid of all of its enriched uranium and centrifuges, GOP lawmakers say it would need to dismantle its ballistic missile program and cease all support for terrorist groups across the Middle East.

‘If they want the most durable and lasting kind of deal, then they want to bring it to the Senate and have it voted on as a treaty,’ Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said in response to a question from Fox News Digital. 

‘That was one reason why President Obama’s deal was so weak,’ Cotton went on. ‘An agreement between the American president, whoever he or she may be, and a foreign leader, can be reversed by future presidents, which President Trump rightly did seven years ago today.’

In 2015, Cotton led an open letter signed by Senate Republicans to Iranian leaders warning that any nuclear agreement not approved by Congress could be undone by a future administration. The move was widely viewed as a direct effort to undermine President Barack Obama’s ongoing negotiations.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., echoed the call for congressional oversight, saying that ‘at a minimum’ any deal must go through the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA), which passed Congress in 2015 with resounding bipartisan support and guarantees lawmakers a chance to review any accord reached with Tehran.

Graham said he had told Secretary of State Marco Rubio there was ‘no way’ to get 67 votes to ratify a treaty agreement without Iran totally dismantling its nuclear and missile programs and support for terrorism. 

The senators also drew a parallel with the so-called 123 agreements – the legal frameworks that govern U.S. civil nuclear cooperation with foreign nations. These agreements require strict safeguards to prevent the development of nuclear weapons.

‘It’s also customary in some cases for the Congress, not just the Senate, to pass ordinary legislation that supports the so-called 123 agreements,’ Cotton noted, suggesting that any comprehensive deal with Iran should be treated with similar legislative rigor.

Cotton and Graham spoke to reporters after introducing a resolution outlining ‘acceptable’ terms of an Iran deal, including total cessation of uranium enrichment. 

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran has amassed enough highly enriched uranium to potentially build several nuclear weapons if it chose to do so – though U.S. intelligence assessments maintain that Tehran has not yet made a decision to weaponize.

Both U.S. and Israeli officials have ramped up their threats against the regime. Trump has made clear that if talks go south, the U.S. will engage in direct military action to thwart Iran’s nuclear program. 

Graham suggested the regime only has ‘weeks’ to acquiesce to a deal. 

‘We’re not talking about long, protracted negotiations,’ the South Carolina Republican said. ‘We’re talking weeks, not months, not years. The potential of Iranian breakout looms large here. Israel’s desire to bring closure to this issue looms large here.’

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts used a public appearance Wednesday to stress the importance of an independent judiciary, doubling down on defense of the courts under fire by President Donald Trump and his allies, who have accused so-called ‘activist judges’ of overstepping their bounds.

Asked during a fireside chat event in Buffalo, New York, about judicial independence, Roberts responded in no uncertain terms that the role of the federal courts is to ‘decide cases, but in the course of that, check the excesses of Congress or the executive.’

That role, he added, ‘does require a degree of independence.’

Roberts’ remarks are not new. But they come as Trump and his allies have railed against federal judges who have paused or halted key parts of the president’s agenda. (Some of the rulings they’ve taken issue with came from judges appointed by Trump in his first term.)

The Supreme Court is slated to hear a number of high-profile cases and emergency appeals filed by the Trump administration in the next few months, cases that are all but certain to keep the high court in the spotlight for the foreseeable future.

Among them are Trump’s executive orders banning transgender service members from serving in the U.S. military, restoring fired federal employees to their jobs and a case about whether children whose parents illegally entered the U.S. and were born here should be granted citizenship. Oral arguments for that last case kick off next week.

Just hours before Roberts spoke to U.S. District Judge Lawrence Vilardo, a high-stakes hearing played out in federal court in Washington, D.C.

There, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg spent more than an hour grilling Justice Department lawyers about their use of the Alien Enemies Act to summarily deport hundreds of migrants to El Salvador earlier this year. 

Boasberg’s March 15 order that temporarily blocked Trump’s use of the law to send migrants to a Salvadoran prison sparked ire from the White House and in Congress, where some Trump allies had previously floated calls for impeachment.

Roberts, who put out a rare public statement at the time rebuking calls to impeach Boasberg or any federal judges, doubled down on that in Wednesday’s remarks.

‘Impeachment is not how you register disagreement with a decision,’ Roberts said, adding that he had already spoken about that in his earlier statement.

In the statement, sent by Roberts shortly after Trump floated the idea of impeaching Boasberg, said that ‘for more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,’ he said.

‘The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose,’ he said in the statement. 

President Donald Trump touted his administration’s efforts to rebuild and modernize U.S. air traffic control, as the Department of Transportation rolled out its three-year plan to build a brand-new, ‘state-of-the-art’ system to address critical safety needs, while blasting former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg for having ‘no clue.’ 

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy Thursday unveiled the proposal, which would replace the current, antiquated Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) system and ‘enhance safety in the sky, reduce delays and unlock the future of air travel.’ 

‘Under President Trump, America is building again,’ Duffy said Thursday, upon rolling out the new proposal for a ‘once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a brand new, state-of-the-art air traffic control system.’ 

‘Decades of neglect have left us with an outdated system that is showing its age,’ Duffy said, noting that building the new system ‘is an economic and national security necessity, and the time to fix it is now.’

Under the new air traffic control system proposal, the FAA would replace infrastructure, including radar, software, hardware and telecommunications networks, to manage modern travel. 

Officials say the current system was built ‘for the past,’ but the new proposal is to build a system ‘for the future.’ 

The plan would ensure facilities are equipped with better technologies to reduce outages, improve efficiency and reinforce safety. 

‘We’re going to be buying a brand-new, state of the art system that will cover the entire world,’ Trump said earlier Thursday. 

The plan consists of four infrastructure components: communications, surveillance, automation and facilities, according to the Transportation Department. 

Officials plan, by 2028, to replace current telecommunications systems with new fiber, wireless and satellite technologies at more than 4,600 sites, 25,000 new radios and 475 new voice switches. By 2027, 618 radars will also be replaced.  

The plan also would address runway safety by increasing the number of airports with Surface Awareness Initiative to 200. Officials expect this to be complete by 2027. 

The Transportation Department also proposed building six new air traffic control centers for the first time since the 1960s. It also proposes replacing 15 towers and 15 co-located TRACONs, or Terminal Radar Approach Controls, which are facilities that manage air traffic in the airspace surrounding busy airports. 

Officials also proposed the installation of new modern hardware and software for all air traffic facilities, which would create a common platform system throughout all towers, TRACONs and centers. 

The proposal also includes the deployment of additional technologies to the Caribbean and Alaska to provide accurate, real-time surveillance and weather information for air traffic control and pilots to ensure ‘safe and efficient flights for these critical locations.’ 

Officials stressed the need for a new air traffic control system, saying the FAA is grappling with a ‘rapidly growing, complex and demanding aviation sector,’ as commercial air travel returns to pre-COVID levels. Officials also pointed to novel challenges, including drones and advanced air mobility. 

Officials said the FAA’s current systems ‘are showing their age,’ which leads to ‘delays and inefficiencies.’ 

The Department of Transportation stressed that the current National Airspace System is ‘safe,’ but stressed that maintaining safety is necessary. 

The proposal is based on a three-year framework to reinvest in the National Airspace System, and called for an ’emergency supplemental funding increase.’ 

‘Modernization of the NAS can no longer take 10+ years to complete; it must be done now,’ the proposal states. ‘We need an immediate infusion of funding to address critical infrastructure needs.’ 

Duffy, on Thursday, said the project would take three to four years. 

‘I need help, I can’t do it by myself. And it’s going to take the help of the Congress to make that happen,’ Duffy said. ‘We need all of the money up front.’ 

Duffy said requesting the money in ‘small tranches’ over the course of several years would extend the project. 

‘Politics change, leadership changes, presidents change, interest changes, and it never gets built,’ Duffy said. ‘So I’m going to ask the Congress for upfront appropriations to give us all the money. I’ll come before the Congress every, every quarter and give them an update of how far we’ve built, how much money we’ve spent.’ 

Duffy added that if the Department of Transportation is not given the money, it would take ’10 to 15 years to build this.’ 

‘And by the time we get done with it, what we’re going to build is already going to be old technology,’ Duffy said. ‘So we want to build this in three to four years, and we can do it with the help of Congress.’ 

A report issued by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in March shows that the Trump administration inherited an outdated FAA system from the Biden administration with ‘severe shortcomings’ that resulted in dangerous travel conditions across the country.

After Trump’s return to the White House, the GAO advised the administration that it had made nine recommendations to the FAA under the Biden administration that remain open, and that ‘urgent attention’ is needed to remedy the safety issues left by Biden.

GAO said that under the Biden administration the FAA ‘did not prioritize or establish near-term plans to modernize unsustainable and critical systems.’

The GAO’s 2025 report said the 2023 national airspace prompted an operational risk assessment, which found that of the 138 air traffic control systems, ’51 (37%) were deemed unsustainable by FAA and 54 (39%) were potentially unsustainable.’

Trump, on Thursday, blasted the current ‘ancient infrastructure,’ saying ‘it’s buckling under the weight of more than a billion flying passengers a year and supporting hundreds of billions of dollars.’  

‘Pete Buttigieg, who was the secretary of transportation, had no clue what the problem was,’ Trump said. ‘He had no clue. Zero. Zero.’ 

Trump said Buttigieg ‘wants to run for president.’ 

‘I don’t think he’s going to do too well,’ Trump said. ‘The federal government now pays $250 million annually just to keep up the old equipment and keep it running.’

Meanwhile, Duffy on Thursday said the administration has assembled an ‘unprecedented coalition of support’ from labor to industry, stressing that support is ‘indicative of just how important it is to this administration to get done what no one else could.’  

Duffy added: ‘The American people are counting on us, and we won’t let them down.’

The rollout of the proposal comes just days after the FAA issued a ground delay for Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey due to staffing shortages, weather and construction.

‘Our antiquated air traffic control system is affecting our workforce,’ an FAA statement said. ‘As Secretary Duffy has said, we must get the best safety technology in the hands of controllers as soon as possible.’

It also comes after air traffic controller audio was made public from when radar and radio communications with planes were briefly lost at Newark Airport on April 28. 

The April 28 outage lasted roughly 90 seconds. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association confirmed the incident to Fox News Digital, writing that the FAA’s operation in Philadelphia had ‘temporarily lost radar and communications with the aircraft under their control, unable to see, hear, or talk to them.’

Fox Business’ Grady Trimble contributed to this report.