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Trump admin live updates: Dems react to Hegseth discussing Yemen strike in 2nd chat

The Signal chat included Hegseth's wife, brother and lawyer, sources said.

Last Updated: April 20, 2025, 10:28 PM EDT

President Donald Trump continues to take sweeping executive actions in his second term, including an order this week targeting a senior official from his first administration who became one of his critics.

Focus continues on the legal battle regarding Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a migrant who was living in Maryland when he was wrongfully deported by the administration.

Apr 17, 2025, 11:21 PM EDT

DOGE blocked from accessing sensitive Social Security records

Giving representatives of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency unlimited access to Social Security records "exposes a wide fissure in the foundation" of the agency entrusted with some of Americans’ most sensitive information, a federal judge said on Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander noted that DOGE’s mission of identifying fraud is "laudable," but she said giving the group unlimited access to information – including medical records, information about children, and financial records – betrays a fundamental commitment the government has made to citizens.

PHOTO: US-POLITICS-TRUMP-REFORM-SOCIALSECURITY
A Social Security Administration (SSA) office in Washington, DC, March 26, 2025. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is reportedly aiming to reform and downsize the SSA with office closures, cutbacks on phone services and new rules requiring in-person visits for some prospective beneficiaries to register.
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

"For some 90 years, SSA has been guided by the foundational principle of an expectation of privacy with respect to its records. This case exposes a wide fissure in the foundation," she wrote.

Judge Hollander specifically blocked the members of DOGE -- 11 of whom have been detailed to the SSA -- from accessing any record containing personally identifiable information, ordering that any materials already obtained that identifies individual taxpayers must be destroyed. She also blocked members of DOGE from installing any software on computer systems maintained by the SSA or altering any SSA computers.

In limited cases, she said that members of DOGE can access “discrete, particularized, and non-anonymized data” if they get written permission and explain why the information is necessary.

Last month, Hollander temporarily blocked DOGE from accessing some materials maintained by the SSA, and her order Thursday extends that order and allows the Trump administration to appeal.

-ABC News' Peter Charalambous

Apr 17, 2025, 7:32 PM EDT

Sources report mass firings at CFPB

Mass firings or Reduction in Force (RIF) terminations were underway Thursday afternoon at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, three CFPB sources told ABC News.

About 1,400 to 1,500 people from an agency that had about 1,700 employees before the Department of Government Efficiency took over are expected to be terminated, sources said. About 200 employees are expected to remain, though it's unclear what their job functions will be.

"We're still counting," one agency lawyer told ABC News after being fired.

"Well I'm now a cancer survivor who's pregnant and laid off," another CFPB employee told ABC News 15 minutes after getting their RIF notice.

In a notice to the terminated employees shared with ABC News, acting CFPB Director Russ Vought wrote that the cuts are “necessary to restructure the Bureau’s operations to better reflect the agency’s priorities and mission."

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau headquarters in Washington, D.C., Dec. 23, 2020.
Bloomberg via Getty Images, FILE

"You will be separated from Federal service effective June 16, 2025," Vought wrote. "Please be advised that you will retain access to work systems, including email and internal platforms until 6:00 PM Eastern Time, on April 18, 2025. After that time system access will be discontinued, and you will be placed in an administrative leave status through your official separation date as outlined above."

CFPB regulates and enforced student loans and was set up after the 2007-2008 financial crisis to protect consumers from unfair, deceptive, or abusive practices. The agency has a massive amount of data on corporations and businesses collected from its investigations and clawed back billions of dollars for consumers.

-ABC News’ Soo Youn

Apr 17, 2025, 6:55 PM EDT

Trump extends federal hiring freeze until July 15

Trump signed a memo extending the federal hiring freeze for all federal civilian employees in the executive branch until July 15.

Enacting a federal hiring freeze was one of Trump's first actions on Inauguration Day. According to a fact sheet from the White House about the extension, the memo also clarifies that "once a merit hiring plan has been adopted, any hiring of employees exempt from the freeze shall be consistent with that plan."

Labor union members hold placards on the day of a rally in support of federal workers during a rush hour protest outside the L'Enfant Plaza Metro Station in Washington, Mar. 24, 2025.
Kent Nishimura/Reuters

The fact sheet also says that once the hiring freeze ends, agencies can hire "no more than one employee for every four employees that depart from federal service (with appropriate immigration, law enforcement, and public safety exceptions)."

-ABC News’ Michelle Stoddart

Apr 17, 2025, 6:10 PM EDT

Trump is ‘so happy’ Supreme Court will take up birthright citizenship case

Trump told reporters he was “so happy” that the Supreme Court said it would hear arguments in the birthright citizenship case.

“Well, you’re just telling me that for the first time,” Trump said when a reporter told him of the court’s decision. “I am so happy.”

“I think the case has been so misunderstood. That case, birthright citizenship, is about slavery. If you look at the details of it, the signings of it, everything else, that case is all about slavery,” Trump said, repeating an argument he’s made several times. “And if you view it from that standpoint, people understand it. But for some reason, lawyers don't talk about it. The news doesn't talk about it. That's not about tourists coming in and touching a piece of sand and all of a sudden their citizenship, you know, they're a citizen, that----that is all about slavery.”

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after signing a proclamation in the Oval Office at the White House, April 17, 2025 in Washington.
Win McNamee/Getty Images

“And even look at the dates on which it was signed. It was right at that era during-- right after the Civil War, and if you look at it that way, the case is an easy case to win And I hope the lawyers talk about birthright citizenship and slavery, because that's what it was all about,” Trump continued.

The Supreme Court said Thursday it would hear expedited oral arguments next month over Trump's emergency request to roll back nationwide injunctions against his executive order to end birthright citizenship.

-ABC News’ Fritz Farrow

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