Fox News host Jesse Watters said his mom is “upset” after learning that her daughter’s workplace will be impacted by the Department of Government Efficiency, whose purported quest to slash wasteful public spending by dismantling various federal agencies previously earned praise from Watters.
“I just saw some news that [President Donald] Trump took some grants away from Johns Hopkins [University], where my sister works, and now my mom’s upset,” the conservative pundit said Thursday on his “Primetime” show. “She’s texting me, it’s going to be a whole family thing. So we’ll have to deal with that over the weekend.”
The university plans to lay off more than 2,000 staffers following DOGE’s drastic cuts to the United States Agency for International Development, which was set to provide Johns Hopkins with $800 million in funding over the next several years.
School president Ronald J. Daniels rued the cuts in an open letter last week.
“Because of these funding terminations, we are in the process of winding down USAID grant-related activities … including impactful work to provide maternal and infant care, prevent the spread of diseases, and provide clean drinking water,” he wrote.
President Donald Trump, pictured in the Oval Office as Elon Musk speaks to the press in February.
Alex Brandon/Associated Press
Watters previously advocated for DOGE’s massive cuts on his show and criticized Democrats for being too sensitive about them. But in February, he said that somebody he knows personally was being affected — and complained about it on air.
“He texted me and said, ‘Jesse, this is not good. I’m upset. This is really sad,’” Watters said at the time about the individual, a veteran who had taken a job working at the Pentagon.
“I finally found one person I knew that got DOGE’d, and it hit me in the heart,” Watters said at the time.
Trump was personally moved by February’s on-air plea from Watters, a White House official told The Atlantic last week, and was reportedly unhappy with the negative coverage surrounding DOGE, which he personally tasked billionaire Elon Musk to lead.
Despite reports of his dissatisfaction, Trump announced on his Truth Social platform earlier this month that “DOGE has been an incredible success.”
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On Thursday, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to reinstate thousands of government employees who had been fired as part of DOGE’s sweeping cuts, calling the terminations “unlawful.”
