As the country faces a deadly measles outbreak
, funding cuts under the Trump administration are hitting public health offices that work to track and prevent measles.
Roughly 20 states
have reported measles cases, with Texas at the center of the outbreak. Texas, the hardest-hit state, is now seeing the impact of federal cuts.
In Dallas County, three of the funding grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have been impacted by a federal funding freeze
. Early estimates from officials say that could be in the millions of dollars.
Nationwide, there is an expected loss of about $11.4 billion from community health departments nationwide.
As a result, 50 vaccination clinics
in Texas have been scrapped, places that were working to combat the outbreak that has spread largely among those who are unvaccinated.
More than 20 public health workers have also been laid off, including those who administer vaccines
and lab staff who are tasked with measles surveillance and prevention.
Since January, Texas has reported more than 420 measles cases
, according to the state Department of Health, and the funding cuts are hampering local efforts to contain the spread.
Public health departments have been left scrambling, with fears that the number of cases will go up as the cuts limit surveillance efforts and access to vaccines.
For now, they are relying on systems that are still in place, including networks of clinics, to administer the vaccine while also sounding the alarm about the outbreak.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) said Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) called her to discuss the possibility of allowing proxy voting only for new moms after President Trump appeared to back the Florida Republican in her efforts.
Luna, who had led the fight
against GOP leaders in the House to push for proxy voting for new parents, was embraced by Trump earlier Thursday when he was asked about her effort and the recently failed procedural vote.
Trump told reporters abord Air Force One that he spoke to Luna about her effort and didn’t understand why it was controversial.
“I’m gonna let the speaker make the decision, but I like the idea. Having a baby? I think you should be able to call in and vote. I’m in favor of that,” Trump said.
Luna celebrated
the news in posts on X, thanking
Trump for supporting the “pro-family resolution.”
“Despite misinformation, this is *not* a return to universal proxy voting,” she said, noting that it would help the GOP maintain its majority in the House.
Luna said
she heard from Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) after Trump’s statement of support and they discussed “limiting the vote to just new moms who cannot travel because of health concerns.”
The original push included new fathers, in addition to new mothers in the House. The inclusion of fathers confused Republican members
, who said they weren’t aware they were signing on to anything more than new mothers being able to vote via a proxy.
“This is smart,” Luna said of the revised proposed plan. “Only 13 members of Congress have given birth while serving in US history.”
Luna also said she told Johnson that the vote on the resolution “should NOT, in any way” interfere with legislation that would help Trump’s agenda.
Earlier Thursday Luna was still pushing for fathers to be included.
“I’m confident that with President Trump’s support, my proxy voting resolution will pass and new moms and dads in Congress will be able to vote for the America First agenda we promised,” she wrote on X before speaking with Johnson.
The Florida Republican-led nine other Republican lawmakers against Johnson earlier this week, delivering a blow to the Speaker when they tanked a procedural rule
that would have blocked Luna from forcing action on the measure.
The fight halted work in the House until early next week and put a spotlight on the bill for new parents who are in Congress.
Former Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) was confirmed Thursday as the presumptive Democratic nominee in the 2025 gubernatorial race in Virginia.
She is the lone Democrat running to be governor, according to the Democratic Party of Virginia (DPVA), which released a full list of candidates running in the 2025 primary races Thursday evening, once the 5 p.m. EDT filing deadline had passed.
Virginia’s primary elections will take place June 17, 2025, and the general election will be held Nov. 4, 2025.
The DPVA confirmed Spanberger’s name “will appear on the general election ballot.”
“Thank you to every Virginian who has shared with me their vision for our Commonwealth’s future since I launched my campaign,” said Spanberger, a moderate Democrat who served three terms in the House after serving as a CIA case officer.
“As the Democratic nominee for Governor of Virginia, I look forward to having many more meaningful conversations with all Virginians — across our communities and regardless of who they’ve cast their votes for in the past — about the issues that matter most to them,” she continued in the statement.
The other Democratic primary races in Virginia will be more competitive.
The DPVA listed six names that will appear on the primary election ballot in June running for lieutenant governor: Alex Bastani, Senator Ghazala Hashmi, Prince William County School Board Chairman Dr. Babur Lateef, Senator Aaron Rouse, Victor Salgado and former Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney.
The DPVA confirmed two Democrats running for attorney general: former Delegate Jay Jones and Commonwealth’s Attorney of Henrico County Shannon Taylor.
On the Republican side, Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears (R) is running for governor.
It remained unclear by Thursday evening whether former state Sen. Amanda Chase (R) met the qualifications to appear on the GOP primary ballot or whether the lieutenant governor would also be the presumptive nominee for her party.
Chase said she filed the paperwork to run for governor on Thursday but did not have time before the 5 p.m. deadline to count and verify that she had the necessary number of signatures to make the primary ballot.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) is ineligible to run in November, as Virginia prohibits governors from serving consecutive terms.
Fox News conservative legal commentator Andy McCarthy said in a Thursday interview it seems politics is “overwhelming the law here,” in the debate surrounding the Trump administration’s efforts to deport alleged gang members.
McCarthy pushed back on Vice President Vance’s recent comments suggesting criticism of administration’s deportation strategy “is such a weird, mistaken placement of priorities,” and that, “We do not ask permission from far-left Democrats before we deport illegal immigrants. We do the American people’s business.”
“Well, I just think the politics is overwhelming the law here,” McCarthy said on Fox News, when asked to respond to Vance’s comments, which he made in an earlier interview on “Fox and Friends.”
“No one is saying they can’t deport these people,” McCarthy continued. “Nobody is saying that. But in the United States, we have due process of law.”
McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, said most, if not all, of the alleged foreign terrorists he prosecuted received life sentences—but only after appearing before a judge.
“I couldn’t say to the agent, ‘Go arrest them, and instead of bringing them to court, put them on a plane and take them to a third country,” McCarthy said, in a nod to the government flying alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador for detainment.
“We have laws about… the process that you have to go through in order to obtain that outcome,” McCarthy added.
McCarthy said he thinks the courts have been clear that they are not going to interfere much on decisions “about who gets to be in this country and who doesn’t get to be in this county,” saying judges seem to be deferring to the “political branches” for those decisions.
“They’re going to have a lot of running room on that,” he said.
“But you have comply with the due process,” McCarthy added. “They’re very clear on that.”
The lawsuit contests Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA), arguing the law authorizes asset freezes and similar economic sanctions, but not tariffs.
“Congress passed the IEEPA to counter external emergencies, not to grant presidents a blank check to write domestic economic policy,” the lawsuit states.
The suit was brought by the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), a conservative legal advocacy group, on behalf of Simplified, a Florida-based small business that sells planners and purchases products from China.
Filed in federal court in Pensacola, Fla., the suit asks a judge to declare Trump’s Chinese tariffs unlawful and block their implementation.
“But in the IEEPA’s almost 50-year history, no previous president has used it to impose tariffs. Which is not surprising, since the statute does not even mention tariffs, nor does it say anything else suggesting it authorizes presidents to tax American citizens,” the lawsuit states.
The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.
Nineteen Democratic attorneys general sued Thursday over President Trump’s executive order that aims to strengthen proof of citizenship requirements in voting and prevent states from tabulating mail-in ballots received after Election Day.
“It bears emphasizing: the President has no power to do any of this,” the states’ complaint reads. “Neither the Constitution nor Congress has authorized the President to impose documentary proof of citizenship requirements or to modify State mail-ballot procedures.”
Trump’s order, signed March 25,
directs the attorney general to target states that count absentee or mail-in ballots that are received after Election Day, a practice that conservatives have increasingly targeted in recent years. Court battles over whether it is legal commenced long before Trump’s inauguration.
“If instead Plaintiff States choose not to comply with the President’s blatantly unconstitutional attempt to legislate-by-fiat, they will suffer severe cuts in federal funding that will throw the national electoral system into disarray. The Framers carefully crafted a federal compact that protects the States from this Hobson’s choice,” the lawsuit states.
The White House has previously pushed back on the legal challenges,
saying Trump’s order is “an effort to protect the integrity of American elections” and that “Democrats continue to show their disdain for the Constitution.”
Led by California and Nevada, the states suing are Massachusetts, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.
The new case adds to three separate challenges filed earlier this week that include plaintiffs like the DNC, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the League of United Latin American Citizens.
National Security Council staff ousted at White House
Multiple staff members on the White House National Security Council were fired Thursday following a meeting President Trump had this week with far-right activist Laura Loomer.
A source familiar with the firing told Kellie Meyer of NewsNation, The Hill’s sister network, that three senior officials and at least two junior officials were let go after Loomer raised questions about their loyalty.
The three senior officials were Brian Walsh, senior director of intelligence; Thomas Boodry, senior director of legislative affairs; and David Geuth, senior director of technology and national security.
Trump met with Loomer in the Oval Office on Wednesday, where she made the case that several staffers in the building were not sufficiently committed to his agenda, sources confirmed to The Hill.
Other senior staff were in the room, including chief of staff Susie Wiles and national security adviser Mike Waltz.
Boodry worked as a staffer for Waltz in Congress. Feith served in the State Department during Trump’s first term.
“NSC doesn’t comment on personnel matters,” spokesperson Brian Hughes said in a statement.
Loomer confirmed the meeting with Trump in a post on the social platform X but said she would not share any details about it “out of respect for [President Trump] and the privacy of the Oval Office.”
“It was an honor to meet with President Trump and present him with my research findings,” Loomer posted. “I will continue working hard to support his agenda, and I will continue reiterating the importance of, and the necessity of STRONG VETTING, for the sake of protecting the President of the United States of America, and our national security.”
Loomer also raised concerns on social media about Ivan Kanapathy, who serves as senior director for Asia at the National Security Council. Kanapathy worked at the NSC during Trump’s first term, but Loomer cited his ties to a firm that also employed former Defense Secretary Leon Pannetta and former CIA Director Michael Morell.
Some Trump allies have also targeted deputy national security adviser Alex Wong.
Welcome to The Hill’s Defense & National Security newsletter, I’m Ellen Mitchell — your guide to the latest developments at the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill and beyond.
President Trump on Thursday said he “sometimes” listens to the recommendations of far-right activist Laura Loomer, even as he denied she was responsible for the ouster of multiple national security aides. Trump spoke to reporters aboard Air Force One, where he was asked about Loomer one day after meeting …
The Defense Department’s (DOD) internal watchdog is investigating Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the messaging app Signal to discuss highly sensitive military information, according to a newly released memo. The probe, launched by acting inspector general Steven Stebbins, will look at whether Hegseth “complied with DOD policies” when he used a group chat to discuss details of a strike against Houthi militants …
U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg hinted at possible contempt proceedings as he grilled a government lawyer Thursday about whether the Trump administration violated his court order by failing to turn around planes carrying migrants to a Salvadoran prison. Boasberg made no decisions following …
NATO Secretary-General Mark Ruttewill hold
a press conference at the conclusion of the meeting of NATO Defense Ministers tomorrow 6:30 a.m. in Brussels, Belgium.
On Tap Tomorrow
Events in and around the defense world:
National Defense Industrial Association President and CEO David Norquistwill speak
at the American Bar Association 2025 Federal Procurement Institute at 8:15 a.m.
What We’re Reading
News we’ve flagged from other outlets:
Top US general argues against giving up command of NATO at Senate hearing (Military.com
)
Defense officials considering cuts to military treatment facilities (Military Times
)
The White House on Thursday defended its decision to not include Russia, North Korea, Cuba or Belarus in the latest round of tariffs, which targeted … Read more
President Trump’s approval rating slipped to its lowest point during his second White House term amid his handling of the economy and the recent Houthi … Read more
Opinions in The Hill
Op-eds related to defense & national security submitted to The Hill:
Oz talks helm of Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
Television personality Dr. Mehmet Oz was confirmed by the Senateto lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in a party-line 53-45 vote Thursday.
Oz wasn’t seen as controversial as some of the White House’s other health picks, but Democrats said they didn’t believe he would push back against any GOP-proposed cuts to Medicaid.
Still, he skated through his confirmation hearing, using the flair of a seasoned television host to avoid being pinned down on specifics.
Oz dodged questions in his confirmation hearing about any proposed cuts to the program, but Republicans will need to make a choice about whether to cut Medicaid in order to pay for an extension of President Trump’s tax cuts.
Oz has a history of endorsing dubious and often controversial products and treatments, blurring the lines between celebrity pitchman and medical doctor. Critics said his show provided a platform for fringe claims not backed by evidence.
The Trump nominee now takes the helm of an agency that is essentially the federal government’s insurance provider.
It has a budget of more than $1 trillion and sets payments rates for doctors, hospitals and insurers, while also overseeing Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and the Affordable Care Act — programs that provide coverage for more than 150 million people.
The massive amount of spending CMS oversees will likely make it a target for cuts to government spending. Thousands of people this week were laid off from the Department of Health and Human Services as part of a cost-cutting and reorganization effort led by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but CMS was largely spared.
In line with the “Make America Healthy Again” movement led by Kennedy, Oz has said he will focus on preventive care and chronic disease. He told lawmakers the U.S. should be “rethinking our outdated approach” to treating the symptoms of a disease rather than the underlying cause.
Welcome to The Hill’s Health Care newsletter, we’re Nathaniel Weixel, Joseph Choi and Alejandra O’Connell-Domenech — every week we follow the latest moves on how Washington impacts your health.
A federal judge granted a temporary restraining order Thursday that stops the Trump administration from pulling back more than $11 billion in public health funding from state and local health departments. Judge Mary McElroy of the federal district court in Rhode Island granted a 14-day restraining order to a group of 23 states and the District of Columbia that filed a lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services …
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who will be one of the Democrats’ top political targets in 2026, says she is “concerned” about language in the budget resolution that she fears could result in substantial cuts to Medicaid benefits. “I’m concerned about the instruction to the House Committee for $880 billion, it’s the Energy and Commerce Committee in the House, which has jurisdiction over Medicaid, because I don’t …
House Democrats on the Energy and Commerce committee are demanding a hearing with Health and Human Services Secretary (HHS) Robert F Kennedy Jr. about the massive layoffs happening at his agency. But so far, GOP leadership has committed to a staff-level briefing only, according to a spokesperson for Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.). Health subcommittee ranking member Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) in a statement …
Staff working on childhood lead exposure and cancer clusters fired from CDC
Staff members who fought childhood lead exposure and those who worked on cancer clusters were among those fired from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a now former employee told The Hill. The entire permanent staff of the Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice was cut, according to one person who was among the approximately 200 fired from the division. This division works on issues such as asthma …
The White House on Thursday defended its decision to not include Russia, North Korea, Cuba or Belarus in the latest round of tariffs, which targeted … Read more
President Trump’s approval rating slipped to its lowest point during his second White House term amid his handling of the economy and the recent Houthi … Read more
A federal judge granted a temporary restraining order Thursday that stops the Trump administration from pulling back more than $11 billion dollars in public health funding from state and local health departments.
Judge Mary McElroy of the federal district court in Rhode Island granted a 14-day restraining order to a group of 23 states and the District of Columbia that filed a lawsuit
against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) earlier this week.
“The likelihood of success on the merits is extremely strong,” McElroy said at the conclusion of the brief hearing, noting that “the record is voluminous … with allegations of irreparable harm” if the funding were to cease.
The states asked for a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order to stop the cuts from taking effect. The officials claimed the administration acted unlawfully, without any analysis of benefits of the health funding or the dire consequences of termination.
HHS said the funds, totaling $11.4 billion, were primarily used for COVID-19 response including testing, vaccination and hiring community health workers. Since the pandemic has ended, HHS said the funds would be rescinded.
The lawsuit argues the federal government does not have the legal authority to unilaterally rescind funding it already allocated, particularly when states have built essential health programs around the commitments.
State and local health department leaders said the money was already in their hands. Even though the grants were initially authorized by COVID relief legislation, they were allowed to be used for non-COVID priorities, including responding to the measles outbreak in Texas.
McElroy, who was appointed by President Trump, suggested scheduling a hearing for the preliminary injunction on April 13 but left it up to the attorneys to come to an agreement.
House Democrats led by Rep. Brad Schneider (Ill.) pressed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on mass layoffs
at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in a Wednesday letter
requesting the Trump administration’s plan for slated reductions and its potential impact on taxpayer services.
“The Administration has already fired 7,400 probationary employees—or seven percent of all IRS employees, mostly from enforcement staff—and has implemented a hiring freeze,” Schneider and 22 additional lawmakers wrote.
“Additionally, 4,700 employees at IRS have accepted the deferred resignation offer. Reporting has shown that as IRS agents leave the agency, the IRS is closing audits before they are complete, and some were even closed without seeking money owed,” they added citing a Wall Street Journal
article.
The rollbacks come as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) gained access
to sensitive taxpayer data while recommending “non-essential” contracts for termination. Senate Democrats called attention
to the issue but their colleagues in the House said the intent to share citizens’ personal data is now widespread.
In their Wednesday letter, Democrats wrote, “There have been reports that the IRS is nearing a deal to share data with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for the purposes of immigration enforcement and that DHS has asked IRS investigators to help with immigration enforcement.”
“Not only is this a change of policy and a violation of privacy, this discourages tax compliance and will further cut revenues,” they added.
Reps. Judy Chu (Calif.), April Delaney (Md.), Thomas Souzzi (N.Y.), Terri Sewell (Ala.), Gwen Moore (Wisc.) and Danny Davis (Ill.) are some of the lawmakers who signed the letter.
The legislators are now asking the Treasury Department to present information on their target number for workforce cuts, a list of IRS departments that will lose staff, expected revenue loss from firings and how remaining staff will be “adequately equipped” to provide services to taxpayers.
