President Donald Trump on Wednesday signaled that his Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) may be poised to make major job cuts.
Trump told reporters during the first presidential cabinet meeting of his second term that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin may cut roughly 65% of his agency’s workforce, according to multiple reports. The Trump administration has already started to lay off federal workers en masse from various agencies in order to deflate the government bureaucracy and reduce waste in federal spending.
“I spoke with Lee Zeldin, and he thinks he’s going to be cutting 65 or so percent of the people from environmental, and we’re going to speed up the process too at the same time,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday. “He had a lot of people that weren’t doing their job, they were just obstructionists, and a lot of people that didn’t exist.”
The Trump administration established the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on Jan. 20 to eliminate wasteful spending in the federal government. The department claimed to have already identified $65 billion in wasteful and even fraudulent spending.
Zeldin recently highlighted the most appalling mismanagement of taxpayer funds at the EPA, noting that billions were allegedly sent to left-wing nonprofits, even some linked to Democratic voter mobilization efforts under the previous presidential administration.
“President Trump, DOGE, and Administrator Zeldin are committed to cutting waste, fraud, and abuse across all agencies,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “After recently identifying $20 billion fraudulent in spending, Administrator Zeldin is committed to eliminating 65% of the EPA’s wasteful spending.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include a statement provided by a White House spokesperson to the DCNF.
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