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Top NYC Officials Flee Adams Admin - The Tuesday AM Quickie 2/18/25

By Jacob Silverman —

The upside-down plane crash has a terrifying "I didn't know it could do that" quality. -Jacob

ON THE SHOW TODAY

2/18: It's News Day Tuesday! Sam and Emma break down the biggest headlines of the day.

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Today you'll read about the continued breakdown of the corrupt Eric Adams administration, how DOGE is carving up government agencies, and why European leaders are considering Ukraine's future without the United States.

THE BIG NEWS

Top NYC Officials Flee Adams Admin

Four deputy mayors from New York City Mayor Eric Adams' administration are resigning. "The deputy mayors voiced worry that Adams is essentially doing the bidding of President Donald Trump," according to Politico. Together, they run much of the city government and their mass resignation represents the bottom falling out of hizzoner's cartoonishly corrupt term in office.

"Due to the extraordinary events of the last few weeks and to stay faithful to the oaths we swore to New Yorkers and our families, we have come to the difficult decision to step down from our roles," three of the politicians said in a joint statement.

Having yoked his fortunes to Trump, Adams has remained defiant about not stepping down, blasting his potential replacement in Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. "I still don’t know what he does, ‘cause it’s hard to really serve the city when you wake up at noon," Adams said at a recent event. "If I step down, the public advocate becomes the mayor. Can you imagine turning the city over to him? That is the top reason not to step down."

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has the power to remove Adams from office, has been characteristically idle throughout the mayor's corruption saga. But last night she released a statement saying that the latest resignations raise "serious questions about the long-term future of this Mayoral administration." The governor said she plans to meet today with certain political leaders "for a conversation about the path forward, with the goal of ensuring stability for the City of New York."

FDA Deputy Commissioner Resigns

Citing the "indiscriminate" firing of 89 people in the FDA's food division, which he led, FDA Deputy Commissioner Jim Jones resigned yesterday. Jones said that the Trump administration was exhibiting "disdain for the very people" it needed to implement its policy agenda. White Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded by dismissing Jones as a recalcitrant bureaucrat.

"President Trump is only interested in the best and most qualified people who are also willing to implement his America First Agenda on behalf of the American people,” Leavitt wrote to Bloomberg News. “It’s not for everyone, and that’s okay.”

Social Security Administrator Resigns

You may be noticing a trend forming. Michelle King, a career civil servant who was acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration, resigned rather than countenance giving DOGE access to Americans' personal data. "There is no way to overstate how serious a breach this is," the president of Social Security Works told the Times.

Elon Musk has spent recent days posting about supposed rampant Social Security and entitlement fraud, with payments going out to people, he claims, who are almost 200 years old. Musk is almost certainly performing a deliberate misleading of whatever sliver of data he's examining – a tendency that he's shown throughout this DOGE debacle.

QUICKEST QUICKIES

  • DOGE Is Also Taking Over The IRS The Internal Revenue Service is among the latest DOGE targets, with Elon Musk's minions "seeking access to a heavily guarded IRS system that includes detailed financial information about every taxpayer, business and nonprofit in the country." The IRS is expected to hand over the keys to the kingdom to a 25-year-old software engineer who said that he was inspired to remake the US government after reading work by a notorious Holocaust denier. via WaPo and Mother Jones.
  • European Political Leaders Discuss Ukraine Security Without The US European leaders met yesterday in Paris to talk about Ukraine policy in the face of shifting diplomatic winds from the Trump administration. The UK and Sweden both said that they would consider deploying peacekeeping troops to Ukraine after a negotiated settlement. via CBS News.
  • It's Getting Really Cold Again Are you cold? I'm cold. A polar vortex – one of those nefarious winter weather patterns that we're forced to re-learn each year – is plunging a huge part of the Midwest and Northeast into frigid temperatures. It's projected to reach -40 degrees Fahrenheit in North Dakota tomorrow. In the meantime, winter storms have produced severe flooding in a handful of states, with 11 people killed in recent days. via WaPo and Axios.
  • As Trump Guts the FAA, SpaceX Swoops In I'm getting tired of saying it, but Trump and DOGE are firing more middle-class career government workers, with several hundred employees at the Federal Aviation Administration being the latest victims. The firings come amid a spate of recent air accidents – including a plane that overturned while landing in Toronto yesterday – and a lengthy body of reporting warning about understaffed, under-resourced, and over-stressed aviation infrastructure across the country. But fear not: according to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, SpaceX engineers are on their way to an FAA command center to implement "rapid safety upgrades." via AP News and Politico.

SOME NUMBER

20

That's how many people in the FDA's office of neurological and physical medicine devices were among those fired in the recent sweeping DOGE cuts. "Several" of those fired FDA employees worked on regulatory issues related to Neuralink, Elon Musk's brain implant company. "It’s intimidating to the FDA professionals who are overseeing Neuralink’s trial," a former FDA official told Reuters.

DON'T MISS MR CLIPS‌

Project 2025 Is Very Real

And now that its architects are in charge of federal agencies, they can put their plan into action.

Trump's Valentine's Day Massacre

Jeet Heer joins the show to talk about the mass resignations at the Department of Justice.

PARTING WORDS

"The U.S. DOGE Service is a component of the Executive Office of the President. The U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization is within the U.S. DOGE Service. Both are separate from the White House Office. Mr. Musk is an employee in the White House Office. He is not an employee of the U.S. DOGE Service or U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization. Mr. Musk is not the U.S. DOGE Service Administrator."

-- White House official Joshua Fisher, in a declaration filed in a lawsuit by the state of New Mexico against Musk and DOGE, promises that Musk is not in charge of DOGE.

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