Trump’s Washington

How President Trump is changing government, the country and its politics.

Good evening. President Trump ignored questions about the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein on Friday, as pressure from his supporters seeking information on the case intensified. We’ll start with the latest on that case — and then my colleague Eileen Sullivan explains why, for some federal workers, getting fired is only the beginning. — Jess Bidgood

President Trump likes to get his way. But he has not yet succeeded in getting the public to move beyond a storm of criticism and conspiracy theories about the Epstein case, some of which are coming from his own supporters.

When getting fired is only the beginning

	By Eileen Sullivan

The week after Martin Basch was fired from his federal job in February, he started applying for state unemployment benefits in Ohio, his home state, determined to find a new path.

But he soon found himself facing an unexpected snag: He kept receiving paychecks, beyond his official termination date of March 14.

This might not seem like a problem. But for Basch, it was a sign of the chaotic and costly limbo in which he and many other federal workers have found themselves as President Trump seeks to streamline the federal government.

I’ve been talking to federal workers for months about the mass firings’ impact on them, and one thing has been clear: The cuts have been anything but straightforward and efficient.

For many, the layoff was just the beginning. Workers have found themselves locked in a Kafkaesque cycle of getting fired and rehired, and some have struggled to track down the documentation they need to move on.

Basic questions, elusive answers

Their terminations came abruptly, and with little explanation. Legal challenges have added more chaos as judges ordered thousands of fired workers to be temporarily reinstated, and higher courts have reversed some of those decisions.

Many have been on paid leave, watching the courts and waiting to hear from their agencies.

For some of them, the Supreme Court decisions allowing the administration to proceed with layoffs at certain agencies might actually come as a relief. (Basch, for example, was temporarily reinstated by a court case, and he was placed on paid leave; his termination was made official by a ruling in May.)

As I checked in with some of them over the past few months, they described how they were struggling getting answers to pretty basic questions. Am I employed? Am I still covered by my government health insurance? Can you please send me the paperwork I need to prove that I am fired so I can apply for unemployment?

Calls and emails were ignored or redirected.

The process has been excruciating, they told me. But now they were placed on hold, stranded in a web of federal benefits coordinators and insurance carriers, either one of which would be enough to cause a nervous breakdown.

It was the bureaucratic version of the old Abbott and Costello routine, “Who’s on first?” Except the umpire blew up the field, and the bases are in pieces.

An endless loop

Sarah Garman, who was fired from the Internal Revenue Service, found herself stuck in a loop with the government and her insurance carrier, each one telling her to call the other.

For Erin Czajkowski, who was fired from her job at Housing and Urban Development, untangling these issues became a full-time job, so much so that she hardly had time to mourn the one she lost.

Yvonne Robertson, whose division at the General Services Administration was eliminated in layoffs announced in March, has been passed from one person to another as she has tried to obtain basic information that the government is supposed to provide employees in these circumstances.

First, Robertson asked the government to explain the so-called reduction in force process and what she was entitled to. When that went nowhere, she dug up the rules around the process herself, spending hours on research, and then reached out again, this time requesting specific documents. In the few instances she did get a response from the government, the information it provided was incomplete or inaccurate, she said.

“It’s almost a do-it-yourself firing,” Robertson said.

IN HIS WORDS

Trump lashes out at a longtime frenemy

The Epstein saga has not ended for President Trump, and it could be costing him a friend. My colleague Minho Kim explains.

The fallout seems to have dealt a blow to Trump’s longtime friendship (albeit a tumultuous one) with Rupert Murdoch, the conservative media mogul.

The Wall Street Journal, the flagship Murdoch newspaper, published an article on Thursday night detailing a bawdy correspondence between Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender. The letter that bears Trump’s name alludes to a “wonderful secret” shared by both men, framed by the outline of a naked woman, according to The Journal.

The president, who attended a soccer match on Sunday along with Murdoch, is now threatening to sue both the newspaper and its owner for the story he calls “fake.”

“These are not my words, not the way I talk,” Trump wrote on Friday on his social media site. “I told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldn’t print this.”

Their relationship dates to the 1980s, when Trump realized that Murdoch’s tabloids could aid his fame. For Murdoch, gossip columns on Trump brought more readership. After Trump’s first election, Murdoch gained direct access to the president, advising him on key matters. Their relationship remained rocky, largely mirroring Trump’s political fortunes.

But it is unclear whether the two can recover from this most recent crack.

Trump said he would sue Murdoch, as well as “his third rate newspaper.”

Got a tip?
The Times offers several ways to send important information confidentially.

IN ONE GRAPHIC

Sources: Public Media Company analysis with data from Corporation for Public Broadcasting; Medill Local News Initiative | By The New York Times

Congress handed President Trump a legislative victory — while surrendering some of its spending power — late last night when it approved his administration’s request to claw back $9 billion in federal funds for foreign aid and public broadcasting.

The public broadcasting cuts could profoundly reshape the nation’s media landscape, as these maps by my colleagues Elena Shao and Benjamin Mullin show, potentially leaving swaths of the country, particularly in conservative states and rural areas, without a service that distributes emergency alerts (as a station in Alaska did just this week after an earthquake) and educational programming.

It’s a cut some Republicans have been seeking for decades as they accused public media of having a liberal bias, my colleague Jim Rutenberg writes. That they have finally succeeded is a reflection of how views of mainstream media have changed.

ONE LAST THING

A schoolyard fight

It drew a lot of attention when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said he would nominate President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. It got less when Netanyahu said he would nominate the conservative commentator Mark Levin for the hall of fame at their shared alma mater, Cheltenham High School, in the Philadelphia suburbs. But it didn’t get by my colleague Kenneth Vogel, a fellow alum who covers lobbying. I asked him to tell us how he dove in to the story.

Over the weekend, I noticed the Cheltenham High School alumni Facebook group (of which I am a member) buzzing about a Fox News interview that Netanyahu, one of the school’s most famous alumni, recorded during his trip to the United States last week.

The host, Mark Levin, is also a Cheltenham grad, and when he complained that he wasn’t in the hall of fame, Netanyahu (who was inducted in 1999) offered to nominate him.

The suggestion set off a vigorous debate in the Facebook group about whether either man deserved the recognition, and as I poked around, I learned of a student effort to remove Netanyahu that had caught the attention of the alumni association and school district administrators. I got ahold of the petition and obtained permission from a couple of members of the Facebook group to quote their posts.

Yes, this was an ultra-local dispute. But it was also a story about a polarizing international debate playing out in an unexpected place, one that raised more nuanced questions about fame versus infamy and hometown pride.

I hope I did the story justice, because I have deep affection for the high school and the community. Go Panthers!

Minho Kim, Kenneth P. Vogel and Jess Bidgood contributed to this newsletter.

Read past editions of the newsletter here.

If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here.

Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.