After a few weeks of Shock and Awe, the Resistance vibe has fully returned to ABC Whirled News Tonight. A goofy item by Chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce demonstrates that the media have no playbook for Trump except the one they ran in 2017.
Here’s how the report closed: with caterwauling over the ongoing reduction of force at the federal government, and with classist whining over Elon Musk’s influence:
MARY BRUCE: 75,000 federal workers have accepted the administration's buyout offer to get paid until September or risk being laid off. About 3% of the federal workforce. Less than the 5% to 10% the administration was hoping for. That offer now closed, and tonight, we're learning mass layoffs for those who didn't take the offer have begun, with thousands of people expected to be let go. The Department of Education yesterday firing 40 employees hired over the last year. In a letter, telling them: “the agency finds based on your performance, that you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the agency would be in the public interest.” Meanwhile, Musk, who also runs SpaceX, Tesla, and the social media platform X, and has billions of dollars in federal contracts, today sitting down with Indian Prime Minister Modi at Blair House, even before his visit with the president. Musk there with his young children, sitting opposite visiting Indian diplomats. The president asked, was Musk meeting Modi as a private citizen or as a member of the administration?
DONALD TRUMP: I would imagine he met possibly because, you know, he's running a company.
REPORTER: How does Modi know whether he's meeting with the CEO or meeting with a representative of your government?
TRUMP: Well, he's meeting with me in a little while, so, I'm going to ask him that question.
BRUCE: Now, David, Elon Musk said that entire agencies will need to be deleted and tonight, we have learned that people at several agencies have now been told they've been fired as part of these mass layoffs. People that worked at the Education Department, the EPA, the Office of Personnel Management, the Small Business Administration, and other agencies tonight being told they no longer have a job. And David, thousands more are expected to be impacted.
DAVID MUIR: Mary Bruce on the breaking news, the mass firings now underway. Mary, thank you.
The report opened with a return to form for anchor David Muir: delivering a nearly minute-long lead-in to Mary Bruce that could’ve very well been its own brief. Bruce’s report opens with fearmongering on tariffs, and a specious tie-in to the recent inflation report. At 3%, the media are rushing to tie the January report to Trump despite his being in office for only 10 days last month.
Bruce then moves to the workforce reductions, which began immediately after the buyout deadline expired. Bruce went agency by agency, as if she were reading a victims’ list of some mass casualty event. Won’t someone think of the poor, beleaguered agencies?
Bruce then moves to Elon Musk’s meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, suggesting the appearance of impropriety and sounding scoldy over the fact that some of Musk’s children were present. Bruce wraps with one more plug about the agencies before tossing back to Muir who does the same
The report was pointless except to incite an overall sense of anxiety over the Trump administration. Whether on government firings, tariffs, or Elon Musk and DOGE (which went unmentioned but hung over the entire report like a thick fog), the media really have no footing except to whine.
Mary Bruce’s Biden apple-polishing days seem like a distant memory, deleted by DOGE.
Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on ABC World News tonight on Thursday, February 13th, 2025:
DAVID MUIR: But we do begin here with the mass firings at multiple federal agencies at this hour. Sources telling ABC News tonight that the layoffs have begun, just hours after the offer from President Trump ended that offer to take a buyout or risk getting laid off. Tonight, the firings have begun. And it comes just hours after Elon Musk said at a global conference, we have to, quote, “delete entire agencies.” And tonight, 24 hours after new inflation numbers show prices on the rise here in the U.S., President Trump signing a new executive action warning that he will put tariffs on any country that places tariffs on America. The president was asked, will this raise prices even more? ABC's Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce on the tariffs and the firings now underway tonight.
MARY BRUCE: After threatening tariffs on Mexico and Canada, slapping new tariffs on China, and expanding tariffs on steel and aluminum, tonight President Trump putting the whole world on notice. The president laying out a plan for sweeping new tariffs on countries who tax American goods. A move that could upend global trade and threatens to spike inflation here at home.
DONALD TRUMP: Whatever they charge us, we're charging them, so it works out very well. It's very -- it's a beautiful, simple system.
BRUCE: The president says it's a matter of fairness, directing his team to come up with a system of tariffs, declaring: “whatever countries charge the United States of America, we will charge them. No more, no less. But economists warn higher tariffs on imports are paid by American companies who pass the costs along to consumers in the form of higher prices. And the president's announcement comes just 24 hours after that new report showing inflation on the rise, now up 3%. Americans paying more for food, energy, medical bills, and car insurance. The president acknowledging prices could go up in the short-term.
TRUMP: There could be some short-term disturbance, but long-term, it's going -- it's going to make our country a fortune
KAITLAN COLLINS: So, Americans should prepare for short-term pain?
TRUMP: You said that, I didn't say that.
COLLINS: Well, if the prices go up --
TRUMP: Let's see what happens.
BRUCE: The president adamant his new policies will leave America flooded with jobs, even as he slashes the federal workforce. The effort spearheaded by Elon Musk, who told an international conference entire federal agencies will be on the chopping block.
ELON MUSK: I think we do need to delete entire agencies, as opposed to leave part of them behind, because if you leave part of them behind, it's easy, just kind of like-- if you don't remove the roots of the weed, then it's easy for the weed to grow back. If you remove the roots of the weed, it doesn’t ever stop weeds from growing back but it makes it harder.
BRUCE: 75,000 federal workers have accepted the administration's buyout offer to get paid until September or risk being laid off. About 3% of the federal workforce. Less than the 5% to 10% the administration was hoping for. That offer now closed, and tonight, we're learning mass layoffs for those who didn't take the offer have begun, with thousands of people expected to be let go. The Department of Education yesterday firing 40 employees hired over the last year. In a letter, telling them: “the agency finds based on your performance, that you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the agency would be in the public interest.” Meanwhile, Musk, who also runs SpaceX, Tesla, and the social media platform X, and has billions of dollars in federal contracts, today sitting down with Indian Prime Minister Modi at Blair House, even before his visit with the president. Musk there with his young children, sitting opposite visiting Indian diplomats. The president asked, was Musk meeting Modi as a private citizen or as a member of the administration?
TRUMP: I would imagine he met possibly because, you know, he's running a company.
REPORTER: How does Modi know whether he's meeting with the CEO or meeting with a representative of your government?
TRUMP: Well, he's meeting with me in a little while, so, I'm going to ask him that question.
BRUCE: Now, David, Elon Musk said that entire agencies will need to be deleted and tonight, we have learned that people at several agencies have now been told they've been fired as part of these mass layoffs. People that worked at the Education Department, the EPA, the Office of Personnel Management, the Small Business Administration, and other agencies tonight being told they no longer have a job. And David, thousands more are expected to be impacted.
MUIR: Mary Bruce on the breaking news, the mass firings now underway. Mary, thank you.
