The ongoing effort to smear the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and its related federal job cuts has officially pivoted to the ridiculous. In an over-the-top piece for NBC Nightly News, Senior White House Correspondent Kelly O’Donnell politicizes the firings while completely burying the lede.
Watch as the report opens by flimsily linking the firings to the recent rash of plane crashes, and featuring a now-former employee’s concerns over public safety (click “expand” to view transcript):
TOM LLAMAS: We're back now with growing questions tonight about air safety. The Trump administration has fired hundreds of FAA employees, part of its effort to reshape the federal workforce. Here's Kelly O'Donnell.
KELLY O’DONNELL: With alarming, real-world incidents, the crucial mission of public safety faces an internal test as the federal workforce is under scrutiny and hit with job cuts. President Trump's Department of Government Efficiency and Elon Musk's DOGE team continue to make cuts, including at the Federal Aviation Administration. Close to 300 FAA employees terminated this weekend, according to a union that represents workers there. 28-year-old Jason King was at FAA for eight months.
When you were doing your job at FAA, did you believe you were helping to make the public safer?
JASON KING: I actually did.
O’DONNELL: King, an Army veteran with a service-related disability, says he worries cuts could be too deep.
KING: Even for the people that are still there, their workload has drastically increased, and I think that's where a big part of my concern for public safety comes in.
This was the remainder of the tone throughout this politicized report, as O’Donnell jumped from the FAA, to the CDC, and to FEMA. Ominous and foretelling some sort of disaster.
O’Donnell then pivoted to DOGE employees requesting access to systems at the Internal Revenue Service, complete with ominous graphics reminiscent of The Matrix, and an assurance by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller that personal financial data will be secure.
This report served little purpose except to continue to further the effort to unsettle the public as the Trump administration moves ahead with the reforms that the American public voted for, and which polling suggests they approve of. In so doing O’Donnell buried the lede, which would’ve calmed the public’s concerns over cuts at the FAA relative to air travel, but also completely unwound the premise of the story.
And by buried, I mean literally. As in at the end of the report:
TOM LLAMAS: And Kelly, is there new reaction tonight to the firings at the FAA with this new plane crash?
KELLY O’DONNELL: We’ve heard from a Democratic senator who said today that these cuts have injected unnecessary risk, but a spokesperson for the Department of Transportation says the FAA is continuing to hire air traffic controllers, and has retained employees who perform critical safety functions. Tom.
LLAMAS: All right, Kelly O’Donnell at The White House for us. Kelly, thank you.
The media will continue to wonder why they’ve lost the public’s trust, not stopping to consider that stories like these had a large part in that loss of trust.
Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on NBC Nightly News on Monday, February 17th, 2025:
TOM LLAMAS: We're back now with growing questions tonight about air safety. The Trump administration has fired hundreds of FAA employees, part of its effort to reshape the federal workforce. Here's Kelly O'Donnell.
KELLY O’DONNELL: With alarming, real-world incidents, the crucial mission of public safety faces an internal test as the federal workforce is under scrutiny and hit with job cuts. President Trump's Department of Government Efficiency and Elon Musk's DOGE team continue to make cuts, including at the Federal Aviation Administration. Close to 300 FAA employees terminated this weekend, according to a union that represents workers there. 28-year-old Jason King was at FAA for eight months.
When you were doing your job at FAA, did you believe you were helping to make the public safer?
JASON KING: I actually did.
O’DONNELL: King, an Army veteran with a service-related disability, says he worries cuts could be too deep.
KING: Even for the people that are still there, their workload has drastically increased, and I think that's where a big part of my concern for public safety comes in.
O’DONNELL: Other federal job cuts may also be linked to public safety. 400 layoffs at Homeland Security, including 200 positions at FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Hundreds fired from the Centers for Disease Control including about two dozen who support outbreak response, according to agency sources.
Protests across the country turning this President's Day holiday into a day of action, from the winter chill of Albany to sunshine in Orlando.
PROTESTERS: We win!
O’DONNELL: The west coast, to the nation's capital.
PROTESTER: The people are going to feel it eventually.
O’DONNELL: Meanwhile, an employee affiliated with DOGE is expected to seek access to an IRS system that holds sensitive information. Today Trump adviser Stephen Miller insisted Americans' personal financial data will be secure.
STEPHEN MILLER: I give you complete and total assurance on that point. We are talking about performing a basic anti-fraud review to ensure that people are not engaging of large-scale theft of federal taxpayer benefits.
TOM LLAMAS: And Kelly, is there new reaction tonight to the firings at the FAA with this new plane crash?
O’DONNELL: We’ve heard from a Democratic senator who said today that these cuts have injected unnecessary risk, but a spokesperson for the Department of Transportation says the FAA is continuing to hire air traffic controllers, and has retained employees who perform critical safety functions. Tom.
LLAMAS: All right, Kelly O’Donnell at The White House for us. Kelly, thank you.
