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Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) chief Elon Musk’s efforts to clean up waste and fraud in the federal government will soon shift its focus to the Social Security Administration (SSA) in a move likely to create a firestorm with Democrats.

The SSA, created by the Social Security Act under President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935 and tasked with establishing a federal benefits system for older Americans, will soon become a focus of DOGE, according to a report from Semafor that was not denied by the White House when contacted by Fox News Digital.

While several Democrats — including Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., in a post on X — have been quick to accuse this move as being aimed at slashing Social Security benefits for the elderly, several areas with potential waste exist in the agency that don’t involve cutting current benefits. 

Just Facts, a nonprofit research institute, previously reported that the agency disbursed roughly $2 billion in fraudulent or improper payments in 2022, which it calculated was enough ‘to pay 89,947 retired workers the average annual old-age benefit of $21,924 for 2023.’

Just Facts explained that through a policy known as ‘administrative finality,’ once the ‘SSA mistakenly overpays a beneficiary for more than four years, it does not recover past overpayments and deliberately continues to make future overpayments excepting cases of fraud.’

The SSA sent roughly 7,000 federal employees disability benefits in 2008 while they were still taking wages from federal jobs, according to a 2010 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The GAO estimated that about 1,500 of those individuals ‘may have improperly received benefits’ since their wages went beyond maximum income thresholds. The GAO investigation also found that over 71,000 ‘stimulus checks’ were sent by the Obama administration to people who were deceased, including 63,481 people whose deaths had been previously reported to the agency.

‘Social Security will not be touched, it will only be strengthened,’ President Donald Trump said during a press conference on Friday. ‘We have illegal immigrants on Social Security and we’re going to find out who they are and take them out.’

Trump added, ‘We’re going to strengthen our Social Security, etc. We’re not going to touch it other than to make it stronger. But we have people that shouldn’t be on, and those people we have to weed out, most of them, or many of them, so far, have been illegal immigrants.’

On Friday afternoon, White House Principal Deputy Communications Director Alex Pfeiffer posted a report on X from the Center for Immigration Studies in 2021 that said, ‘We estimate that there are 2.65 million illegal immigrants with Social Security numbers.’

Trump added that DOGE will go through ‘everything’ when it comes to waste and fraud in the federal government.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, a spokesperson for the SSA said, ‘We remain focused and vigilant on the integrity of our programs and take seriously our responsibilities to deter fraud, waste, and abuse.’

DOGE has dominated news headlines over the past week as Musk’s team has moved to slash USAID’s $40 billion spending budget and put on leave the vast majority of its employees, as photos of the sign at the door of the agency’s Washington, D.C., headquarters being taken down have circulated on social media.

Musk has said that both he and Trump ‘agreed’ that the agency should be ‘shut down.’ Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has been named acting director of the independent agency, on Monday echoed the sentiment, telling reporters, ‘USAID is not functioning.’

‘It needs to be aligned with the national interest of the U.S. They’re not a global charity, these are taxpayer dollars. People are asking simple questions. What are they doing with the money?’ Rubio continued. ‘We are spending taxpayers’ money. We owe the taxpayers assurances that it furthers our national interest.’

Democrats held a rally outside the Treasury Department earlier this week blasting the DOGE efforts as a threat to democracy. 

‘Elon Musk is a Nazi nepo baby, a godless lawless billionaire, who no one elected,’ Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., said at a rally, sparking pushback from conservatives on social media.

‘Elon, this is the American people. This is not your trashy Cybertruck that you can just dismantle, pick apart, and sell the pieces of.’

Fox News Digital’s Stephen Sorace contributed to this report.

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Democratic attorneys general from 19 states have filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration over the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) access to sensitive, personal data belonging to Americans at the Treasury Department. 

The lawsuit claims the Elon Musk-run agency illegally accessed the Treasury Department’s central payment system at the Trump administration’s behest. 

On Thursday, the Treasury agreed to limit the Musk team’s access to its payment systems while a judge hears arguments in a previous lawsuit filed by a group of employee unions and retirees. 

The lawsuit, filed Monday, claimed Musk’s team violated the law by being given ‘full access’ to the Treasury’s payment systems.

The payment systems have information about Americans’ Social Security, Medicare and veterans’ benefits, tax refund information and much more. 

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told FOX Business Wednesday the concerns are not valid. 

‘DOGE is not going to fail,’ he said. ‘They are moving a lot of people’s cheese here in the capital, and when you hear this squawking, then some status quo interest is not happy.

‘At the Treasury, our payment system is not being touched. We process 1.3 billion payments a year. There is a study being done — can we have more accountability, more accuracy, more traceability that the money is going where it is? But, in terms of payments being stopped, that is happening upstream at the department level.’

DOGE was launched to root out wasteful spending in the government, and it has already come close to closing the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). 

The lawsuit was filed in New York by the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James, a vocal Trump critic. 

It includes attorneys general from Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.

‘President Trump does not have the power to give away Americans’ private information to anyone he chooses, and he cannot cut federal payments approved by Congress,’ James said in a statement. ‘Musk and DOGE have no authority to access Americans’ private information and some of our country’s most sensitive data.’

Treasury officials on Wednesday denied violating privacy laws, saying only two members of the DOGE team had been given ‘read-only’ access to information in the payment systems. 

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. 

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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday addressed events in Afghanistan, saying they created the perception of ‘American weakness.’

While speaking to the Department of Defense and Pentagon workforce during a town hall on Friday, Hegseth said America ‘deserves to take accountability for’ events in Afghanistan, the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel, and the war that was unleashed in Ukraine. 

‘Chaos happens when the perception of American strength is not complete,’ Hegseth said. ‘We aim to re-establish that deterrence.’

He discussed the three pillars he will focus on during his term – reviving the warrior ethos, restoring trust in the military and rebuilding it by matching threats to capabilities, and reestablishing deterrence by defending the homeland.

Hegseth also spoke about the broken windows theory in policing, explaining that disregarding the small things in the military can create large problems.

‘I think the same thing exists inside our services – making sure at every level, there [are] standards and accountability, and that we live it at the highest levels,’ he said.

That is why, Hegseth said, the U.S. will look back at what happened in Afghanistan.

He added the department will hold people accountable.

‘Not to be retrospective, not for retribution, but to understand what went wrong and why there was no accountability for it,’ Hegseth said.

Going forward, the military will find strength in unity, not diversity, according to Hegseth.

‘I think the single dumbest phrase in military history is ‘our diversity is our strength,’’ he said. ‘Our strength is our shared purpose – regardless of our background, regardless of how we grew up, regardless of our gender, regardless of our race. 

In the department, Hegseth said everyone will be treated equally.

‘We will treat everyone with fairness,’ he said. ‘We will treat everyone with respect.’

Service members and department civilian employees will be judged by their merit, commitment to the team, and the mission, according to Hegseth.

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President Donald Trump on Friday announced he is revoking former President Joe Biden’s security clearances and stopping his daily intelligence briefings.

‘There is no need for Joe Biden to continue receiving access to classified information,’ Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social Friday night.

The privileges will be revoked immediately, according to the president.

He added the precedent was set by Biden himself.

‘He set this precedent in 2021, when he instructed the Intelligence Community (IC) to stop the 45th President of the United States (ME!) from accessing details on National Security, a courtesy provided to former Presidents,’ Trump wrote. 

The president noted the Hur Report, which he claimed ‘revealed that Biden suffers from ‘poor memory’ and, even in his ‘prime,’ could not be trusted with sensitive information,’ according to the post.

Special Counsel Robert Hur submitted a report on Biden’s alleged improper retention of classified records, which confirmed the former president’s frequent memory lapses and contradicted his claims.

Hur also testified in March that he found evidence that ‘pride and money’ motivated Biden to retain classified documents.

However, he did not recommend criminal charges against Biden.

Trump wrote in the post that he will always protect National Security.

‘JOE, YOU’RE FIRED. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN,’ he wrote.

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President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order cutting all foreign aid to South Africa, citing concerns about the country ‘seizing’ ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation.

Trump alleged South Africa’s recently enacted Expropriation Act 13 of 2024 ‘dismantles equal opportunity in employment, education, and business.’

The order notes ‘hateful rhetoric’ and government actions have been ‘fueling disproportionate violence against racially disfavored landowners.’

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa previously released a statement arguing that no land was confiscated.

‘We look forward to engaging with the Trump administration over our land reform policy and issues of bilateral interest,’ according to the statement. ‘We are certain that out of those engagements, we will share a better and common understanding over these matters.’

The act permits the country to take land for a public purpose or in the public interest, while offering just and equitable compensation. 

However, Fox News Digital previously reported expropriation has yet to happen.

Elon Musk, leader of the DOGE team, publicly commented on the matter, accusing Ramaphosa of having ‘openly racist ownership laws.

The executive order also claims South Africa has taken ‘aggressive’ positions toward the U.S. by accusing Israel of genocide – instead of Hamas, and ‘reinvigorating’ its relationship with Iran to develop commercial, military, and nuclear arrangements.

Pointing to those concerns, the executive order states the U.S. cannot support the South African government’s alleged commission of rights violations.

In addition to eliminating aid and assistance, the order notes the U.S. will promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored, race-based discrimination -which includes racially discriminatory property confiscation.

The Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security will prioritize humanitarian relief, including admission and resettlement through the United States Refugee Admissions Program, according to the order.

Fox News Digital’s Paul Tilsley contributed to this story.

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President Donald Trump welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benajamin Netanyahu to the White House Tuesday, marking the first visit from a foreign leader during Trump’s second term. 

During Netanyahu’s visit, Trump also unveiled massive plans suggesting that the U.S. would ‘take over’ the Gaza Strip in a ‘long-term ownership position’ to deliver stability to the region. 

‘The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it, too,’ Trump said Tuesday evening in a joint press conference with Netanyahu. ‘We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous, unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site.’

Even so, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president wouldn’t commit to placing U.S. troops on the ground in Gaza as part of the rebuilding effort. 

‘It’s been made very clear to the president that the United States needs to be involved in this rebuilding effort, to ensure stability in the region for all people,’ Leavitt told reporters Wednesday at a White House press briefing. ‘But that does not mean boots on the ground in Gaza. It does not mean American taxpayers will be funding this effort. It means Donald Trump, who is the best dealmaker on the planet, is going to strike a deal with our partners in the region.’

Leavitt said that Trump is an ‘outside-of-the-box thinker’ who is ‘a visionary leader who solves problems that many others, especially in this city, claim are unsolvable.’

The announcement sparked backlash though from Democratic lawmakers, to leaders of Palestinian militant group, Hamas. 

‘What President Trump stated about his intention to displace the residents of the Gaza Strip outside it and the United States’ control over the Strip by force is a crime against humanity,’ a senior Hamas official told Fox News on Wednesday.

Here are some other actions Trump took his second week in office: 

Maximum pressure on Iran 

Trump also reinstated his ‘maximum pressure’ campaign against Iran, instructing the Treasury Department to execute ‘maximum economic pressure’ upon Iran through a series of sanctions aimed at sinking Iran’s oil exports. 

Trump said Tuesday that he was ‘torn’ about signing the order and admitted he was ‘unhappy to do it,’ noting that the executive order was very tough on Iran. 

‘Hopefully, we’re not going to have to use it very much,’ Trump told reporters Tuesday. 

Trump later told reporters in a joint press conference with Netanyahu that he believes Iran is ‘close’ to developing a nuclear weapon, but that the U.S. would stop a ‘strong’ Tehran from obtaining one.

‘They’re very strong right now, and we’re not going to let them get a nuclear weapon,’ Trump said. 

His first administration also adopted a ‘maximum pressure’ initiative against Tehran, issuing greater sanctions and harsher enforcement for violations.

Strict sanctions were reimposed upon Iran after Trump withdrew from the Iran deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, in May 2018. The 2015 agreement brokered under the Obama administration had lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange for limits on Iran’s nuclear program.

Sanctions against the International Criminal Court 

Trump also signed an executive order sanctioning the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday, in response to its May 2024 arrest warrant for Netanyahu.

The order — which was lauded by even some top Democrats — unveils financial sanctions and visa restrictions against ICC officials and their family members who support ICC investigations against U.S. citizens and allies. 

The White House also signed executive orders on Thursday instructing the Justice Department to establish a task force dedicated to weeding out ‘anti-Christian bias,’ and a review of all nongovernmental organizations that accept federal funds.

The ICC is an independent, international organization based in The Hague and established under the Rome Statute, an international treaty that took effect in 2002. The court oversees global issues including genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. 

The Trump White House claims that the U.S. and Israel are not subject to the jurisdiction of the ICC because the court poses threats to U.S. sovereignty and constitutional protections. Additionally, the White House has accused the ICC of politicization and said it has targeted Israel without holding regimes like Iran to the same standards. 

Sovereign Wealth Fund 

The U.S. Treasury and Commerce Departments will establish a sovereign wealth fund in accordance with a new executive order Trump signed on Monday. 

The sovereign wealth fund, a state-owned investment fund with various financial assets like stocks and bonds, could foot the bill for purchasing TikTok, according to Trump. 

‘We’re going to be doing something perhaps with TikTok, and perhaps not,’ Trump told reporters Monday. ‘If we make the right deal, we’ll do it. Otherwise, we won’t.’

Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said the sovereign wealth fund would be created within the next 12 months. 

 

‘I think it’s going to create value and be of great strategic importance,’ Bessent told reporters Monday. 

Bessent and Commerce Secretary nominee Howard Lutnick are instructed to devise a plan in the next 90 days for the creation of the fund, according to the White House. The proposal will include recommendations on funding mechanisms, investment strategies, fund structure and a governance model. 

More details on the sovereign wealth fund were not immediately available, and it’s unclear whether Congress will sign off on it. 

Fox News’ Greg Norman contributed to this report. 

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Hamas released three more hostages on Saturday in exchange for dozens of Palestinian prisoners as part of the ceasefire deal reached with Israel.

Or Levy, 34; Eli Sharabi, 52; Ohad Ben Ami, 56, were released by Hamas after they were abducted during the terror group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack against Israel that prompted the war in Gaza.

The trio were released from Deir al-Balah in the central part of the Gaza Strip. The hostages arrived at the hand-over point in a Hamas vehicle.

Red Cross vehicles also arrived at the location. 

This was the fifth time since the ceasefire began on Jan. 19 that Hamas released hostages in exchange for prisoners. Eighteen hostages and more than 550 Palestinian prisoners have been released thus far.

The ceasefire paused the 15-month war in Gaza sparked by Hamas’ attack on the Jewish State, leading to military retaliation from Israeli forces.

Fox News’ Yael Rotem-Kuriel and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Southern California Edison acknowledged Thursday that videos have suggested a possible link between the utility’s equipment and the devastating Eaton Fire in Los Angeles.

But the company has not identified evidence to confirm this, according to a filing with the California Public Utilities Commission. The Eaton Fire, which is now contained, burned about 14,000 acres, destroyed thousands of buildings, killed at least 17 civilians and injured nine firefighters.

“SCE is undertaking a careful and thorough investigation and does not know what caused the ignition of the fire,” the utility said in its filing. The company has not found broken conductors, arch marks, or evidence of faults on energized lines in the area where the Eaton Fire started.

Southern California Edison believes its equipment may have sparked the smaller Hurst Fire, according to a separate filing with the commission. The Hurst blaze, which is also contained, burned about 800 acres. Two homes were damaged by the fire, according to the utility’s filing. No deaths have been reported.

Shares of Edison International, the parent company of Southern California Edison, were trading about 1% lower.

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OpenAI said on Thursday that the company is considering building data center campuses in 16 states that have indicated “real interest” in the project, which is linked to President Donald Trump’s Stargate plans.

On a call with reporters, OpenAI executives said it sent out a request for proposals (RFP) to states less than a week ago.

“A project of this size represents an opportunity to both re-industrialize parts of the country, but also to help revitalize where the American Dream is going to go in this intelligence age,” Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s vice president of global policy, said on the call.

Shortly after his inauguration last month, President Trump introduced Stargate, a joint venture between OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank to bolster U.S. artificial intelligence infrastructure. Key initial technology partners will include Microsoft, Nvidia and Oracle, as well as semiconductor company Arm. They said they would invest $100 billion to start and up to $500 billion over the next four years.

The 16 states OpenAI is currently considering are Arizona, California, Florida, Louisiana, Maryland, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and West Virginia.

Construction on the data centers in Abilene, Texas, is currently underway. In the coming months, OpenAI will begin announcing additional construction sites “on a rolling basis,” according to the presentation. Each campus is designed to support about one gigawatt of power or more.

OpenAI is aiming to build five to 10 data center campuses total, although executives said that number could rise or fall depending on how much power each campus offers.

The company also said it expects each data center campus to generate thousands of jobs. That includes construction and operational roles. But Stargate’s first data center in Abilene could lead to the creation of just 57 jobs, according to recent reports.

When OpenAI executives were asked how much electricity and water the data centers are expected to consume and how many workers they will employ, Keith Heyde, director of infrastructure strategy and deployment, said there were some sites where the company may look to partner with a utility and help develop other power-generation methods.

Heyde also said the company is looking into a “light water-footprint design.” Lehane declined to offer specifics about water usage.

Large-scale data centers have sparked controversy in recent years for their staggering environmental costs. The facilities consume a much as 50 times more energy per square foot than an average commercial office building, according to Energy.gov, and they’re responsible for approximately 2% of total U.S. electricity use.

In 2022, Google said that the average Google data center the prior year consumed approximately 450,000 gallons of water per day for server cooling. At least one data center it built could use between one and four million gallons of water per day, Time reported.

But the pressure to advance AI in the U.S. is picking up due to the speedy pace of development in China.

DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup lab, saw its app soar to the top of Apple’s App Store rankings after its debut and roiled U.S. markets early last week on reports that its powerful model was trained at a fraction of the cost of U.S. competitors.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has praised DeepSeek’s model publicly, calling it “clearly a great model” at an event last week.

“This is a reminder of the level of competition and the need for democratic Al to win,” Altman said at the event, adding that it points to the “level of interest in reasoning, the level of interest in open source.”

Lehane said it’s all adding urgency to efforts in the U.S.

“Right now, there’s really only two countries in the world that can build this AI at scale,” Lehane said on Thursday. “One is the CCP-led China, and the other is the United States, and so that’s sort of the context that we’re operating in. Up until relatively recently, there was a real sense that the U.S. had a material lead on the CCP.”

He added that reports surrounding DeepSeek made “really clear that this is a very real competition, and the stakes could not be bigger. Whoever ends up prevailing in this competition is going to really shape what the world looks like going forward.”

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New Orleans is preparing for an estimated 125,000 visitors and a presidential visit during the weekend of Super Bowl 59, as the reigning champion Kansas City Chiefs take on the Philadelphia Eagles at the Caesars Superdome.

Local businesses are ready, and hotel demand is surging.

Tripadvisor said demand for hotel rooms in New Orleans surged 637% this week as fans of the competing NFL teams scurry to find lodging. Interest from travelers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey has increased more than 14 times, and interest from people in Kansas and Missouri is up 8.5 times since the division championship games in the last week of January, the travel site said.

As of Thursday morning, the average hotel room was going for $650 per night, according to Hotels.com, which is owned by Expedia.

Caesars has the spotlight, however. Along with naming rights to the New Orleans Saints’ stadium, where the NFL championship will be played, Caesars also holds lucrative status as the only casino in New Orleans.

The company has rolled out the red carpet with a nearly half-billion-dollar overhaul of what was formerly a Harrah’s-branded property, and it is using the big game to introduce the brand to new customers.

The biggest football game of the year comes just weeks after a New Year’s Day attack that took place in the city’s French Quarter and killed 14 people, putting New Orleans on high alert.

Security around town is tight. State police, city police and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security all have a heavy presence.

At an NFL briefing on Monday, law enforcement said more than 700 different types of Homeland Security officials will be on the ground during the Super Bowl, and that was before President Donald Trump indicated plans to attend the game.

“I am confident that the safest areas to be in the country this weekend is under the security umbrella our team has put together,” said Cathy Lanier, the NFL’s chief security officer.

Since the Jan. 1 attack in New Orleans, NFL Executive Vice President Jeff Miller said the league has redoubled its safety efforts.

“We added resources, and we feel really good about where we are,” Miller told CNBC.

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