Federal Actions on DEI, National Security, Citizenship (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: The president's action is now taking sweeping action to put a stamp on the federal government, including putting all employees working on DEI diversity programs and initiatives on paid administrative leave. Let's bring in our chief Washington correspondent, John Karl. Good morning, John.

Speaker 2: Good morning, George. There is a lot of confusion across the federal workforce this morning about several of these orders. This one on DEI calls for an end to all diversity, equity and inclusion programs across the federal government, telling the employees who work in such programs to stop working as of 5 o'clock yesterday on paid administrative leave. And George, further, the order was accompanied by a memo that went out to federal employees telling them that sometimes these DEI programs are hidden through, quote, coded or imprecise language. And it directed federal employees to report anybody secretly working on such programs. And if they do not report such people, they would have adverse consequences. There was another order that directed the Department of Justice to freeze all ongoing litigation out of the Civil Rights Division, very large division at the Department of Justice. And George, and yet another one, public health agencies, that would include the CDC and the FDA, have been directed to pause all external communications. This would theoretically include upcoming reports on the bird flu crisis.

Speaker 1: And John, 160 members of the national security staff in the White House have been sent back to their agencies.

Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the new national security adviser, Mike Waltz, telling these 160 career employees, many of them who are out of the Department of Defense or the Department of State, not to show up to work. There's going to be a review of all of them, Mike Waltz says, to ensure that all personnel working in the White House National Security Council support Trump's America First agenda. Really part of this effort to make sure that the White House is staffed thoroughly with loyalists to Donald Trump.

Speaker 1: And John, Trump's attempt to do away with the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, it's going to face its first legal test.

Speaker 2: Yeah, there's going to be a lot of legal challenges here. This is to undo what is in the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. That is that if you are born in the United States, you are an American citizen. Donald Trump's executive order on this tries to revoke that right. The first test of that will be in Seattle today. It's an effort to put a temporary restraining order on that while the inevitable legal challenges work their way through the courts. John Karl, thanks.