After overwhelming blowback from both sides of the aisle, President Donald Trump’s administration has agreed that DOGE will keep its hands off the World Trade Center Health Program, which provides medical care and monitoring to more than 100,000 9/11 first responders.
Last week, Elon Musk took his DOGE bulldozer to the WTC Health Program and terminated 20 percent of its staff. The decision received public criticism from both Democrats and Republicans, along with New Yorkers who have come to depend on the program.
“The World Trade Center Health Program has been a lifeline to sickened 9/11 responders, who selflessly gave so much,” said FDNY Commissioner Robert Tucker in response to the news. “Cuts to its grant funding will limit our ability to prove that new conditions are WTC-related, and should be added to the list of covered conditions. This will hinder our efforts to provide treatment coverage for new conditions, which is a tragedy for all Americans who swore they would never forget.”
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GOP Rep. Nicole Malliotakis was joined by eight other New York and New Jersey lawmakers who wrote Trump a letter Wednesday night urging him to reverse the harm Musk’s cost-cutting agency caused.
The GOP House lawmakers wrote: “We urge you, as a native New Yorker who lived in New York City as it recovered from the 9/11 terrorist attacks, to reverse these actions by rehiring the terminated probationary staff, restoring the canceled FDNY research grant contract, and fencing off the WTC Health Program, which was authorized in statute as mandatory spending, from any further staff and funding reductions.”
Malliotakis said Thursday night that the legislators “received confirmation from the White House that there will be no cuts to staffing at the World Trade Center Healthcare Program and research grants related to 9/11 illnesses.”
The news pleased New York Senator Chuck Schumer, who pointed to the decision to cut funding in the first place as “a clear example of the damaging Trump-DOGE shoot first, ask questions later approach for their rash cuts and layoffs.”
Read it at The Hill
