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Jim Jones, head of FDA’s food division, resigns after job cuts at the agency

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The head of the Food and Drug Administration’s food division resigned on Monday after stating widespread cuts across the agency will make it challenging to meet the Trump administration’s desired changes, according to a report.

Jim Jones cited the termination of 89 staffers in the food division, criticizing the layoffs over the weekend as “indiscriminate,” Bloomberg News reported Monday evening.

“I was looking forward to working to pursue the department’s agenda of improving the health of Americans by reducing diet-related chronic disease and risks from chemicals in food,” he wrote in his resignation letter to Acting FDA Commissioner Sara Brenner, according to the outlet.

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The head of the FDA’s food division, Jim Jones, resigned on Monday following layoffs within the division that he argues were “indiscriminate.” (FDA / Fox News)

Jones said it would be “fruitless for me to continue in this role” because of the Trump administration’s “disdain for the very people” needed to make the changes it wants.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to Jones’ resignation, saying some “bureaucrats” are resistant to the “mandate delivered by the American people” in an email to Bloomberg News.

“President Trump is only interested in the best and most qualified people who are also willing to implement his America First Agenda on behalf of the American people,” she told the outlet. “It’s not for everyone, and that’s okay.”

Jim Jones allegedly said it would be “fruitless” for him to continue working as the head of the FDA’s food division because of the Trump administration’s “disdain” for the people needed to make its desired changes possible. (Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images / Getty Images)

The staffers who lost their jobs over the weekend include employees with “highly technical expertise in nutrition, infant formula, food safety response,” Jones said in his letter, noting that 10 terminated staffers were responsible for reviewing potentially unsafe ingredients in food.

Jones led a successful push to ban red dye No. 3, which had its authorization revoked by the FDA last month while former President Joe Biden was still in office.

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will lead the Department of Health and Human Services under President Donald Trump. (iStock / iStock)

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in as the Health and Human Services secretary on Thursday after running a “Make America Healthy Again” campaign with Trump.

Trump has nominated Johns Hopkins surgeon Marty Makary to lead the FDA, although he has not yet been confirmed.

February 18, 2025
Trump budget bill vote delayed amid House Republicans division on spending

A key vote to advance a massive conservative policy bill has been delayed, putting House Republicans behind in their ambitious schedule to enact President Donald Trump’s agenda.

The House Budget Committee had initially aimed to go through and approve the legislation this week, but a source familiar with planning told Fox News Digital that is no longer the case.

It comes after conservatives on the panel rejected multiple offers by House GOP leaders on where to set a baseline for cutting federal spending, urging senior Republicans to seek deeper cuts ahead of negotiations with the Senate.

“I guess they want to get the resolution out. I do, too. I want to get it out of committee, have an up or down vote. But if you set that floor too low, that’s all that’s going to be achieved,” Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., who sits on the House Budget Committee, told Fox News Digital on Monday. “I have no confidence that they would exceed whatever level we put in there.”

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Speaker Mike Johnson is navigating a razor-thin House majority while trying to enact President Trump’s agenda. (Getty Images)

Norman is one of several members of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus who sits on the budget committee.

With just a razor-thin majority in the House – and by extension, on committees – Republicans can afford dissent from just one or two members to pass anything along party lines.

It’s a significant hurdle facing the GOP as they seek to use their House and Senate majorities to pass a sweeping conservative policy overhaul via the budget reconciliation process.

By lowering the threshold for Senate passage from 60 votes to 51 out of 100, the maneuver allows the party in power to skirt its opposition to advance its agenda – provided the items included relate to budgetary and other fiscal matters. The House of Representatives already has a simple majority threshold.

Republicans are hoping to use reconciliation to pass a broad swath of Trump’s policy goals, from more funding at the border to removing taxes on tipped and overtime wages.

Rep. Ralph Norman is among the conservatives pushing for deeper spending cuts in reconciliation. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

But conservatives have also demanded that any reconciliation bill also reduce the national deficit by pairing new spending with extreme cuts in federal dollars going elsewhere.

The first step in the reconciliation process is getting the bill through Congress’ budget committees, which then directs other committees to find areas for cuts and policy changes under their specific jurisdictions.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has said that guidelines for spending cuts would be a “floor” not a “ceiling.”

Fox News Digital was told that GOP leaders initially presented what amounted to a $300 billion floor for cuts, paired with $325 billion in new defense and border spending.

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Conservatives later rejected another offer that amounted to a rough total of $900 billion in spending cuts, with about $300 billion in new spending, Fox News Digital was told.

Norman said he wanted the floor set to $2 trillion or $3 trillion.

Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va., another Freedom Caucus member on the budget panel, said he was optimistic about reaching a deal, but that there were “a lot of conversations about starting the process from the most conservative position possible.”

Rep. Ben Cline said he was optimistic about reaching a deal but that there were ‘a lot of conversations about starting the process from the most conservative position possible.’ (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

“The Senate is not as interested in fiscal responsibility, so we recognize the need to set parameters for authorizing committees that encourage that… from the beginning,” Cline said Monday.

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Johnson said he wanted the bill to advance through committee this week with a goal of passing an initial House version by the end of February.

Fox News Digital reached out to Johnson’s office for comment.

The speaker said on “Fox & Friends” Monday morning of reconciliation talks, “Republicans are working right now to negotiate what that looks like. We don’t want to blow a hole in the deficit by extending the Trump-era tax cuts, for example, but we’re definitely going to get that extended. So we got to find those savings.”

Elizabeth Elkind is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital leading coverage of the House of Representatives. Previous digital bylines seen at Daily Mail and CBS News.

Follow on Twitter at @liz_elkind and send tips to [email protected]

February 4, 2025
Vance to address House Republicans at Trump hotel amid division over budget bill

House Republicans are set to hear from Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday, the second day of their annual issues conference, as they work to chart a path forward on plans for a massive conservative policy overhaul.

GOP lawmakers have chosen sunny South Florida for their annual retreat. In a sign of President Donald Trump’s enduring influence on his party, the three-day event is being held at the commander-in-chief’s golf course and resort in Doral.

Trump headlines a Republican National Committee spring donor retreat, in Palm Beach, Florida on May 4, 2024. (Donald Trump 2024 campaign)

It’s not clear yet what Vance is expected to say, but a copy of the lawmakers’ schedule for the week obtained by Fox News Digital suggests the discussion will primarily focus on the budget reconciliation process.

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Republicans have been negotiating for weeks on how to use their razor-thin majorities in the House and Senate to pass massive conservative policy changes through the reconciliation process.

By reducing the threshold for Senate passage from 60 votes to a 51-seat simple majority, reconciliation allows a party in control of both congressional chambers to enact sweeping changes, provided they’re relevant to budgetary and fiscal policy.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., left, and Vice President-elect Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, walk together after leaving Vance’s office on Capitol Hill, Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

However, there has been some disagreement for weeks over how to package the GOP’s priorities. Senate Republicans have pushed for breaking the package up into two bills in order to score early victories on border security and energy policy, while leaving the more complex issue of tax reform for a second bill.

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House Republican leaders, however, are concerned that the heavy political lift that passing a reconciliation bill entails would mean lawmakers run out of time before they can extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which expire at the end of this year.

Vance has not publicly said which approach he favors.

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Trump, who previously called for one “big, beautiful bill,” was less committed to the strategy during his own remarks to House Republicans in Florida on Monday night.

“Whether it’s one bill, two bills, I don’t care,” he said.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has said he wants the House to have passed a reconciliation bill by early spring.

Elizabeth Elkind is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital leading coverage of the House of Representatives. Previous digital bylines seen at Daily Mail and CBS News.

Follow on Twitter at @liz_elkind and send tips to [email protected]

January 28, 2025
Department of Justice freezes all civil rights division cases: report

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) sent a memo to its civil rights division, ordering a freeze to all ongoing litigation originating from the Biden administration and halting the pursuit of any new cases or settlements, according to reports.

The Washington Post first reported that a memo sent to Kathleen Wolfe, the temporary head of the division appointed by the Trump administration, instructed her to make sure attorneys do not file “any new complaints, motions to intervene, agree-upon remands, amicus briefs, or statements of interest.”

As to how long the freeze will last, the memo does not say, though it practically ceases the division until President Donald Trump’s nomination to lead the department, Harmeet Dhillon, is confirmed by the Senate.

The publication also reported the freeze was “consistent with the Department’s goal of ensuring that the Federal Government speaks with one voice in its view of the law and to ensure that the President’s appointees or designees have the opportunity to decide whether to initiate any new cases.”

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The Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. (Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

A source familiar with the memo confirmed its contents to Fox News.

The DOJ had no comment on the matter.

Wolfe was also told in another memo that the division must tell the chief of staff of the DOJ about any consent decrees finalized by the division over the past 90 days.

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President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump (Getty Images)

Earlier this month, a Kentucky judge declined to immediately sign a police reform consent decree forged by the DOJ and the city of Louisville during a hearing one courtroom participant described as a hasty attempt by the Biden administration to hamstring incoming President Trump.

But federal Judge Benjamin Beaton refused to be a “rubber stamp” for a 240-page reform plan prompted by the 2020 police-involved shooting of Breonna Taylor, according to Oversight Project counsel Kyle Brosnan.

Taylor was killed in a hail of police gunfire after Louisville officers sought to serve a drug warrant at her boyfriend Kenneth Walker’s house. Walker fired a “warning shot” through the door and struck Officer Jonathan Mattingly in the leg.

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A photo of Breonna Taylor shared at the 2022 Defend Black Women March in Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C. (Leigh Vogel/Getty Images for Frontline Action Hub)

A consent decree, Brosnan noted, is different from other legal agreements in that it cannot simply be reversed by presidential order or a change of heart by one of the parties involved.

The consent decree alleged a pattern or practice of racial bias in Louisville policing, including in traffic stops, sexual assault probes or use of force.

There are at least two other police reform consent decrees going through the legal process, one in Maryland and one in Minnesota.

On Jan. 6, the DOJ reached an agreement with Minneapolis, which still requires court approval, to reform the department’s “unconstitutional and unlawful practices” allegedly counter to the Americans With Disabilities Act and 14th Amendment.

In October 2024, the feds sued the Maryland Department of State Police alleging Civil Rights Act violations.

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“The United States claims MDSP violated Title VII when it used a certain physical fitness test and a certain written test to hire entry-level Troopers because the tests disqualified more female and African-American applicants than others and were not job related,” a court document states.

Maryland police dispute the allegations.

Fox News Digital’s Charles Creitz contributed to this report.

Greg Wehner is a breaking news reporter for Fox News Digital.

Story tips and ideas can be sent to [email protected] and on Twitter @GregWehner.

January 23, 2025