President Donald Trump’s Cabinet outlined billions of dollars in contracts it says it has canceled since he took office, including a ‘$300,000 contract educating on food justice for queer and transgender farmers in San Francisco’ and $830 million on surveys described as looking like ‘anyone’s child in junior high could have put together.’ 

The contracts, which Trump said represented ‘fraud,’ are being canceled as Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are trying to eliminate wasteful spending by the federal government. 

‘Even at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, we canceled a $300,000 contract educating on food justice for queer and transgender farmers in San Francisco. A similar contract we canceled in New York, again educating transgender and queer farmers on food justice and food equality. I’m not even sure what that means, but apparently the last administration wanted to put out taxpayer dollars towards that,’ Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told Trump. 

‘We canceled a $600,000 contract out of Louisiana that was studying the menstrual cycles of transgender men. We canceled another contract out of a university in the middle of the country that focused on getting more diversity, equity and inclusion into our pest management industry,’ she continued. ‘Again, these are nonsensical, it makes zero sense to use taxpayer dollars to fund these. I know these are just a few examples of the hundreds and hundreds we have found.’ 

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Trump that ‘There is a federal consulting group which was a group inside of Interior, but it was managing contracts for many different agencies that flowed through here’ and ‘one of those contracts was to do surveys of individuals, $830 million for surveys.’ 

‘And so part of the question was ‘hey could we actually see the surveys?’ and then the surveys came back and it was, the survey was like 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper with ten questions that anyone’s child in junior high could have put together, or AI could have done for free,’ Burgum said during the Cabinet meeting. ‘$830 million, so that is one that we stopped and that contract was going out after you were inaugurated, sir.’ 

‘It’s fraud,’ Trump responded. ‘But we’ve had many fraudulent contracts that were caught by the work that Elon and his people are doing and working with our people. It’s been brought to light. The fraud, not just waste and abuse. The fraud has been incredible.’ 

An X account linked to the White House said Burgum announced $830 million in savings by ‘cutting contracts for useless surveys.’ 

‘The EPA has now canceled over $22 billion worth of contracts – $2 billion going to this NGO that Stacey Abrams was tied to. They received only $100 in 2023 and then the Biden administration gave them $2 billion,’ Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin also said. ‘The director of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund saw his former employer get $5 billion dollars. So $20 billion went to just eight NGOs.’ 

‘The partnership with DOGE and Elon Musk has been incredible at EPA. Their team is very talented, we wouldn’t have been able to do it without them and of course this mandate from President Trump to make sure that we identify every last penny, whether we are saving $50,000, five million dollars or $22 billion dollars we will not rest until every last penny is saved. Thank you, Mr. President for the opportunity to do this for the American public,’ Zeldin added. 

The recent arrest of Istanbul’s Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and main rival of President Erdoğan has sparked the largest protests in Turkey in a decade, with over 1,100 people detained in demonstrations across the country.

The Istanbul mayor and 106 other municipal officials and politicians were detained on March 19 for what Human Rights Watch called a politically motivated move to stifle lawful political activities.

‘By forcing Imamoglu out of politics, the government has crossed the line that separates Turkey’s competitive authoritarian regime from a full, Russian-style autocracy in which the president handpicks his opponents and elections are purely for show,’ Gonul Tol, Director of Turkish Program at the Middle East Institute, told Fox News Digital.

A spokesperson from Turkey’s embassy in Washington, D.C., told Fox News Digital that Turkey’s Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said 1,133 people have been detained since the arrest of the mayor, and around 123 police officers have been injured since the start of protests. Yerlikaya also alleged that weapons were seized during the protests and the individuals detained were found to have ties to different terrorist organizations and prior criminal records.

Some experts believe the move was orchestrated by Erdoğan to sideline the opposition, silence political dissent and increase his own power.

‘This is a dark time for democracy in Turkey, with such a blatantly lawless move to weaponize the justice system to cancel the democratic process,’ Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia Director at Human Rights Watch, told Fox News Digital in a statement.

In an address to celebrate the festival of Nowruz on Friday, Erdoğan said Turkey was not a country that was found on the street and will not submit to street terrorism.

‘We will not allow public order to be damaged. We will not give in to vandalism or street terrorism,’ Erdoğan said, according to Reuters.

The opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) held a symbolic primary vote over the weekend and nominated İmamoğlu to be the party’s candidate for president to face Erdoğan in the 2028 elections.

Despite the increased repression and threats to their own safety and security, the Turkish opposition does not yet seem to be backing down.

‘We, as the main opposition party that emerged as the first party in the last local elections in March 2024, will stand firm and resist any kind of oppression by the government,’ İlhan Uzgel, CHP Deputy Chairman for Foreign Policy, told Fox News Digital.

Uzgel said Erdoğan seems frightened of losing power, and is urging opposition supporters to take to the streets to defend democracy, challenge lawlessness, and challenge the Erdoğan government’s abuse of power.  

‘We are happy to see that our people take to the streets despite the occasional use of force by the riot police, and demonstrate peacefully, which is a constitutional right,’ he added.

Imamoglu, who is presently jailed and is awaiting trial on corruption charges, was viewed as the most serious challenger to the decades-long rule of Erdoğan. His detention will likely keep him out of the political opposition for the foreseeable future, dealing a huge blow to Turkey’s pro-democracy movement. 

Tol of the Middle East Institute said Erdoğan is banking on people’s anger dissipating over time and that the mass protests will eventually die down. The election is not scheduled until 2028, and people, Erdoğan hopes, will most likely forget and move on.

The danger, according to Tol, is that street protests in the Middle East and elsewhere tend to go in many different directions, and there is no telling how long the public anger over the arrests will last and how much more popular support the movement will gain.

İmamoğlu, member of the secular Republican People’s Party (CHP), was elected mayor of Istanbul in 2019 and re-elected in 2023. In both elections, he defeated Erdoğan-backed opponents. 

Turkey’s problems come at a time when President Trump is reportedly considering lifting sanctions on the NATO member and resuming the sale of F-35 fighter jets following a recent phone call with Erdoğan.

Reuters contributed to this article.

President Donald Trump has named Susan Monarez as his nominee for the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), calling the candidate ‘a dedicated public servant.’

Monarez, who is currently acting director of the CDC, replaces Trump’s original nominee for the role, Dr. David Weldon. The Trump administration never gave an official reason why Weldon’s nomination was withdrawn earlier this month, but a source familiar with the matter told Fox News Digital that it would have been a ‘futile effort.’

‘It became clear that the votes weren’t there in the Senate for him to get confirmed,’ the source explained. ‘This would have been a futile effort.’

In a Truth Social post published on Monday, Trump wrote that Monarez ‘brings decades of experience championing Innovation, Transparency, and strong Public Health Systems.’

‘She has a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, and PostDoctoral training in Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University School of Medicine,’ the president wrote. ‘Dr. Monarez understands the importance of protecting our children, our communities, and our future.’

Trump also claimed that Americans have ‘lost confidence’ in the CDC, citing ‘political bias and disastrous mismanagement,’ as reasons why.

‘Dr. Monarez will work closely with our GREAT Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert Kennedy Jr,’ the president continued. ‘Together, they will prioritize Accountability, High Standards, and Disease Prevention to finally address the Chronic Disease Epidemic and, MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN!’

According to Monarez’s CDC biography, she previously worked at the White House in the Office of Science and Technology Policy and on the National Security Council.

‘[She led] efforts to enhance the nation’s biomedical innovation capabilities, including combating antimicrobial resistance, expanding the use of wearables to promote patient health, ensuring personal health data privacy, and improving pandemic preparedness,’ the biography states. ‘She has also held leadership positions at the Department of Homeland Security and has led numerous international cooperative initiatives to promote bilateral and multilateral health innovation research and development.’

Fox News Digital’s Rachel Wolf and Julia Johnson contributed to this report.