Sen. Elissa Slotkin wants young people to think, “Lord, that might be buying myself a ton of problems,” before taking a job in the Trump administration. Sen. Mike Lee called it “absolutely disgraceful,” and the head of the federal personnel office called it “unprofessional.” Slotkin’s answer: “Spare me the pearl-clutching.” Here is what each of them said, word for word.

The agency that builds and maintains America's nuclear weapons has its biggest workload since the Cold War. It also has 236 fewer federal employees than it did in early 2025. A new GAO report shows where the cuts landed, from nuclear engineers to field offices at Los Alamos and Nevada, and what NNSA officials told auditors about oversight of nuclear material security after one office lost about 40% of that staff.