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Job and program cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services have teed up court challenges and prompted bipartisan criticism in Congress.
April 5, 2025, 5:03 a.m. ET
A “policy lab” that generates ideas to improve mental health. An office that studies the effects of smoking. A team of scientists and public health experts who focus on birth defects.
All three are programs in the Department of Health and Human Services that were created by Congress, which funds them. And all three have been hollowed out by mass layoffs at the agency ordered by President Trump and Elon Musk, the billionaire adviser leading the federal government’s cost-cutting efforts.
Since Tuesday, when the layoffs began, lawmakers, medical associations, research universities and state health agencies have scrambled to sort out which jobs were eliminated, and how to respond. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has already admitted that some workers were mistakenly fired alongside nearly 20 percent of the agency’s work force, and has promised that they will be reinstated.
The Republican chairman and top Democrat on the Senate health committee asked Mr. Kennedy to testify about the cuts next week, but it is not clear if he has accepted the invitation. One thing is clear: The layoffs and wholesale reorganization of the department are the latest in a series of Trump administration actions ripe for legal challenges.
The administration has been on shaky ground, legal experts said, in dissolving agencies created and funded by Congress.
Max Stier, the president of Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit that promotes best practices in government, said that the administration had overstepped its authority.
