President Donald Trump made the surprising announcement Thursday that his Cabinet secretaries do in fact run the government agencies they head — and that Elon Musk doesn’t.

And though the president added that secretaries would work with DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency) on spending cuts going forward, he said that they should be “precise” in making job cuts — using a “scapel” and not a “hatchet.”

Trump’s statements — made first in private during a Cabinet meeting, before a version of it was posted on TruthSocial — were widely interpreted as a reining in of Musk’s rampage through the federal workforce, and could mark the end of the first phase of the DOGE project.

Yet hours later, Trump gave a warning of sorts to his agency heads.........

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