Trump official blasts Washington Post for ‘fake news’ reporting about DOGE firings

Andrea Lucas, the Trump administration’s acting chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), blasted The Washington Post and reporter Jeff Stein for spreading “fake news” about DOGE cutting 90% of the EEOC’s workforce.

Lucas explained that Stein, the chief economics reporter at The Washington Post, mixed up federal agencies that have nothing to do with each other.

The Post reported that “an office within the Labor Department that enforces equal employment opportunity laws” is planning on reducing its workforce by 90%. The article went on to state that the Department of Labor plans to cut its Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) from more than 50 offices and nearly 500 employees to four offices and 50 employees.

Stein also posted on X that, among the “major changes” planned by Elon Musk’s DOGE, the Labor Department was eying “gutting EEOC office by *90%*.”

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After Lucas called out the error on X, Stein posted another message in which he said, “To clarify, the office I refer to above is an office within the Labor Department that enforces workers’ civil rights laws.”

Speaking with Fox News Digital, Lucas said the Post’s reporting “undermines” the EEOC’s ability to enforce the law by misleading the public.

“We pushed back with corrections … and WaPo [Washington Post] retweeted being like, ‘Oh, I was talking about the OFCCP,’ which is in fact what he should have been doing if he bothered to get us back straight,” she said. “But the main message is that reporting is misleading.

“The Department of Labor may be contemplating significant cuts to OFCCP. I don’t know. We’re totally separate from OFCCP.”

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Lucas said any potential cuts by DOGE to the Labor Department and the OFCCP are “entirely distinct from the work that the EEOC does,” which she explained is to “enforce Title VII, which explicitly creates the EEOC and gives us a specific mission to combat discrimination.”

Lucas said the EEOC is “fully operational and continues to be laser-focused on combating discrimination,” which she said includes discrimination on behalf of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) interests.

Lucas said the EEOC is “fully comply[ing] with the president’s executive orders calling for evenhanded civil rights enforcement.”

After four years of the Biden administration using federal agencies to advance DEI, Lucas directed the EEOC to issue a warning to U.S. employers that the commission would be prioritizing the enforcement of legal and financial consequences for “anti-American bias” against workers during hiring.

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“Discriminatory employers should be aware the EEOC is not asleep,” she said. “This kind of fake news really can muddy the water and make it unclear to workers that this government watchdog remains active and ready to defend them against unlawful discrimination, including DEI-related discrimination.”

On DOGE, Lucas said, “I fully support the president’s mission and DOGE’s mission to ensure government efficiency.”

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But she remains confident the EEOC is here to stay.

“We’re working really hard to make sure that we have the most productive workforce possible, and we’re looking to make the agency a really evenhanded and efficient workforce,” Lucas said. “But I’m confident that we have an important role to play because our jurisdiction and mission are directly related to the civil rights executive orders. 

“So, we’re a law enforcement agency, and we’re here to execute on those and enforce the law.”

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The Washington Post did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment by time of publication.