Nearly all employees at the Institute of Museum and Library Services, an agency created by Congress to support American museums and libraries, were put on administrative leave Monday, according to a Trump administration official. An IMLS employee and a union representing them said all employees were put on leave, but an administration official said 20% of IMLS employees were not.

The move still impacted about 80% of IMLS’ roughly 77-employee staff.  

Earlier this month, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the agency, as well as six other governmental entities, to be reduced to “the minimum presence.” A few weeks ago, employees of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, were spotted in the IMLS building in Washington, D.C., to attend the swearing in of the new acting commissioner, Deputy Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling. 

AFGE Local 403, the union representing IMLS employees, said the notification to employees came after a “brief meeting between DOGE staff and IMLS leadership.” It said museums and libraries would no longer be able to contact IMLS staff for updates about their funding. The message also said the status of previously awarded grants is unclear, but that funding is likely to be terminated. 

IMLS has approximately 77 employees and was created by Congress as an independent federal agency in 1996 through the Museum and Library Services Act to support American museums and libraries. Last year, the institute awarded $267 million in grants across the country, with a focus on helping to organize book drives and museum field trips in areas without existing access to libraries or museums. 

EveryLibrary, an organization supporting libraries across the country, called the move to put employees on leave “potentially devastating for institutions that depend on federal support to meet local needs.” 

“This is not merely a bureaucratic activity; it is a crisis for the library, museum, and archive communities across the United States,” the group said in a statement. 

An email to IMLS employees Monday from the agency’s human resources director stated there was no “disciplinary purpose” being served in putting these employees on administrative leave. The notice said email accounts would be disabled and instructs employees to leave laptops and work cellphones in the office, according to text of the email shared with CBS News. 

One employee said Sonderling’s arrival at the agency seemed to signal that employees would soon be put on administrative leave. They have not been told what will happen to the agency, though one possibility entails shrinking the staff footprint to 30 employees and moving them to the Labor Department, according to the Federal News Network. 

A White House official said the restructuring “is a necessary step” to fulfill Mr. Trump’s executive order and would ensure “hard-earned tax dollars are not diverted to discriminatory DEI initiatives or divisive anti-American programming in our cultural institutions.”

“These changes will strengthen IMLS’s ability to serve the American people with integrity and purpose,” they added. 

Mr. Trump also signed an executive order this month that targeted funding for the Smithsonian Institution programs that haves what he characterizeds as “divisive, race-centered ideology.”

A bipartisan group of senators, including Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, have previously called for the agency to retain its federal funding and responsibilities under the Museum and Library Services Act of 2018, which Mr. Trump signed in his first term. 

“We write to remind the Administration of its obligation to faithfully execute the provisions of the law as authorized,” the senators wrote in a letter to Sonderling. “IMLS grants enable libraries to develop services in every community throughout the nation, including people of diverse geographic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds, individuals with disabilities, residents of rural and urban areas, Native Americans, military families, veterans, and caregivers.”

President Donald Trump’s administration told several Planned Parenthood affiliates on Monday that it was withholding funding due to possible violations of civil rights laws, according to reports.

Politico reported that tens of millions of dollars were being withheld from Planned Parenthood clinics that provide low-income Americans services like contraception, STI testing and other health services.

On Monday, nine state affiliates of Planned Parenthood that receive money from the federal government through Title X, a family planning program, got notices saying their funding was being “temporarily withheld.”

The publication said that the letter, which was provided by Planned Parenthood, pointed toward “possible violations” of Trump’s executive orders – like the banning of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs – and federal civil rights laws.

PLANNED PARENTHOOD APPEARS TO SCRUB INSTAGRAM AS FEARS OF DOGE CUTS LOOM

Another policy by Trump that the family planning program allegedly violated had to do with “taxpayer subsidization of open borders.”

The Planned Parenthood chapters that received the letters were mostly in GOP-controlled states, the publication noted. The administration also pointed to evidence of violations by citing the mission statement from the clinic, as well as other documents that stress a “commitment to black communities.”

The deputy director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Public Affairs, Amy Margolis, reportedly argued that those materials “paint a picture of Planned Parenthood” suggesting it is “engaged, across its affiliates, in widespread practices across hiring, operations, and patient treatment that unavoidably employ race in a negative manner.”

FEDS GAVE $700M TO PLANNED PARENTHOOD DURING YEAR OF RECORD ABORTIONS

The letter also accuses Planned Parenthood of encouraging illegal aliens to receive care.

Planned Parenthood has 10 days to respond to the letter and provide evidence it plans to comply with the president’s executive orders. Once provided, the administration will determine whether to suspend or terminate the grants.

Planned Parenthood and HHS did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment on the matter.

In a social media post, Planned Parenthood wrote, “When we say, ‘Care no matter what,’ we mean it. Planned Parenthood health centers’ doors are open to everyone. Period. We’ve fought to protect your care for decades and won’t stop now.”

In another post, Planned Parenthood directed its supporters to its website to submit a letter to Congress regarding the funding.

NEW REPORT EXPOSES BOTCHED PROCEDURES, POOR CONDITIONS AT PLANNED PARENTHOOD ABORTION CLINICS

“The Trump admin withholding Title X funds further strips health care from people across this country,” the post read. “We know what happens when Title X funding is taken away: cancer goes undetected, birth control access is severely reduced, and the STI crisis worsens. People will suffer.”

HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon reportedly told Politico that payments to 16 Title X providers were being withheld, including nine Planned Parenthood affiliates.

The reasoning behind the withholding, Nixon explained, is “to ensure these entities are in full compliance with Federal law and applicable grant terms, and to ensure responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars.”

He further noted that out of Title X’s over $200 million budget, $27.5 million was frozen and under review.

President Donald Trump said that the U.S. would continue to search for Austin Tice, an American journalist who disappeared in Syria in 2012. 

Tice, who previously served as a captain in the Marine Corps and was a student at Georgetown University Law Center, started working as an independent journalist for McClatchy, The Washington Post and other outlets in Syria in May 2012 before jihadist militants seized him near Damascus. 

Trump said that although there has been “virtually no sign” of Tice, his administration would continue to try to secure Tice’s release. 

“Until we find out something definitive, one way or the other, we’ll never stop looking,” Trump told reporters Monday. “But we have been, and the response – it’s just a lot of dead ends. It’s been done for a long time. The problem is, there’s never been a sighting.”

AUSTIN TICE: FBI RENEWS PUSH TO FIND KIDNAPPED AMERICAN JOURNALIST IN SYRIA

Trump’s comments come after Tice’s mother, Debra, told reporters at the National Press Club in December that they’d received information suggesting that her son was still alive. 

“We have from a significant source that has been vetted all over our government: Austin Tice is alive,” his mother Debra Tice said Dec. 6. She later met with former President Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, at the White House to discuss her son’s wrongful detainment. 

Meanwhile, rebels also overthrew Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime in December, prompting the FBI to issue a statement reiterating its push from April 2018 for more information that could lead to Tice’s release. 

“Given recent events in Syria, the FBI is renewing our call for information that could lead to the safe location, recovery, and return of Austin Bennett Tice, who was detained in Damascus in August 2012,” the FBI said in a statement in December. 

AUSTIN TICE: WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT AMERICAN JOURNALIST MISSING IN SYRIA

“The FBI and our government partners remain committed to bringing Austin home to his family, and we are still offering a reward of up to $1 million for information that leads to Austin’s safe return,” the FBI said. 

Both Trump’s first administration and Biden’s administration have launched efforts to advance the release of Tice. Biden urged the Syrian government to release Tice in 2020, and said the U.S. knew “with certainty” that the Syrian regime was holding him hostage. Syria has publicly denied it has detained Tice. 

There were 46 American nationals known to be held captive in 16 different countries in 2024, according to the nonprofit Foley Foundation, which advocates for U.S. hostages and was named after James Foley, a U.S. journalist kidnapped while reporting in Syria in 2012 and killed by ISIS in 2014. That number is now likely closer to the low 30s after the recent releases of hostages in January and February through efforts by the Trump administration. 

Fox News’ Michael Dorgan and Stephany Price contributed to this report. 

President Trump has periodically floated the idea of serving a third term in office since his first reelection campaign and seemed to double down on it Sunday during an interview with NBC News, suggesting “there are methods” to do it despite term limits set by the 12th and 22nd Amendments in the U.S. Constitution.

To date, Franklin D. Roosevelt is the only president in the history of the United States to serve more than two terms, ultimately sitting in office from 1933 to 1945, when he died shortly after beginning his fourth term. His third term was controversial, said Noah Rosenblum, a legal historian and constitutional law professor at New York University, noting that FDR’s tenure broke from a precedent set by George Washington and drew accusations of dictatorial ambitions as well as a disrespect for democracy.

“There are very few norms as deeply embedded in American democratic culture as the idea that the president serves two terms,” Rosenblum told CBS News. “And clever word games to try to get around that are really nothing but attempts to undermine the clear text, spirit and intention of the Constitution and this historical process that ungirds it.”

Here’s what to know about the amendments that regulate how long any one person can remain president.

What is Trump saying about seeking a third term?

Mr. Trump has mentioned staying in office after his current, second term ends on numerous occasions, stretching back to his first administration. On the campaign trail in 2020, he told attendees at a rally in Minden, Nevada, that he believed he would win that year’s election against Joe Biden and went on to suggest he could take the White House for a third time afterward.

“We’re going to win four more years in the White House. And then after that, we’ll negotiate, right?” Mr. Trump said at the time. “Because we’re probably, based on the way we were treated, we’re probably entitled to another four after that.” It was unclear at the time if Mr. Trump meant what he said, but the comments stoked national discourse about whether he would, or could, truly attempt to flout the two-term limit.

Those questions began to crop up again after the president’s recent remarks to NBC News, in which he said during a phone interview from Mar-a-Lago that he was “not joking” about trying to serve a third term in the White House. 

“There are methods which you could do it,” said Mr. Trump, although he added, “It is far too early to think about it.” 

When asked by NBC’s Kristen Welker about a hypothetical scenario where Vice President JD Vance won the next election and handed the authority back to him, he said that could be one way to end up in office for a third time.

“But there are others, too. There are others,” Mr. Trump continued, declining to elaborate when asked.

What does the 22nd Amendment say, exactly?

The opening line of the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution states: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.”

The latter portion of that section means that if the vice president takes over the presidency if an elected president dies, for example, and serves in that role for more than half of the originally elected president’s term, then they could only serve one more presidential term after that. The former restricts an individual to two four-year terms of service as president, applying to consecutive and non-consecutive terms.

Addressing remarks by some, like constitutional law scholar Lawrence Tribe, who has observed that the amendment as written merely prevents a sitting president from being elected, but not serving, more than twice, Rosenblum said the language “reinforces the intention of the amendment, which is not to prevent someone from being elected president twice, it’s to make sure nobody serves more than two terms as president.”

“The language of the 22nd Amendment is framed in terms of the language of ‘election,’ but the purpose of the amendment is clear,” Rosenblum told CBS News. “It’s to ensure that the office of the president transfers and cycles as part of the democratic process.”

Why was the 22nd Amendment ratified?

Congress proposed the 22nd Amendment in 1947 in response to critiques of FDR’s presidency, which ended with Roosevelt’s death in April 1945, a few months into his fourth term. 

The National Constitution Center notes that Republicans who had long opposed FDR found allies among some Democrats from the South and West to get the proposal passed through Congress and sent to the states for ratification. The 22nd Amendment was ratified in 1951.

Harry Truman, who was Roosevelt’s vice president, stepped in as president in 1945 and was subsequently elected to fulfill another term in office when that one concluded. Truman opted not to run again in 1952.

What about the 12th Amendment?

The 12th Amendment preceded the 22nd by well over a century but even then it included a provision about who is and is not eligible to run for president and vice president. This amendment was introduced by federal legislators in 1803 and ratified about six months later, in 1804, taking effect in time for the year’s presidential election that saw Thomas Jefferson assume office. 

It primarily focuses with the processes through which the Electoral College votes to elect a U.S. president and vice president, the National Constitution Center writes. However, the amendment also states that “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.”

That would mean Mr. Trump could not run for vice president on the ticket of another presidential candidate after finishing his second term in office if the 22nd Amendment’s provisions prevent him from running for president. 

Is there a way Trump could serve a third term?

Rosenblum said Mr. Trump’s ability to serve a third term could come down to how the courts interpret the 12th and 22nd Amendments. He pointed out that even those committed to more literal application of the Constitution tend to interpret the language “with an eye toward what the real purpose is.” 

In this case, he said, that would be upholding the term limits it has laid out. Still, Rosenblum cautioned, “a president who’s interested in remaining in power, despite limits against it, will come up with clever legal arguments to do so.”

“This is an administration that has repeatedly shown itself contemptuous of the rule of law,” said Rosenblum. “So, will Trump be able to violate the law and remain in office indefinitely? Only if the American people let him.”

Asked about Mr. Trump’s comments and whether the president could get a third term, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said, “Not without a change in the Constitution.”

He added, “I think that you guys keep asking the question and … I think he is having some fun with it, probably messing with you.”

Other legal scholars who have weighed in on the subject say they doubt Mr. Trump could manage to usurp the amendments and their long-held rules of law.

“I don’t think there’s any ‘one weird trick’ to getting around presidential term limits,” Derek Muller, a professor of election law at Notre Dame, told the Associated Press.

Muller suggested Mr. Trump has mentioned running for a third term “to show as much strength as possible,” adding that “a lame-duck president like Donald Trump has every incentive in the world to make it seem like he’s not a lame duck.”

The White House considers the Signal group chat leak case “closed,” Trump administration press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the media Monday while reiterating President Donald Trump’s support of national security advisor Mike Waltz.

“As the president has made it very clear, Mike Waltz continues to be an important part of his national security team,” Leavitt told the media in brief remarks during a gaggle outside of the White House’s press room Monday afternoon. “And this case has been closed here at the White House, as far as we are concerned.” 

“There have been steps made to ensure that something like that can obviously never happen again,” she continued. “And we’re moving forward. And the president and Mike Waltz and his entire national security team have been working together very well, if you look at how much safer the United States of America is because of the leadership of this team.” 

The Trump administration came under scrutiny from Democrats and other critics after the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, revealed in an article published March 24 that he was added to a Signal group chat with top national security leaders, including Waltz, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and CIA Director John Ratcliffe. 

TRUMP OFFICIALS ACCIDENTALLY TEXT ATLANTIC JOURNALIST ABOUT MILITARY STRIKES IN APPARENT SECURITY BREACH

Signal is an encrypted messaging app that operates similarly to texting or making phone calls, but with additional security measures that help ensure communications are kept private to those included in the correspondence. 

TRUMP SAYS WALTZ DOESN’T NEED TO APOLOGIZE OVER SIGNAL TEXT CHAIN LEAK: ‘DOING HIS BEST’

The Atlantic’s report characterized the Trump administration as texting “war plans” regarding a planned strike on Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Trump administration has maintained, however, that no classified material was transmitted in the chat, with Trump repeatedly defending Waltz amid the fallout. 

DEMS HAVE LONG HISTORY OF SUPPORTING ENCRYPTED SIGNAL APP AHEAD OF TRUMP CHAT LEAK

Waltz took responsibility for the journalist’s inclusion in the high-profile group chat, including in an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham. 

“I built the group. My job is to make sure everything’s coordinated,” Waltz said on “The Ingraham Angle.”

“Of course I didn’t see this loser in the group. It looked like someone else,” Waltz added. “The person I thought was on there was never on there.”

TRUMP REVEALS WHO WAS BEHIND SIGNAL TEXT CHAIN LEAK

Leavitt told the media Wednesday that the administration was investigating the incident, explaining Elon Musk’s team was also assisting with the investigation. 

“The National Security Council, the White House Counsel’s Office, and also, yes, Elon Musk’s team” will be leading the investigation into the Signal leak, Leavitt said during a White House press briefing. 

TOP DEM USED SAME APP USED IN ATLANTIC SCANDAL TO SET UP CONTACT WITH STEELE DOSSIER AUTHOR

“Elon Musk has offered to put his technical experts on this, to figure out how this number was inadvertently added to the chat – again, to take responsibility and ensure this can never happen again,” she continued. 

Trump slammed the media’s coverage of the group chat in a Truth Social post Sunday afternoon, calling it the “never ending Signal story.”

“They just don’t stop – Over and over they go! Meet the Fake Press should instead explain how successful the attack was, and how Sleepy Joe Biden should have done it YEARS AGO,” he posted. 

“This story and narrative is so old and boring, but only used because we are having the most successful ‘First One Hundred Presidential Days’ in the history of America, and they can’t find anything else to talk about. The Fake News Media has the lowest Approval Ratings in history, and for good reason. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

Police in Dayton, Ohio, have said there is no evidence that immigrants are eating pets, calling new allegations that emerged online on Saturday “irresponsible.” 

The police statement was issued hours after a new video and article alleged African immigrants in Dayton were seen preparing to grill dead cats. The claim was shared by Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, the Republican vice presidential nominee, Donald Trump Jr., and others on X.

Dayton Police Chief Kamran Afzal said in a statement, “We stand by our immigrant community and there is no evidence to even remotely suggest that any group, including our immigrant community, is engaged in eating pets. Seeing politicians or other individuals use outlandish information to appeal to their constituents is disheartening.” 

The new claim followed baseless allegations that Haitian immigrants were abducting and eating pets in Springfield, a city less than 30 miles from Dayton. Former President Donald Trump repeated the claim in Tuesday night’s debate, despite city officials saying there was no evidence of this happening. 

On Saturday, Vance doubled down on the claims that immigrants were eating pets, sharing the new allegation on X. 

“Kamala Harris and her media apparatchiks should be ashamed of themselves,” Vance wrote. “Another ‘debunked’ story that turned out to have merit.”

Since Trump’s debate claims, there have been several bomb threats made against schools and hospitals in the Springfield area. On Saturday, Springfield’s Wittenberg University announced that it would be “taking extreme precautions” after receiving an on-campus shooting threat via email which “targeted Haitian members of our community.”

In response, the FBI told CBS News in a statement that it was “working in coordination with the Springfield Police Department and Wittenberg University to determine the credibility of recent threats, share information, and take appropriate investigative action.”

New claim 

Christopher Rufo, a conservative writer and activist published the new claim on Substack and the allegations are based on a video originally posted to social media in August 2023. 

CBS News confirmed the original video was first posted to social media in August 2023 by a man who lives in Dayton, Ohio. CBS News reached out to the man for comment but did not hear back on Saturday afternoon.

The video shows what appears to be animal carcasses on a grill. The man filming the footage alleges, without evidence, that they are cats. 

“What is this they got on the grill?” the man says in the video. When two cats appear near the grill, the man jokes that the cats “better get missing — looks like his homey’s on the grill!” 

Rufo said he spoke to the man who filmed the video, and the man believes the carcasses were cats. Rufo said he worked on the story with IM-1776, an online magazine, and one of their reporters visited the building where the incident was alleged to have happened. The reporter spoke to neighbors, who said that African immigrants lived in the building. Neighbors told the reporter they believed the people who owned the grill were also African immigrants, although the residents’ origin or identity wasn’t verified by CBS News.

The new allegation also prompted backlash and skepticism, with many users saying the carcasses look more like chickens. CBS News has reached out to veterinary experts for their opinion on what type of carcass is on the grill. 

Dayton Mayor Jeffrey J. Mims, Jr. also issued a statement, calling the claim “totally false and dangerously irresponsible of politicians aiming to sow division and fear.” Mims said there had been “absolutely zero reports of this type of activity.”