White House says some employees were fired by mistake

With snowflakes pummeling the Capitol dome, senators struck a deal Tuesday night to push back a final confirmation vote on Tulsi Gabbard's nomination to serve as director of national intelligence.

The Senate was poised to vote on Gabbard's nomination Tuesday at around midnight, but the vote for Gabbard will now occur at 11 a.m. on Wednesday.

The deal means that senators won't have to slip and slide back to the Capitol at midnight on Tuesday, but it also includes a compromise that allows a final vote on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s confirmation, which is expected later this week, to go on as scheduled, alleviating GOP concerns that pushing Gabbard's vote would have a domino effect that also delayed Kennedy's.

Assuming Kennedy makes it through a test vote on Wednesday that is now scheduled for after the 11 a.m. vote on Gabbard, a final vote on Kennedy's nomination will likely take place around 7 a.m. Thursday morning.

-ABC News' Allison Pecorin

The White House released Trump's executive order that uses the Department of Government Efficiency to shrink the federal workforce.

According to the order, the director of the Office of Management and Budget will submit a plan to reduce the size of the federal government's workforce through efficiency improvements and attrition.

"The Plan shall require that each agency hire no more than one employee for every four employees that depart, consistent with the plan and any applicable exemptions and details provided for in the Plan," the order said. "This order does not affect the standing freeze on hiring as applied to the Internal Revenue Service."

Each agency head will be tasked to develop a data-driven plan, in consultation with its DOGE team lead, "to ensure new career appointment hires are in highest-need areas."

According to the order, the agency will not fill any vacancies for career appointments that the DOGE team lead assesses should not be filled unless the agency head determines the positions should be filled.

"Agency Heads will undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force (RIFs), consistent with applicable law, and to separate from Federal service temporary employees and reemployed annuitants working in areas that will likely be subject to the RIFs," the order added.

-ABC News’ Hannah Demissie

The Department of Education has temporarily agreed to block representatives from the Department of Government Efficiency from accessing sensitive student loan records, according to a filing late on Tuesday.

The University of California Student Association reached an agreement that prohibits any federal employee or contractor associated with DOGE from accessing records from Department of Education systems, including the National Student Loan Data System.

The agreement, which will stay in place as the lawsuit moves through the court, also bars any federal employees or volunteers associated with DOGE from sharing any information they might have already received from the Department of Education systems.

The agreement followed a short conference Tuesday morning in which a federal judge signaled skepticism about the University of California Student Association's grounds for bringing the lawsuit.

-ABC News' Peter Charalambous

When pressed by ABC News' Rachel Scott in the Oval Office Tuesday about potential conflicts of interest, Elon Musk claimed that he and DOGE have been "fully public" with "all of our actions," but much of DOGE's activity across numerous federal agencies has been learned through reporting and not by the group's public disclosures.

The updates DOGE provides on X are often vague and often don't contain specifics or documentation.

Musk has repeatedly promised DOGE would use "maximum transparency" in its actions, even saying so prior to the election.

He said it would do weekly "DOGE casts" on X and update its Doge.gov website with its activity, but so far, Musk has held one DOGE cast and the group's website remains empty beyond a logo.

-ABC News' Will Steakin and Katherine Faulders