WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump ’s pick to lead a federal watchdog agency withdrew from consideration Tuesday evening, after his offensive text messages were made public and GOP senators revolted.

Paul Ingrassiawho was nominated to lead the Office of Special Counsel, had been scheduled to have his confirmation hearing this week.

On Monday, however, Blue Light News reported on a text chat that showed him saying the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday should be “tossed into the seventh circle of hell.” Ingrassia also described himself in the chat as having “a Nazi streak” at times.

After the texts came to light, several Republican senators said they would not support his nomination. They included some of the most conservative and stalwart Trump allies in the Senate.

“I will be withdrawing myself from Thursday’s HSGAC hearing to lead the Office of Special Counsel because unfortunately I do not have enough Republican votes at this time,” Ingrassia posted in an online message. “I appreciate the overwhelming support that I have received throughout the process and will continue to serve President Trump and the administration to Make America Great Again!” HSGAC is the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs.

Asked for comment on Ingrassia withdrawing his name from consideration, the White House said simply, “He is no longer the nominee.” But Ingrassia’s post came after Senate Majority Leader John Thune had said he hoped the White House would withdraw Ingrassia’s nomination and several GOP senators said they would not support him.

“I’m a no,” said Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, who sits on the committee that would’ve taken up Ingrassia’s nomination. “It never should have got this far.”

Republicans have been able to muscle through the vast majority of Trump’s nominees in roll call votes despite stiff Democratic opposition. But there have been sporadic instances when Republicans have pushed back, generally behind the scenes, showing there are limits to their support.

Most notably, Matt Gaetz withdrew as Trump’s first choice for attorney general soon after being tabbed for the job. In May, Trump pulled his nomination of Ed Martin Jr. to be the top federal prosecutor for the nation’s capital, bowing to bipartisan concerns about the conservative activist’s modest legal experience and support for Jan. 6 rioters.

Last month, the White House announced it would be withdrawing the nomination of E.J. Antoni to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Antoni was supposed to succeed a BLS director who was fired following a disappointing jobs report.

But Democrats weren’t satisfied with Ingrassia’s withdrawal, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., calling on the president to fire him from his current position as a White House liaison for the Department of Homeland Security.

“This isn’t anywhere near enough,” Schumer said on social media.

According to texts viewed by Blue Light News, Ingrassia told those in the chat that “MLK Jr. was the 1960s George Floyd and his ‘holiday’ should be ended and tossed into the seventh circle of hell where it belongs.”

Blue Light News spoke to Ingrassia’s lawyer, who said the text messages might have been manipulated or were missing context. The lawyer did not confirm the texts were authentic.

The Office of Special Counsel is an investigative and prosecutorial office that works to protect government employees and whistleblowers from retaliation for reporting wrongdoing. It’s also responsible for enforcing the Hatch Actwhich restricts the partisan political activities of government workers.

In May, Trump described Ingrassia in a social media post as a “highly respected attorney, writer and Constitutional Scholar.”

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Associated Press writer Will Weissert contributed to this report.

NEW YORK (AP) — A former Amazon delivery driver has filed a lawsuit accusing a federal civil right agency of abruptly and unlawfully abandoning her sex discrimination case and others like it following an executive order from President Donald Trump.

The lawsuit filed by the former Colorado driver demands that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission resume investigating her claims that Amazon discriminates against female drivers by failing to provide adequate bathroom breaks.

The lawsuit is the latest example of workers and others scrambling to find recourse as federal agencies abandon their cases in response to Trump’s shake-up of the country’s civil rights enforcement infrastructure.

The EEOC, which enforces civil rights laws in the workplace, decided last month to discharge any complaints based on “disparate impact liability,” which holds that policies that are neutral on their face can be discriminatory if they impose unnecessary barriers that disadvantage different demographic groups.

The EEOC’s decision came in response to an executive order in April directing federal agencies to deprioritize the use of disparate impact liability. The Trump administration argues that disparate impact assumes any racial or gender imbalance in workplaces is the result of discrimination and leads to practices that undermine meritocracy.

The former driver, Leah Cross, filed a motion Tuesday asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to stay the EEOC’s new rule prohibiting investigations and enjoin the agency from enforcing it.

The EEOC has already dropped its sole lawsuit arising from a disparate impact liability charge, a case alleging that the Sheetz convenience store chain’s background check practices discriminated against Black, Native American and multiracial job applicants.

Separately, the agency has dropped lawsuits on behalf of transgender workers and subjected new complaints to a higher level of scrutiny, following Trump’s executive order declaring that the government would only recognize two unchangeable sexes.

It’s unclear how many worker complaints involving disparate impact liability or LGBTQ+ workers have been sidelined by the EEOC. In her lawsuit, Cross demanded that the EEOC, which handled more than 88,000 discrimination charges in 2024, give the court a list of the disparate impact liability charges it has shut down.

The EEOC referred questions about the lawsuit to the Department of Justice, which declined to comment.

Cross, who worked as a driver from August to November 2022, filed her EEOC charge two years ago, arguing that the company’s delivery schedules make it nearly impossible for drivers to find time to use bathrooms. An EEOC investigator told her lawyers last month it was closing her case because of the disparate impact rule, according to the lawsuit.

Amazon declined to comment on Cross’ case but referred The AP to its policies around its drivers, who deliver packages in Amazon-branded vehicles but work indirectly for the company through third-party companies called Delivery Service Partners. Amazon says its technology builds routes that ensure time for two 15-minute rest breaks and a 30-minute meal break. The company also said its Amazon Delivery app provides a list for drivers to see nearby restroom facilities and gas stations.

But in an interview with The AP, Cross said it was so hard for to her stop for breaks that she had to pack a Shewee — a portable urination device for women — as well as a change of pants “in case I ended up accidentally urinating on myself.”

Cross’ lawsuit against the EEOC argues that the agency is legally obligated to investigate all charges based on disparate impact liability, which Congress codified in the 1991 Civil Rights Act.

The EEOC “isn’t allowed to throw away an entire category of charges without looking into their facts just because the president doesn’t like the type of discrimination those charges are based on,” said Karla Gilbride, an attorney at Public Citizen Litigation Group, one of the organizations that filed the lawsuit.

Gilbride was the EEOC’s general counsel until she was fired in January along with two Democratic commissioners in a purge that cleared the way for the Trump administration to root out diversity and inclusion programs, roll back protections for transgender workers and elevate religious rights. ________

The Associated Press’ women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

NEW YORK (AP) — Kenny Loggins is objecting to the use of his music in a social media post showing an artificial intelligence-generated video of President Donald Trump dumping excrement from a fighter jet on last weekend’s “No Kings” protests.

The video, posted Saturday night on the Republican president’s Truth Social platform, was accompanied by Loggins’ song “Danger Zone,” which appears on the soundtrack of the blockbuster 1986 Tom Cruise fighter pilot movie “Top Gun.” Loggins, in a statement Monday on his website, said he was not asked for permission and called for the video to be removed.

“I can’t imagine why anybody would want their music used or associated with something created with the sole purpose of dividing us,” Loggins wrote. “Too many people are trying to tear us apart, and we need to find new ways to come together. We’re all Americans, and we’re all patriotic.”

As of Tuesday morning, the video remained on Truth Social. Numerous musicians, including Adele and Bruce Springsteenhave objected over the past decade to Trump’s use of their material at campaign rallies and elsewhere.

Representatives for Loggins responded to The Associated Press’ request for additional comment Tuesday by reissuing his statement from the day before. The White House responded to a request for comment with a still from “Top Gun” with the caption “I FEEL THE NEED FOR SPEED,” paraphrasing one of the film’s famous lines.

Trump has used music on AI videos at other times, including Blue Oyster Cult’s ”Don’t Fear the Reaper” on a post in early October about Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought.

Large crowds turned out around the country Saturday for the latest round of “No Kings” rallies, at which participants denounced what they see as the authoritarian policies of the president. Trump on Sunday dismissed the rallies as a “joke” and told reporters, “I’m no king.”