Fear, anger and confusion have swept across federal agencies as workers grapple with a deluge of orders from President Donald Trump that they see as an effort to “scare” them out of their jobs.
In conversations with more than a dozen federal employees across multiple agencies, civil servants said the Trump administration’s rapid changes have turned their day-to-day operations into “chaos,” with their immediate higher-ups unable to answer questions about their employment and duties. A number of these workers also expressed surprise at what they saw as an underwhelming response from Congress and their union.
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Adding to the stress, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) offered federal employees the option of taking a “deferred resignation” in a Tuesday evening email that closely mirrored a message that Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and leader of Trump’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” sent to Twitter employees shortly after he acquired the company.
One official at the U.S. Agency for International Development, which administers foreign aid and has had some of the greatest disruption so far in Trump’s second term, said the broad effort to quickly reshape the federal workforce has sent a chill through the building.
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“There’s a lot of fear about returning to the office,” this person said. “There’s a lot of fear about being fired, specifically with the OPM email that came out about offering buyouts. There’s a lot of skepticism about that, given the fact that this email seemed to model Elon Musk’s email to the Twitter folks who never got paid. So it’s caused a lot of chaos and turmoil. I think the point is to really scare people and make them think that their jobs are threatened. It’s definitely working.”
The federal employees who spoke with NBC News would only do so under the condition of anonymity, believing their jobs would otherwise be at jeopardy. Many of the employees who were dismayed about the Trump administration’s effort still expressed an interest in keeping their jobs, in part out of a sense of duty, and in part out of necessity.
The White House defended its broad effort to remake federal agencies and shake up the civil service — a core pledge of Trump’s campaign and a longtime aim of Republican leaders.
“For far too long, a bloated federal bureaucracy has cost American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars each year while strangling American enterprise and families with burdensome rules and regulations,” Kush Desai, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement. “President Trump received a resounding mandate to streamline our gargantuan government to better serve the needs of the American people. He will use every lever of executive and legislative power to deliver.”
‘They’re trying to insult us’
Those lever-pulls began in the hours after Trump took office and have continued unabated in the days since. In one of his first moves upon returning to the White House, Trump signed an executive order mandating that all federal agencies quickly order employees back to the office full time and end remote-work arrangements, aside from those deemed necessary. His administration days later released a directive demanding an end to all remote-work arrangements, claiming they are greatly inhibiting government performance.
“They’re trying to insult us, to be honest, to say that we’re not being productive,” an official at the Department of Transportation said. “And that’s simply not the case for a lot of people who are working remotely. … We have so many different series of jobs that don’t require people to be in the building.”
Trump’s moves included signing executive orders demanding an end to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs throughout the government and making it easier to fire career civil servants in policy-making roles. OPM then released memos instructing agencies to “terminate” DEIA offices and positions and offering a broad definition of what officials could be seen as holding a policy-making role.
He also ordered reforms to the federal hiring process, instituted a hiring freeze at federal agencies and a freeze on regulatory proposals. Additionally, the Office of Management and Budget on Wednesday rescinded a memo issued Monday outlining a temporary freeze on federal aid that sent agencies scrambling to adjust and stirred Trump’s opponents to action.
“It’s very low,” an employee at the Social Security Administration said of office morale. “There are a lot of people looking for other work. … We’re afraid to get fired. I don’t have a backup job right now and I understand that the market is getting ready to be saturated. We already have several people who are leaving our office.”
Trump’s push to reshape the government reached a crescendo after a military helicopter and commercial jet collided midair near Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night. All 67 passengers aboard the two aircraft were feared dead in one of the deadliest air disasters in U.S. history.
Though an investigation into what led to the crash is just beginning, Democrats and their allies noted that Trump’s wide-ranging actions aimed at the civil service, including the hiring freeze and an order overhaul hiring practices at the Federal Aviation Administration, could exacerbate air travel safety issues.
On the other hand, Trump on Thursday blamed diversity practices for the crash, which he said showed why his administration was pursuing changes to federal hiring practices.
A civil servant at the Department of Veterans Affairs described the environment amid Trump’s rapid fire changes as “absolute chaos,” adding, “Nobody really has any clue what’s going on.”
“We haven’t gotten any direction outside of … a memo about the DEI stuff and [it’s] almost like we’re encouraged to snitch on anybody that we find.”
The person called the return-to-work mandate “really ridiculous,” saying remote-work agreements with government employees have been in place for years, long before the pandemic, and have been encouraged by the agency.
This person and other civil servants who spoke with NBC News noted that a substantial number of federal employees don’t live near a federal office building and a return-to-work mandate would require some to sell homes and move. The federal government employs more than 2 million civilian employees, with 7.56% working in Washington, D.C., according to OPM data.
“A lot of people who work for the federal government do it out of a sense of service,” this person, an Iraq War veteran, said. “It’s rapidly becoming like they don’t want us here.”
One agency that’s had some of the most drastic overhauls so far is USAID. On Monday, more than 50 career civil servants there were placed on administrative leave, with the acting administrator saying in an email that “several actions within USAID” appeared to run afoul of Trump’s executive orders. Earlier, Trump froze virtually all U.S. foreign assistance pending a 90-day review.
“It is chaos over here right now,” a second USAID official said of the environment at the agency on Monday. “People in the halls are getting texts saying to log off of all government equipment and leave the building. No official announcements have been made, but individuals are being notified. People are walking around, whispering and crying. It’s like watching a sniper work through a captive crowd.”
The pause on foreign assistance had officials at other offices scrambling, too. An official at the Fish and Wildlife Service, which conducts foreign wildlife conservation, described a somber mood at the agency in light of a stop-work order. They also noted confusion over the scope of Trump’s Schedule F order — which aims to make it easier to oust policy-making civil servants.
“It’s just so f—ing maddening,” this person said. “I’m so pissed off right now.”
‘Nobody’s going to take that’
As federal employees were weighing the effect of Trump’s full collection of executive orders and further guidance from his administration, they were greeted with an email titled “Fork in the Road” in their inbox Tuesday evening. The email contained an offer of “deferred resignation,” allowing them to resign by Feb. 6 but get paid through September. Most full-time federal employees were eligible, aside from members of the military, postal workers, immigration enforcement officials as well as some other roles.
The email had Musk’s fingerprints. He sent a similar message titled “Fork in the Road” to Twitter employees soon after taking control of the company; it asked them to opt in to continue working for the social media platform or take three months of severance pay. (Musk later got a lawsuit dismissed from Twitter employees who argued they were not paid their full severance package.)
The OPM website now features a “Fork” tab.
“The Trump administration’s recent efforts to encourage the bulk of the federal workforce to resign are perplexing, of questionable legality and dangerous,” Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, said, adding, “Stripping away expert talent through such a nonstrategic approach puts all of us at risk in a profound way.”
Most federal workers who spoke with NBC News did not express interest in taking the offer, with some doubting whether they would even be paid out if they did.
“I don’t know anybody who’s interested in taking it,” the first USAID official said. “And honestly, eight months is not a lot of money. These people have families. They have kids. So what, you get $60,000 bucks? That’s nothing. So maybe if you’re a 25-year-old, that’s a lot of money — and it probably won’t even be that much. Or if you’re on your way out the door, fine. But for most people, nobody’s going to take that.”
The official at the Transportation Department said they believed “maybe a few people” are “considering it” — mostly those who work in locations where returning to in-office work won’t be as easy as a simple commute.
One federal employee who works as a human resources supervisor near Washington, D.C., said they were “tempted” to take the offer since she believes her higher salary and position would likely put her at the top of the list if layoffs occur.
“You can stay and fight or you can leave,” this person said. “I just don’t know how much a federal employee will be situated to fight when all the odds are stacked for someone to fire you.”
Democrats and federal employee advocates argued that civil servants should not take the offer. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said in a Senate floor speech on Tuesday that Trump would “stiff” federal workers who choose to resign. And Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), said in a statement that the offer “should not be viewed as voluntary,” adding the administration’s “goal is to turn the federal government into a toxic environment where workers cannot stay even if they want to.” The union later sent an FAQ to members saying it is encouraging them “NOT to resign or respond” to the email “until you have received further information and clarification.”
But for all the shock and awe of the administration’s first days, much of what Trump has wrought should not have come as a surprise, since he discussed his intentions at length during the presidential campaign. In fact, his aim to drastically reshape the civil service was core to his agenda and a major focus of opponents who sought to limit his ability to do so or raise the alarm about potential consequences.
Still, federal employees said the speed and scope of the effort has startled colleagues.
“It’s surprising a lot of people, not everyone,” a U.S. Forest Service employee said. “Everything he’s done, he’s talked about. … A lot of people, they’re like, ‘Oh, you know, he’s all talk.’ And I just don’t think that that’s the case anymore.”
The first USAID official said there was broad awareness that Trump would seek to implement these changes upon taking office, but given how large and slow-moving the government is, the speed with which things are happening has come as a surprise.
More stunning was what this person saw as a lack of response from Congress and allies.
“They just seem to be sitting back and sort of keeping their mouth shut, which is also difficult. … I don’t know where the lawyers are,” the USAID official said. “There’s not a lot of communication about what can be done to stop it. It just seems like everybody’s just sort of moving along and being like, ‘OK, this is what we’re doing.’ And that’s also disconcerting.”
Saying they “have not heard one scintilla of anything from Congress so far,” the Transportation Department official also lamented not having “really any clear message from the union for the people that they are supposed to be representing.”
The union has taken some steps to combat the administration on these issues. In addition to putting out the FAQ on Wednesday, AFGE and its allies filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration challenging the executive order making it easier to fire civil servants. Earlier, the union sued Trump and OMB over the Department of Government Efficiency.
Generally, though, federal employees are gearing up and hunkering down for what they think could be difficult four years.
“Everyone’s trying to just stick it out,” the Forest Service employee said. “Obviously, no one’s really feeling all that great.”
The Fish and Wildlife Service official said most people they’ve spoken to aren’t looking to leave.
“We’re trying to hang on,” this person said.
A second Veterans Affairs employee even said the broad effort to squeeze the federal workforce has their colleagues banding together.
“There is a little bit of a sense of optimism that this is just the shock stage, and then things will plateau eventually,” this person said, adding: “We know that a lot of these mandates coming out are supposed to shock us into submission or try to get us to leave our jobs. That’s the whole point of all this is to shank the government and to take out its workers.”
“And so a lot of us are going to stay out of spite,” this person added. “We’re here for however long we want to be here. I could be here until retirement in 30 years. The Trump administration is only here for four. So there’s been this newfound hope where people are going to stick together, we’re going to advocate for one another, and we’re going to stay here and do our job and serve the public.”
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