Politics

‘I am terrified’: Workers describe the dark mood inside federal agencies

Published

1 year ago

January 25, 2025

President Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting the federal workforce have injected a fresh wave of anxiety among employees across the bureaucracy — stoking fears the president is coming for their jobs.

Just a few days into Trump’s second term, some federal workers are contemplating quitting. Others are preparing to file grievances with their unions or moving communications with each other to secure platforms like Signal. Some, fearing they’ll be caught up in the White House’s purge of diversity programs, are leaving their names off of memos and documents they worry could be labeled as DEI-adjacent.

As federal employees searched this week for clues within the orders to see how they’ll be affected, a staffer with the Environmental Protection Agency said they were cleaning out their inbox and waiting for information about early retirement and buyout programs.

“Trump version 1.0 was bad,” said the EPA employee. “I’m already done with version 2.0.”

Trump, within hours of returning to power, issued a slew of executive orders seeking to overhaul how the federal government operates, from removing job protections to ending remote work to implementing a hiring freeze. The reception inside the federal government has been uneasy. But especially worrisome to some employees was the White House’s decision on Tuesday to eliminate diversity programs, subsequently placing those staffers on administrative leave.

At the State Department, the shutdown of those programs was something many saw coming. But some were startled by the directive that they report individual cases of people’s job descriptions being changed to “disguise” the DEI element to a special Office of Personnel Management email address. Some saw it as an order to snitch on colleagues. Others, who prepared for Trump’s return to office, had begun working months ago with outside nonprofits to archive websites they feared would be taken down by the Trump administration — including information on ending gender-based violence around the world.

“I would love to leave, but I don’t know where I’d go, and I am terrified of not being able to pay rent and not having healthcare,” one State staffer said.

Blue Light News spoke to almost two dozen federal workers for this article and granted anonymity to many in order to protect them from retribution for speaking out.

It’s too early to tell if a mass exodus of federal workers will occur. The vagueness of the president’s orders has many workers waiting to see how they will be implemented once political staff is in place. But what is clear is that the new administration intends to follow through on its threats to purge and dismantle the federal bureaucracy.

“Most of us are watching cautiously and letting the dust settle,” said an employee at the U.S. Agency for International Development. “We know that there is a range of possible outcomes, and some people are panicking, but most are taking a wait-and-see approach.”

Adding to federal workers’ distress, the acting head of the Office of Personnel Management, which is effectively the federal government’s HR department, on Monday instructed agencies to compile lists by the end of the week of all recent hires and “promptly determine whether those employees should be retained at the agency.”

Employees whose start date was Feb. 8 or later had their job offers revoked with limited exceptions, under a different OPM memo tied to the Trump administration’s federal hiring freeze.

Career staffers who have been in the job for less than a year are on probationary status, meaning they can be fired without triggering civil service protections that insulate much of the federal workforce.

“The only reason you would do that is that he’s going to fire them all,” said Alan Lescht, a Washington-based employment lawyer who represents federal workers. “If you have these mass firings you can’t accuse him of discriminating or anything. But then the question becomes who does [Trump] re-hire.”

Lescht said his firm began getting a spike in calls from worried federal employees starting Monday evening after Trump began signing executive orders.

New hires who have yet to start are also seeing their jobs vanish. Employees whose start date was Feb. 8 or later had their job offers revoked with limited exceptions, under a different OPM memo tied to the Trump administration’s federal hiring freeze.

At NASA, in the weeks leading up to Trump’s inauguration, union membership exploded as part of an effort to protect themselves as civil servants. The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 800,000 employees throughout the government, “will be tracking how agencies implement the orders and will be prepared to file grievances if our contracts are violated,” a spokesperson said.

An Environmental Protection Agency staffer said they plan to file a grievance with the union if their remote work arrangement is rescinded. In the meantime, they’re preparing to find a job outside the government.

Another EPA employee predicted that no major changes would occur until March, when the short-term spending bill runs out. “After that, it’s a toss-up,” they said.

Carmen Paun, Katherine Hapgood, Alfred Ng and Marcia Brown contributed to this report.

Politics

DC is about to pick new leaders. Trump is watching.

Published

4 hours ago

June 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Washington will soon enter a new chapter after voters pick the capital’s first new mayor in a dozen years and its first new Congressional delegate since 1991. And no matter who wins Tuesday’s primaries, they’ll be on a collision course with President Donald Trump.

The frontrunners in both races have hinged their campaigns on opposition to Trump, who since returning to office has chipped away at Washington’s autonomy and sought to remake parts of the city in his image. Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has led the city since taking office in 2015, has taken a pragmatic approach to working with the president in an apparent effort to avoid further furor. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton has represented the District since 1991 and condemned Trump’s actions in strongly worded statements, but the 89-year-old has dodged the spotlight amid questions about her acuity and ability to serve.

The candidates running to replace them say that’s far from enough.

In interviews with Blue Light News, those leading candidates emphasized that they hoped to find common ground with the Trump administration and coordinate where possible, especially on projects that could jumpstart Washington’s sluggish economy. But they all drew a red line at Trump’s extraordinary law enforcement actions, including sending in the National Guard indefinitely and surging federal immigration agents in coordination with local police.

“Washington, D.C., residents want and deserve a mayor who’s going to stand up and fight back, and that’s what I’m bringing,” said Kenyan McDuffie, a relatively moderate, pro-business former D.C. Council member who is polling second in the mayor’s race. He has pledged to end coordination between the Metropolitan Police Department and ICE on his first day in office.

Janeese Lewis George, a D.C. council member who is polling more than 10 points ahead of McDuffie, has taken an even more adversarial posture against the president. She told Blue Light News she would “actively tell our employees to resist” if Trump again federalized the MPD, adding that she would work with D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb “to defend D.C.”

Trump is already making known his displeasure — particularly with Lewis George, a democratic socialist whose platform and campaign are reminiscent of those of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Asked last week about the possibility of Lewis George winning the primary, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office: “I wouldn’t like it.”

“Maybe we’ll take back Washington, run it on a federal basis,” he continued. “We won’t put up with it. We’re not gonna lose our businesses.”

Lewis George’s campaign almost immediately cut Trump’s comments into an ad. “Look, we’re not going to get ICE off our streets by fearing this president,” she said in response. “We’re not going to protect our rights, or Home Rule, by complying in advance. Threatening Home Rule because you don’t like how residents are voting is an attack on democracy itself. The people of D.C. elect their mayor, and they want someone who’s gonna stand up to Donald Trump.”

There’s a similar sentiment among the leading delegate candidates.

Robert White, a city council member and one of two frontrunners in the delegate race, described Trump’s surge of federal agents and National Guard troops to the city as “lawlessness” and “the opposite of public safety.” He said he would seek to build a coalition in Congress to “push back in every way.”

Brooke Pinto, a fellow council member and the other delegate frontrunner who has centered public safety in her campaign, said the administration’s use of National Guard troops and ICE agents have not helped the city. “While I am very committed to advancing public safety in the District of Columbia, what we’re seeing from the Trump administration undermines those efforts,” she said.

That type of messaging is politically savvy in a city with an electorate that heavily supported Kamala Harris in 2024 and whose lives have been directly impacted by the president’s grip over Washington — from the troop surge to his sweeping cuts to government programs and razing of the federal workforce, which have severely contracted the District’s economy. That’s not to mention his efforts to splash his name and face across federal buildings, and mounting moves to beautify portions of the city and stand up ambitious architectural projects.

“When politicians try to interfere with our local public safety, when they are sweeping up unhoused residents, cutting jobs, when they are pushing policies that negatively affect our local economy and driving up overall costs of everything from gas to housing, I’m going to fight back,” McDuffie said.

But it sets the candidates — whoever wins — in explicit opposition to Trump, who has consistently sought to bring his enemies to heel whenever he gets the chance. The president has several levers at his disposal if he chooses to retaliate against Washington, from another federal law enforcement surge to using his influence over Congress to weaken D.C. Home Rule. The city also depends on the federal government for high-profile projects that would improve public spaces and bring jobs to the District, including upgrades to Union Station and the redevelopment of the RFK Stadium campus.

Asked how the White House is preparing for a potentially more adversarial mayor and delegate, a spokesperson referred Blue Light News back to Trump’s Oval Office comments.

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