Politics

Musk threatens federal employees still working from home with administrative leave

Published

1 year ago

February 24, 2025

Elon Musk warned Monday that government employees who have not yet returned to working from their offices full time will be placed on administrative leave, a fresh escalation of his effort from within the Trump administration to tighten the screws on the federal bureaucracy.

Musk’s threat follows an executive order from President Donald Trump last month ending the widespread allowance of work-from-home and ordering federal employees back to their offices.

“Those who ignored President Trump’s executive order to return to work have now received over a month’s warning,” Musk posted to X, replying to a Fox News clip from Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.). “Starting this week, those who still fail to return to office will be placed on administrative leave.”

Forcing federal workers back to the office was one of many day one executive orders signed by Trump. The return to in-person work order requires department heads to “as soon as practicable, take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis.”

By announcing that workers will be placed on leave this week, Musk, the de-facto leader of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, is again placing himself in between workers and their normal chain of command.

Over the weekend, Musk’s team created mass confusion across agencies by sending an email asking workers “What did you do last week?” and requesting five bullet points of accomplishments. Immediately, a power struggle emerged, with Trump loyalists at departments across the government instructing their employees not to reply.

FBI Director Kash Patel instructed agency staff to “please pause any responses,” and an email to State Department employees made clear that “no employee is obligated to report their activities outside of their Department chain of command.”

Those directions were in direct conflict with Musk, who said that failure to reply would be “taken as a resignation.”

Despite frustration and backlash from the agencies, many Republicans in Congress supported the email.

“I don’t think this is a request that is that difficult,” Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday morning, though he encouraged “a little compassion and, quite frankly, dignity, in this as well.”

Musk has already exerted immense influence over the federal government as thousands of government workers are being placed on leave or fired, though some efforts are being held up in court. On Friday, Trump administration officials told POLITICO that the break-neck pace may slow down following criticism over the speed and scope of the changes.

Trump himself continues to advocate for Musk’s work, and said over the weekend he hopes Musk will work even faster.

“ELON IS DOING A GREAT JOB, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE HIM GET MORE AGGRESSIVE,” he posted to Truth Social. “REMEMBER, WE HAVE A COUNTRY TO SAVE, BUT ULTIMATELY, TO MAKE GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE. MAGA!”

Politics

Michigan pollster accuses McMorrow campaign of killing unfavorable Senate poll

Published

51 minutes ago

June 17, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

A prominent Michigan pollster is accusing state Sen. Mallory McMorrow’s Senate campaign of pressuring a state capitol news outlet into killing a survey of the heated Democratic primary.

The pollster, Steve Mitchell, told Blue Light News the survey was conducted on behalf of Michigan Information & Research Service, an independent news outlet covering the state capitol that his firm regularly works with. But MIRS ultimately chose not to publish the survey after pushback from the McMorrow campaign.

The poll found McMorrow at just 6 percent ahead of the state’s pivotal Aug. 4 contest, far behind former public health official Abdul El-Sayed at 42 percent and Rep. Haley Stevens at 33 percent.

“The poll, in the eyes of the McMorrow campaign, understated their support,” Mitchell, whose firm Mitchell Research & Communications conducted and paid for the poll, told Blue Light News. “And they put intense pressure on MIRS, and therefore MIRS decided that they weren’t going to run the survey. That’s their decision, and I support their decision.”

McMorrow has trailed the other two candidates in a number of recent public surveys, but 6 percent would mark a new low — a sign her campaign for the critical Michigan Senate seat may be mired in third place. McMorrow’s campaign told Blue Light News the polling methodology was faulty and that its resulting memo was riddled with errors, including spelling her name wrong.

Kyle Melinn, a news editor with MIRS, said he killed the poll after speaking with the McMorrow campaign and other pollsters.

“I told Steve that the campaign did raise issues with the poll, and that they were pressuring me to not run the poll,” Melinn said in an interview. He added that after registering the McMorrow campaign’s concerns, he solicited the advice of other pollsters, and “didn’t run it because I didn’t feel comfortable with it.” The other unidentified pollsters shared his issues with the poll, according to Melinn.

McMorrow campaign spokesperson Jackson Boaz said in a statement that “Voicing concerns about a poll isn’t a pressure campaign. They chose not to publish a survey that is deeply flawed.” Asked whether the campaign had asked MIRS not to run the poll, Boaz said, “MIRS chose not to run the poll because they agreed the poll did not meet their standards.”

Boaz said the McMorrow campaign reached out to MIRS after “we noticed odd things about the data,” including that 0 percent of Black voters were undecided in the race; 0 or 1 percent of voters in Detroit and its metro area were undecided while other parts of the state had undecided voters at 25 percent, 48 percent, and even 54 percent; and that McMorrow was at just 5 percent support in her home base of Oakland County.

Their suspicion — which they said MIRS confirmed — was that the poll allowed anyone to take it through an open link, rather than having access controlled to ensure a random and representative sample of the state.

The poll was conducted through a methodology known as text-to-web, in which random voters are selected to receive a text message link to a survey to fill out. That allows pollsters to ensure they are reaching an appropriately wide-ranging group of voters. But the McMorrow campaign said all respondents received the same open-access link, which would allow anyone with the link to take the poll — potentially multiple times.

“The outlet that sponsored this poll declined to publish it because it didn’t meet their standards.

It was conducted through an open SurveyMonkey link sent over text, meaning anyone who

received this poll could vote multiple times or send the link to friends and supporters to impact

the results,” Boaz said in a statement. “This is fundamental polling malpractice. We urge either of our opponents, or any reputable pollster, to stand by this shoddy methodology.”

In an interview, Mitchell admitted he got some of the polling memo wrong, saying for example that he meant to write El-Sayed supported Medicare for All, not “Social Security for All.” But he said he stood by the poll and its methodology.

“I have always had 100 percent confidence in all the polling I do,” Mitchell said. “I believe that we’ve been very strenuous in the methodology that we use. We’re very careful about it. We weighted it well, and more importantly, we have a track record that shows we are a strong and good pollster.”

“A poll is a poll,” Mitchell said when asked about the open link question, sharing a poll with Blue Light News from GOP gubernatorial candidate John James that he said used a similar approach.

The controversy over the spiked poll underscores the importance of the Michigan Senate race. Democrats view defending the open seat as crucial to reclaiming the Senate majority, and the party establishment has mobilized hard against Bernie Sanders-backed El-Sayed, who they argue could pave the way to Republican Mike Rogers flipping the seat in November.

But recent pollssuggest McMorrow is falling behind El-Sayed, who is experiencing a surge in support, and Stevens, who is backed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

In the memo about the contested poll, Mitchell wrote there has been a “huge erosion in support for Mallory McMorrow.”

“One of the reasons for her seeming collapse is the fact El-Sayed had received a large amount of unpaid media because of the endorsements by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Hasan Piker the anti-Semitic podcaster while Haley Stevens had an outside organization spend more than $6 million on her candidacy,” Mitchell wrote. However, he added: “Our poll was conducted June 11-13 which coincided with an ad buy of at least $5 million on behalf of McMorrow that started just the day before we began our polling. Therefore, McMorrow’s ads did not have enough time to impact our results.”