President Donald Trump has pledged to make the federal government more efficient. He even made billionaire Elon Musk the face of the government’s new efficiency.
However, critics have said that government programs, contracts, and mask chainsaw approaches to reducing workers have the opposite effect, serving the public and enacting bureaucratic ability to carry out key parts of Trump’s agenda. He says he is holding the confusion that is hindering.
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“It’s paralysis and I haven’t done anything,” said a Veterans Affairs official who spoke on condition of anonymity in fear of retaliation. Officials described the “absolute confusion” at the agency, and even Trump’s political appointees were feared of missteps and received backlash from the White House or the public.
“The best employees are beginning to see other places,” the official added. “I can’t stress that too much.”
Trump and other White House officials say the president is excited about the mask job and hopes he will become more aggressive. However, within the political rank of the administration, there are indications at risk that Cabinet Secretaries risk losing civil servants with the best equipment to carry out important government functions, and rank and file civil servants are It is said that the movement to watch the belly button has become a distraction.
In short, running a government can be more difficult than it looks.
Over the weekend, Musk threatened to fire federal workers for not responding to emails from the Human Resources Administration. Trump said those who didn’t respond would be fired or “semi-fireed,” but Musk and someone else would have the legal authority to dismiss as many as 2 million federal workers at once. Email despite it’s not clear that he has.
Some agencies and senior officials have urged employees to answer Musks. Others, including Trump’s newly confirmed FBI head, Kash Patel, told them not to do so. Musk then posted on his social media platform X. The first round is not counted.
“At the president’s discretion, they will be given another opportunity,” he wrote Monday night. “If the second response fails, a termination occurs.”
Finally, hours before the midnight deadline, the Human Resources Administration told federal workers that they would not be fired if they didn’t respond – because many of them had already done so.
President Trump, who appeared in the White House with French President Macron, commented on Elon Musk’s request over the weekend, commenting that federal employees were e-mailing the results of their work.
White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt claimed there was no sunlight between Trump, Musk and the Cabinet on Monday. However, she showed that employees should follow the directions of the department head.
“The president entrusted the Cabinet Secretary to oversee the workforce,” Leavitt said at a briefing at the White House. “So he appointed them as Cabinet Secretaries.” She did not say whether employees would be fired who could not meet future demands from Musk.
Several veteran federal workers who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity have said they have come up with demand for masks beyond the time that agency managers and employers spent several hours Monday building bullet lists. He said he will decide how to deal with it.
“I probably spent at least 30-60 minutes sharing my thoughts on how to approach it with friends of other federal employees from various agencies,” he said, not giving her agency a name. One of the workers asked said: Look at interpreted and forbidden words and make sure I don’t include them. ”
Employees mentioned the words they disliked the administration (such as “diversity”). “I spent at least 30 minutes drafting. [and] I shared it with my manager via email before sending it,” she said.
Levitt explained a much easier process for him, certainly not having to worry about being fired regardless of his reaction. She estimated that she reviewed and wrote down a list of five items in 90 seconds. Leavitt also said more than one million employees responded.
In terms of man’s time, the cost of exercise could have been tens of millions of dollars.
Resistance against the mask is built on both public votes showing his recognition rating under the water. On Tuesday, unsigned letters from nearly 20 officials from the US Digital Services said the agency replaced by Doge had resigned. The letter was addressed to the White House Chief Susie Wills. NBC News confirmed the credibility of the letter, but did not confirm the identities of the 21 staff members.
A former USDS worker said masks are invalidating the government rather than improving it.
“Doge seems to mean that ‘efficiency’ means that no matter how good the return is, it’s less,” the former employer added. “That burnt-earth approach drives people out there who actually have the skills to solve government problems.”
Rep. Nicole Malliotakes, RN.Y., in an interview with MSNBC on Monday, criticized the government for cutting meat creovers.
“I think they need to be more targeted and more thoughtful,” she said. “President Trump has appointed really great people to lead his agency, and these secretaries from different departments look at agencies, see where efficiency is, and there’s too much overhead. You should be watching it.”
Some of the Trump administration’s moves have been temporarily delayed as the court attempts to determine whether it has the authority to take certain actions without opinion from Congress.
Trump’s loyalists, including Musk, note that President Bill Clinton cut off hundreds of thousands of federal jobs during his term. But Elaine Camarck, who led the Clinton government’s reorganization, pointed out in an interview that it took “seven years, not seven.”
“They’re crippling the government. They’re using x instead of meth to attack the government,” she said. “This is a really strange time when this guy chose to do this with this team of kids, of nuts.
Already, the administration had to try to reverse the firing of workers who deal with avian flu, nuclear safety, and other regions that affect the well-being of the public. Trump’s top permanent lieutenant is interested in making sure he doesn’t accidentally take away the tools needed to implement the president’s agenda, but Musk is a temporary “special government employee.”
Kamarck said it made sense that Patel and some Cabinet officials had given workers guidance that they didn’t need to reply to Musk.
“We need fewer FBI agents to fight the war against crime,” she said.
NBC News ‘Amanda Terkel contributed.
Billionaire Elon Musk appears at a conservative gathering outside Washington, waving a chainsaw in the air, showing openness to auditing the Federal Reserve and denounceing Democrats’ “treason.” Ta.
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