‘A reckless mistake’: Oops! Trump allegedly fired nuclear staff amid mass layoffs
In his continued attempt to purge the government from wasteful spending (and get rid of some enemies at the Department of Justice), President Donald Trump inadvertently fired some employees with one of the most important jobs in the world: overseeing the country’s nuclear weapons.
The White House fired more than 300 employees of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) recently, and apparently didn’t realize what it had done. The terminations were quickly taken back when it became clear what happened.
The move was part of a broad swath of Energy Department layoffs, per CNN. The Trump administration did not seem to know that the NNSA was responsible for the weapons.
A spokesman for the Energy Department downplayed the issue, telling CNN that “less than 50” were let go from the agency and that they mostly had “primarily administrative and clerical roles.”
However, a source said some fired employees worked on the ground where the weapons are built and are tasked with overseeing the making and inspection of those weapons. The source said they believed the firings happened because no one at the Trump administration seems to understand what the NNSA does and why it’s so important to the “nation’s national security.”
The source went on to say that Congress was “freaking out” because of what happened, adding that “nuclear deterrent is the backbone of security and stability.” For there to be any doubt of the safety or readiness of that stockpile “should be extremely frightening.” So far, all but somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 NNSA have been reinstated to their jobs. The mass firing caused a lot of chaos at the agency, and understandably so. One NNSA employee said the whole thing was “ridiculous, unprecedented and sloppy” because there was no “formal process.”
“I didn’t think I would be fired until it happened,” the worker said. They assumed they were exempt from mass firings because all of the memos about cutting federal workers had “a national security exemption.” Because there was a long holiday weekend, it was, and still is, difficult to let people know they’ve been reinstated and need to come back and do their jobs. Emails were sent out that said the termination decisions issued on Feb. 13 were “rescinded effective immediately.”
It’s not clear just yet what effect the firings, and subsequent rehirings, will have on not only the employees themselves but the way the agency is viewed by the world. If the Trump administration is firing government agencies so haphazardly, what’s to say an enemy organization won’t take advantage of the chaos? The NNSA employee that talked to CNN mused about that very potential. The wondered what they would do if someone with “no need to know” came and asked for files on “the Ukraine, or warhead design.”
They said workers are “deeply alarmed” they may face a situation where they have to either turn over sensitive data or be fired. Others are worried they’ll be targeted by a “vengeful” president who doesn’t like to be embarrassed. Another big issue is the intentional non-partisanship of the agency. Should senior staff be replaced with Trump allies, that could be seen as a lack of continuity and potential instability with the nuclear stockpile. The implications of that in particular are especially troubling. Should the world not view America as a stable country, then other countries will begin to build up their own stockpiles. This is understandably bad.
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