The White House can’t answer one crucial question according to a late-night TV host
The Trump administration has unleashed a new threat against federal workers: a strongly worded email.
Well, sort of. According to late-night televison show host Jimmy Fallon, the Trump administration can’t decide whether or not government employees should pay attention to strongly worded emails, or tepid ones. On the heels of Elon Musk’s email to federal workers demanding that they declare their worth or get fired, the White House sent a follow-up message saying that compliance with Musk’s ultimatum was “voluntary.” The president himself attempted to clarify matters in an Oval Office address, saying that workers who didn’t respond to Musk’s email would be “sort of semi-fired.”
“It’s confusing,” Fallon said on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “When you walk into the White House and say ‘who’s in charge,’ everyone just shrugs like they’re working at Lids.”
Confused? Join the federal club
Elon Musk acted on his promise to wield a metaphorical (and sometimes literal) chainsaw against bureaucracy and slash federal budgets. While Musk’s DOGE is still not a Congressionally approved agency, the para-governmental organization has been bulldozing its way into federal buildings with limited technical know-how and security clearance. After security personnel turned away DOGE staffers attempting to gain access to the U.S. governments’ humanitarian organization USAId, the agency’s head of security and his deputy found themselves placed on administrative leave. Democrats were aghast, and argued that DOGE’s meddling was “incredibly serious and unprecedented,” according to Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. – and risked the security and privacy of American citizens.
A similar uproar occurred when DOGE gained access to the Treasury, including the system that distributes trillions of dollars worth of social security and federal paychecks. After denying DOGE staffers and being placed on administrative leave, Treasury official David Lebryk resigned from his position. In his career as a civil servant, Lebryk oversaw billions of annual federal payments dispersed to Americans across the nation. Formerly the acting Treasury Secretary, Lebryk has since been replaced by the DOGE-sympathetic Scott Bessent, who defended the agency’s Treasury takeover.
Trump issued a since judicially blocked order to totally freeze federal funds. “In the simplest terms, the freeze was ill-conceived from the beginning,” U.S. District Judge Loren Judge AliKhan wrote. “Defendants either wanted to pause up to $3 trillion in federal spending practically overnight, or they expected each federal agency to review every single one of its grants, loans, and funds for compliance in less than twenty-four hours. The breadth of that command is almost unfathomable.” According to the Economic Policy Institute, the freeze would have been catastrophic for the U.S. economy, and the Institute has called Trump’s decision “reckless” and “severe.”
Federal workers aren’t just baffled, they’re afraid
According to staffers across multiple government agencies, fear and paranoia abound in the halls of power. Fearful of electronic surveillance from DOGE, federal employees have resorted to having in person meetings, printing out important documents lest they be digitally altered, and even enclosing personal devices in electromagnetic frequency dampened Faraday bags in order to avoid their electronics being monitored. That paranoia has reached a fever pitch as workers agonize over whether or not to respond to Musk’s email threatening to terminate their livelihoods if they don’t prove their worth. “It’s bedlam” an IRS employee said, stressing that government employees are at their wits’ end.
While the Trump administration fumbles with itself over federal policy, federal workers are forced to weather the consequences.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
