Federal employees are panicking as Democrats feud over whether to dump President Joe Biden as their nominee and as former President Donald Trump gains steam in the race for the White House.
With the prospect of a Trump administration 2.0 looming, government employees inside federal agencies are increasingly fearing for their jobs under a president who has vowed to fire civil servants. And they’re worried that an incoming Trump team will scrap much of the last four years of policy work they’ve done under Democrats, just as they did the last time Trump took office.
Biden’s rough stretch is fueling anxiety in the executive branch. The president’s lackluster debate performance sparked a Democratic meltdown as some party leaders are prodding Biden to drop out of the race. On top of the infighting, the president now has Covid-19 again, sidelining him from the campaign trail at a pivotal moment.
Trump, meanwhile, is riding high after he was coronated as the GOP’s official presidential nominee, and he appears energized after surviving last weekend’s attempted assassination. As he prepares to take the stage at the Republican National Convention on Thursday to lay out his vision for a second term, government workers are fearful.
“I’m really worried about it now because I think he’s learned more about what he needs to do with his incoming administration if he were to be elected,” said one National Park Service employee.
The first time Trump took office, he hired a lot of people that were unfamiliar with the park service and how it operated, that person said. In a second term, “He’s going to get people in place that are more intelligent and are more loyal to him,” that person said. “Now I think he could do a lot of damage.”
That employee and other federal workers were granted anonymity to speak about a potential Trump administration because they feared retaliation.
Trump and his allies have spent the past four years drafting plans for the next Republican administration, including the lengthy Project 2025 blueprint organized by the conservative Heritage Foundation. Trump’s campaign has sought to distance itself from that document, but some of its goals, like shrinking the federal workforce and obliterating Biden’s energy and environmental policies, are in line with Trump’s own campaign-trail rhetoric.
Trump has promised to “demolish the deep state” and wants to make it easier to fire federal workers. His new running mate, Ohio Republican Sen. JD Vance, said in a 2021 podcast interview that Trump ought to “fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state.”
‘It’s the uncertainty’
That rhetoric is terrifying to government employees who fear losing their paychecks and seeing years of work trashed.
Some people fear reprisal from the Trump administration, said one longtime career employee at the Interior Department.
“The mood is somber and incredulous,” he said. “The hope is we will not suffer through another term with the prior leadership, but the fear [is] that if we do, they will target employees they don’t like, make things up to justify whatever punishment they want and just cripple the good work we are doing.”
He said people are careful not to talk publicly.
“All conversations are whispered and done away from the office as much as possible,” he said.
EPA staff are distraught, said Nicole Cantello, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 704, which represents EPA Region 5 employees. “So many of our members lived through the absolutely disastrous first Trump administration and his attempted dismantling of EPA.”
AFGE Council 238, EPA’s largest union, recently secured a new contract that will last for years and included first-time provisions to protect EPA’s scientific research and promote diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. Union leaders sought those protections, which could help shield agency employees if Trump returns to the White House.
Job security is on high on workers’ minds.
“It’s the uncertainty, that’s what gets to you,” one EPA employee said this week.
During the first Trump administration, “you did your job and you know going into it that your job is to implement the policies … of the administration in power,” that person said. “The big issue is: Do I get to keep my job, or do I lose my job?”
The Project 2025 blueprint for EPA — drafted by former Trump EPA chief of staff Mandy Gunasekara — emphasizes cutting staff from that agency.
Gunasekara wrote that EPA should “determine the opportunity to downsize by terminating the newest hires in low-value programs” and by looking for opportunities to relocate some senior staffers. She also suggested reducing the number of full-time positions and slashing duplicative programs within the agency.
There’s not much internal discussion about a possible Trump return, the EPA employee said, because “everybody understands that we need to stay away from all things politics.” The rank and file are “just doing our daily work,” that person said.
Watching the Biden campaign saga has been “overwhelming,” said another EPA employee.
“All elections are filled with drama. This one is particularly important because our livelihoods are on the line,” the employee said.
As Election Day approaches, that person is talking to their financial adviser and preparing their retirement papers in anticipation of another Trump term. “I’m holding out hope that I’m still employed until I’m eligible to retire,” that employee said.
There are ongoing conversations about whether Biden will step back from his campaign, said an EPA official, and thoughts among staff are mixed about what should happen.
“People have diverse opinions on the ultimate question. Yesterday would have been better but soon,” the EPA official said. “We need finality.”
Inside the agency, “people are just plowing ahead,” that official said. “Do your job, accomplish things because you can’t affect the rest of it. Do the good you can.”
Bracing for a Trump return
A senior EPA appointee said that the prospect of a second Trump administration is “absolutely” factoring into the push to complete work on Biden administration priorities.
“Elections have consequences and voters should make an informed choice, but there will be consequences if there is a change in administrations,” that appointee said. “We’re doing all we can to provide a clean and healthy future for the American public and if this administration continues, we’ll be able to follow through on that. If it doesn’t, it’s clear that there are different priorities for a different administration.”
Some senior federal officials have been more risk-averse since the last Trump administration, said the park service employee.
“Understandably they’re fearful for their positions and just generally what Trump could do,” that person said. “I thought there would be some lessening of that with Biden, but it stuck through the Biden administration.”
That person pointed to a recent park service controversy surrounding whether employees could wear their uniforms to LGBTQ+ Pride events. The park service issued guidance saying employees were prohibited from wearing their uniforms to Pride events before Interior Secretary Deb Haaland reversed the ban.
The initial prohibition was an indication, that employee said, that government officials are “a lot more risk averse and don’t want to rock the boat, especially so close to the election.”
A longtime senior employee at the Interior Department said people are in a scramble to entrench programs that would be vulnerable under a potential Trump presidency.
“The concern hasn’t been focused on who the Democratic nominee is as much as concerns about Trump winning and what that would mean,” the Interior official said in a text. “From everyone’s perspective it is get as much done as possible. Also trying to bury into the agency programs [like environmental justice] so they can survive a Trump administration.”
Some federal employees are thinking about whether they want to stay through another Trump administration, the park service employee said.
“The first rendition of the Trump administration was really, really difficult, and we saw a mass exodus of employees retiring,” that person said. “If we do have an administration shift, other employees will also reconsider their positions and move to the private sector. I don’t know what I’ll end up doing.”
One employee at the National Science Foundation is “trying to avoid thinking about the subject” of a possible Trump return, they said. “Not much I can do about it anyway.”
Reporters Heather Richards and Sean Reilly contributed.
