Feds flabbergasted by Trump’s mass resignation scheme

By Kevin Bogardus, Robin Bravender | 01/29/2025 01:44 PM EST

“They’re gonna have to take me out kicking and screaming,” one federal employee said of the president’s offer.

Donald Trump (left) and Karoline Leavitt (right)

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday as White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt listens. Mark Schiefelbein/AP

Federal employees are reeling after a Trump administration mass email hit their inboxes Tuesday offering to accept their resignations.

The Trump administration’s missive, offering “deferred resignations” to most federal employees, stunned government workers who were already feeling overwhelmed by the new administration’s moves to reshape the federal government.

Trump’s offer incentivizing employees to leave a workforce he’s vowed to target over the next four years is enticing to some federal workers who are reluctant to serve under his administration or who fear losing their jobs anyway. But some civil servants and government unions are urging their colleagues to resist Trump’s offer, in part to combat the push to slash the federal workforce and in part because they warn the president won’t follow through on his promises.

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“It was the batshit craziest email I’ve ever read,” said an EPA employee. That person was one of a dozen federal employees interviewed by POLITICO’s E&E News for this story who were granted anonymity to speak freely about internal agency operations..

The Trump email, sent broadly to federal employees Tuesday night, offered workers the chance to receive pay and benefits through Sept. 30 if they decide to resign their posts by Feb. 6. They were instructed to reply to the email account “hr@opm.gov” with the word “Resign” if they wanted to accept the offer.

“These people have a history of shorting workers,” the EPA employee said. “There’s no way I’m sending ‘Resign’ to this jinky email address.”

‘Kicking and screaming’

Employees across the government were left scrambling Tuesday night to understand the offer and its possible implications for their futures and their careers.

At the Interior Department, “everyone is freaked out,” an Interior employee said.

That person is not planning to take the offer. “It’s too much of a gamble,” that person said, adding that the government “has no power to really do” what the administration is promising.

“It’s just a way to dismantle the government with false promises and without following the rules set up to protect democracy,” the Interior employee said. “They’re gonna have to take me out kicking and screaming.”

An employee at the National Science Foundation deleted the email as soon as they received it, they said. That person was worried that they might accidentally hit reply, and because the email already contained the word “resign,” they would inadvertently relinquish their job.

Some other government employees are saying, “I might as well do this,” out of concern for their jobs moving forward, the NSF employee said. But that person isn’t taking the resignation offer, they said. “I’m more angry now, and I’m not going to quit,” that employee said. “I don’t care what you throw at me.”

A second NSF employee said they’re considering taking the offer due to the uncertainty about their career. But that person finds the Trump offer “insulting” and confusing. “It isn’t clear what it means,” they said.

Energy Department staffers were skeptical of the offer, too.

“No one trusts it, and it’s just not happening,” said one DOE staffer, who dismissed it as a ploy. “No one I know is taking the bait here.”

A second DOE employee said, “I don’t trust the people who sent the offer, I don’t trust that they know or care whether this is even legal, and I deeply resent the attempt to intimidate people into making rash, probably irrevocable, choices.”

A staffer with Interior’s Bureau of Land Management said a government employee union that represents agency staff was advising members to be wary of the offer until they had more time to evaluate it.

Many federal employees are tuned into a page on Reddit where workers are sharing their concerns about the Trump administration.

Tech mogul Elon Musk, leading Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, criticized federal employees in a social media post Wednesday, reposting a claim that government workers spend too much time complaining about their jobs on Reddit.

Musk celebrated the administration’s resignation push, calling it a “severance offer” and “very generous” in a social media post. He has long pushed for federal employees to return to the office.

Trump’s resignation offer mimicked Musk’s push to force out Twitter employees when the latter took over the social media company in 2022, down to the use of the “Fork in the Road” subject line in the email to staff.

Warnings for workers

The details of the Trump administration’s plans aren’t entirely clear. Government employee unions and others are warning that workers who offer to resign might not get the benefits they’re expecting.

“Make no mistake: this email is designed to entice or scare you into resigning from the federal government,” the National Treasury Employees Union, who represents federal employees in 36 agencies, told its members in a Tuesday night email. “We strongly urge you not to resign in response to this email.”

The American Federation of Government Employees, the country’s largest federal worker union, is encouraging its members “not to make a hasty decision” about resigning, said AFGE spokesperson Tim Kauffman.

“Since this action does not seem to be targeted, mass resignations from key government agencies could cause widespread chaos for Americans who depend on essential government services our members provide,” Kauffman said.

Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan good government research group, said Trump’s resignation offer was “perplexing, of questionable legality and dangerous.”

Americans rely on federal employees to fly safely, have clean drinking water and respond to natural disasters, among other jobs, Stier said.

The White House has sought to focus its resignation offer on bringing civil servants back to the office. Agency headquarters in downtown Washington have been relatively empty since the Covid-19 pandemic, and Trump issued a work-in-person mandate on his first day back in office.

“American taxpayers pay for the salaries of federal government employees, and therefore deserve employees working on their behalf who actually show up to work in our wonderful federal buildings, also paid for by taxpayers,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

Leavitt continued, “If they don’t want to work in the office and contribute to making America great again, then they are free to choose a different line of work, and the Trump Administration will provide a very generous payout of 8 months.”

The administration expects up to 10 percent of the federal workforce to take the resignation offer, CBS News has reported. That could mean more than 200,000 civil servants leave the government.

‘Don’t be fooled’

The resignation program is available to full-time federal employees, excluding military personnel, immigration and national security staffers as well as Postal Service employees.

Employees have until Feb. 6, Thursday next week, to decide to resign. If they choose to do so, they will retain their pay and benefits until Sept. 30. They will be exempt from a return to office until their final resignation date, according to the template resignation letter included in the email.

Trump’s resignation offer is not technically a buyout as understood in the federal workplace. There is no mention of the government’s formal separation incentive or early retirement programs in the email.

Further, buyouts for federal workers are capped at $25,000 for each employee. Salary and benefits over close to eight months for many staffers would likely exceed that dollar amount.

Office of Personnel Management guidance released Tuesday to agencies suggests a workaround from that buyout ceiling. Employees who accept “deferred resignation” will be placed on paid administrative leave until Sept. 30 or until their resignation date, if earlier. Staffers can’t work when they’re on paid leave.

Adding to the confusion for federal employees is another OPM memo related to Trump’s return-to-office order. That guidance advises agencies to bring their union contracts “into compliance” with that order. Many of those collective bargaining agreements have strong telework and remote work protections for federal employees.

Some don’t believe the Trump administration will follow through on what the president promised.

Speaking on the Senate floor Tuesday night, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) warned federal employees against Trump’s offer, saying he didn’t have the authority to make it.

“Don’t be fooled by a fake offer that because he’s terrorized you in the last week, it would be easy to just resign now and get a check for seven months,” Kaine said. “I can tell you that promise is worth nothing.”

After all, the federal government isn’t funded until the end of this fiscal year. Spending will run out in mid-March, and lawmakers will have to pass another stopgap bill to keep agencies open. Employees who joined the resignation program could be left in the lurch.

Federal employees have until late next week to take Trump’s offer. And while some mull it over, others have already decided not to.

“I’m not planning on taking that offer,” said another EPA employee. “This assault on the workforce is unwarranted, petty and just damn cruel.”

Reporters Hannah Northey and Scott Streater contributed.