‘I am terrified’: Workers describe dark mood inside federal agencies

By Liz Crampton, Kevin Bogardus, Nick Niedzwiadek, Nahal Toosi, Alice Miranda Ollstein | 01/27/2025 11:57 AM EST

“I would love to leave, but I don’t know where I’d go,” said one staffer.

Department of Justice headquarters is seen.

President Donald Trump issued a slew of executive orders seeking to overhaul how the federal government operates, from removing job protections to ending remote work to implementing a hiring freeze. Francis Chung/POLITICO

President Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting the federal workforce have injected a fresh wave of anxiety among employees across the bureaucracy — stoking fears the president is coming for their jobs.

Just a few days into Trump’s second term, some federal workers are contemplating quitting. Others are preparing to file grievances with their unions or moving communications with each other to secure platforms like Signal. Some, fearing they’ll be caught up in the White House’s purge of diversity programs, are leaving their names off memos and documents they worry could be labeled as diversity, equity and inclusion-adjacent.

As federal employees searched this week for clues within the orders to see how they’ll be affected, a staffer with EPA said they were cleaning out their inbox and waiting for information about early retirement and buyout programs.

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“Trump version 1.0 was bad,” said the EPA employee. “I’m already done with version 2.0.”

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