There have been a handful of instances where senior non-appointed leaders in the Defense Department (and I would imagine elsewhere in the executive branch) have issued rather obviously over-the-top, sweeping orders
rescinding longstanding, uncontroversial policies in response to President Trump’s Day 1 executive orders banning DEI programs. Most notably, the commander of the US Navy Reserve
canceled anti-harassment, anti-fraternization, and safety and occupational health policies. And, more famously, the Air Force canceled a lesson on the Tuskegee Airmen.
Senator Katie Britt (R, AL) and newly-confirmed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth criticized
the last of these as “malicious compliance.” Which, honestly, was my initial reaction as well. The standard procedure for interpreting over-broad orders is to ask for clarification before doing obviously stupid things.
But here’s the thing: the combination of the reckless manner in which the orders were issued and the ruthless disregard for consequences with which some programs are being carried out makes it hard to distinguish “malicious compliance” from “I was just followink orderz.”
I woke up this morning to these stories on memeorandum
:
“White House pauses all federal grants, sparking confusion” (WaPo
)
The White House budget office is ordering a pause to all grants and loans disbursed by the federal government, according to an internal memo sent to agencies Monday, creating significant confusion across Washington.
In a two-page document, Matthew J. Vaeth, the acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, instructs federal agencies to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligations or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance.” The memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, also calls for each agency to perform a “comprehensive analysis” to ensure its grant and loan programs are consistent with President Donald Trump’s executive orders, which aimed to ban federal diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, and limit clean energy spending, among other measures.
The memo states its orders should not be “construed” to impact Social Security or Medicare recipients, and also says the federal financial assistance put on hold “does not include assistance provided directly to individuals.”
“Trump administration orders sweeping freeze of federal aid” (POLITICO
)
One week in, the Trump administration is broadening its assault on the functions of government and shifting control of the federal purse strings further away from members of Congress.
President Donald Trump’s budget office Monday ordered a total freeze on “all federal financial assistance” that could be targeted under his previous executive orders pausing funding for a wide range of priorities — from domestic infrastructure and energy projects to diversity-related programs and foreign aid.
In a two-page memo obtained by POLITICO, the Office of Management and Budget announced all federal agencies would be forced to suspend payments — with the exception of Social Security and Medicare.
“The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve,” according to the memo, which three people authenticated.
The new order could affect billions of dollars in grants to state and local governments while causing disruptions to programs that benefit many households. There was also widespread confusion over how the memo would be implemented and whether it would face legal challenges.
While the memo says the funding pause does not include assistance “provided directly to individuals,” for instance, it does not clarify whether that includes money sent first to states or organizations and then provided to households.
“Top USAID career staff placed on immediate leave” (POLITICO
)
The Trump administration has ordered dozens of top career employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development to go on administrative leave, according to six people told of the decision.
The order — sent via email to members of the senior executive and senior Foreign Service — was issued close to the end of the business day Monday and was effective immediately, according to two current USAID officials and three former USAID officials told of the communication. It comes as USAID and the State Department have been ordered to impose halts on a vast number of humanitarian and related programs
around the world.
The decision appears to affect nearly every career staffer who holds a top leadership role at the agency, at least in Washington — around 60 officials, the current and former officials said.
The cuts have left many offices within the agency entirely devoid of senior non-political leadership. The entire cadre of leaders who run USAID’s bureau for global health, for example, was put on leave, according to two of the officials.
“This is a huge morale hit,” said a former senior Trump administration official who was also told of the move. “This is the leadership of the agency. This is like taking out all the generals. I don’t know what they hope to accomplish by it.”
“Trump Administration Halts H.I.V. Drug Distribution in Poor Countries” (NYT
)
The Trump administration has instructed organizations in other countries to stop disbursing H.I.V. medications purchased with U.S. aid, even if the drugs have already been obtained and are sitting in local clinics.
The directive is part of a broader freeze on foreign aid initiated last week. It includes the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the global health program started by George W. Bush that is credited with saving more than 25 million lives worldwide.
Appointments are being canceled, and patients are being turned away from clinics, according to people with knowledge of the situation who feared retribution if they spoke publicly. Many people with H.I.V. are facing abrupt interruptions to their treatment.
But most federal officials are also under strict orders not to communicate with external partners, leading to confusion and anxiety, according to several people with knowledge of the situation.
U.S. officials have also been told to stop providing technical assistance to national ministries of health.
“The partners we collaborate with are in shock, and they do not know what to do because their lifesaving mission and commitment has been breached,” said Asia Russell, executive director of the advocacy group Health Gap.
“CDC ordered to stop working with WHO immediately, upending expectations of an extended withdrawal” (AP
)
U.S. public health officials have been told to stop working with the World Health Organization, effective immediately.
A U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official, John Nkengasong, sent a memo to senior leaders at the agency on Sunday night telling them that all staff who work with the WHO must immediately stop their collaborations and “await further guidance.”
Experts said the sudden stoppage was a surprise and would set back work on investigating and trying to stop outbreaks of Marburg virus and mpox in Africa, as well as brewing global threats. It also comes as health authorities around the world are monitoring bird flu outbreaks among U.S. livestock.
This is all just batshit insane. Even if one supported the goals being sought, the manner in which this is being carried out is simply destructive. It will quite literally result in people’s deaths. And, as frustrating as dealing with the WHO might be, there’s some bizarre irony in suspending work on the bird flu after getting elected largely on the high price of eggs.
Further, it’s hard to argue that taking absurd measures in the wake of the DEI order is “malicious” when we get actual policy directives like this:
“State Department Urged to Observe ‘Spirit’ of Trump’s Anti-DEI Order During Black History Month” (WSJ
):
The State Department should observe the “spirit” of the Trump administration’s elimination of diversity programs in its public messaging, according to a Monday directive viewed by The Wall Street Journal, likely prohibiting the agency from openly observing Black History Month in February.
The new public affairs guidance states that any communications should reflect President Trump’s priorities, which have included the closure of diversity, equity and inclusion
offices throughout the government and revocation of a six-decade-old executive order
that required government contractors to proactively root out discrimination on the basis of race and sex. The DEI rollbacks prompted State Department officials over the last week to seek permission to release public statements about Black History Month as well as other “heritage months and commemorative events.”
The answer arrived in an email: Public diplomacy staff should highlight the “valuable contribution of individual Americans throughout U.S. history, while ensuring our public communications maintain the spirit of the directive eliminating DEAI programs,” referring to diversity, equity, accessibility and inclusion.
There would be “no restrictions,” however, on content or any programming related to accessibility or people with disabilities.
A State Department official said it was clear there would be no public-facing messages or events about Black History Month when it begins on Saturday.
“That’s how we’re reading it,” the official said. “The diplomats I spoke to today, with decades of experience, couldn’t remember a time we failed” to mark Black History Month, the official added.
At least we know they’re allowed to say good things about the Tuskeegee Airmen. So there’s that.
“This ‘stop work’ order is cruel and deadly,” said Asia Russell, the executive director of Health GAP, a nonprofit working on access to HIV treatment in developing countries. “It will kill people.”
Many federal workers, from the Pentagon to the U.S. Agency for International Development, are confused by the wording of the order, such as what exactly could qualify for an exemption. In some cases, their ability to get information is being stymied: In a note to staff obtained by POLITICO, a top USAID official told employees they needed prior top-level approval to even talk to institutions outside of the agency.
“The pause on all foreign assistance means a complete halt,” Ken Jackson, USAID’s assistant to the administrator for management and resources wrote in an agency-wide email to some 10,000 employees. Jackson said “all communications outside the agency, including to the State Department, must be approved by the Agency Front Office.” Failure to do so, he wrote, would result in unspecified disciplinary action.
Some USAID officials said that prompted them to reconsider requesting waivers. One said that “anyone that contradicts [the stop-work order] is seen as obstructionist, so putting something forward for a waiver can be risky.” The person, like others in this story, requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue.
All of this comports with James Joyner’s post
from Sunday and my observations
regarding the dictatorial behavior of the administration about the firing of the IGs. Trump is not acting like a new head of government who understands that the government of the United States is bigger than he is, existed before he did, and will exist after he is gone. No, this is the behavior of a president and a cadre of supporters who think that the government is now theirs. This is not just an issue of policy differences. This is, again, dictating outcomes in the context of already appropriated monies and preexisting policy choices.
It is also all short-sighted and highly irresponsible.
The Trump administration has ordered dozens of top career employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development to go on administrative leave, according to six people told of the decision.
The order — sent via email to members of the senior executive and senior Foreign Service — was issued close to the end of the business day Monday and was effective immediately, according to two current USAID officials and three former USAID officials told of the communication. It comes as USAID and the State Department have been ordered to impose halts on a vast number of humanitarian and related programs
around the world.
The decision appears to affect nearly every career staffer who holds a top leadership role at the agency, at least in Washington — around 60 officials, the current and former officials said.
The cuts have left many offices within the agency entirely devoid of senior non-political leadership. The entire cadre of leaders who run USAID’s bureau for global health, for example, was put on leave, according to two of the officials.
So, yes, all of this is going to harm real people. And if one wants to ignore that the realpolitik of it all is that it harms the US national interest because things like USAID are how we project power and influence.
This is all foolish and irresponsible.
And it will all create even more anxiety for federal employees alongside a real human toll globally.
This is no way to govern.
But, no doubt many MAGAites will rejoice because they think that spending money abroad isn’t putting America first and that it is a massive savings (despite how little of the federal budget goes to foreign aid). And there is also the pesky fact that whatever money is saved here isn’t going to be spent on the American people anyway. The whole approach is built on lies.
NYT
(“Trump’s Moves to Upend Federal Bureaucracy Touch Off Fear and Confusion“):
An Education Department employee was attending a funeral this week when she got the call: She was being placed on administrative leave because she works on projects that connect Black students, among others, to federal government programs.
A disabled veteran employed at the Department of Veterans Affairs grew emotional when he heard about the rescinding of telework options, unsure whether it would mean the end of his job taking care of fellow soldiers.
A Federal Trade Commission employee was so anxious that he told family members not to talk about politics on unencrypted lines. Across government agencies, workers eyed one another nervously, wondering whether a colleague would report them, accusing them of resisting the new administration’s move to end certain programs.
President Trump’s rapid push to overhaul the federal bureaucracy in his first days in office has been met with a mix of fear, fury and confusion throughout the work force.
Dozens of employees across the government, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because of worries of retribution, described agencies gripped with uncertainty about how to implement the new policies and workers frantically trying to assess the impact on their careers and families. As the nation’s largest employer, the upheaval in the federal government could reverberate in communities throughout the country.
Starting on Inauguration Day, the orders and memos came down one after the other, many crafted in the pugnacious tone of a campaign speech: the shuttering of “Radical and Wasteful” diversity programs in federal agencies; the stripping of civil service protections from a share of the federal work force; the end to remote work, which, one administration memo claimed, had left federal office buildings “mostly empty” and rendered downtown Washington “a national embarrassment.”
All new hiring was frozen, job offers were rescinded, scientific meetings were canceled and federal health officials were temporarily barred from communicating with the public, a directive that some understood as so broad that it even extended to making outside purchase orders for lab supplies.
For the more than two million federal workers, roughly four-fifths of whom live outside the Washington area, change is inevitable whenever a new administration takes over. But few had expected it to come at this speed and scale.
[…]
Federal employees looked to their supervisors for guidance, but said they often had none to give, as they tried to interpret brief orders and memos with few specifics. For example, the return-to-office memo said employees with a disability could be exempt, but it was unclear what kind of disability might qualify. Some managers said they knew nothing beyond what was in the news. Adding to the panic were remarks by the president himself, who suggested
on Friday that he might consider shuttering the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which employs 20,000 workers around the country.
[…]
Inside federal offices, the mood has been tense and anticipatory. One employee at the Homeland Security Department said the staff felt at risk of being fired at any moment. At the Commerce Department, employees were terrified whenever a meeting was called, one worker said.
The isolation is deepened, some federal employees said, by the fact that most of their fellow Americans see the federal government as bloated and inefficient. Some said that reform, if it were well thought-out, would be healthy and welcome. But many noted that they had accepted significant pay cuts to work for the government because they believe in public service — issuing Social Security checks, keeping air travel safe and inspecting food, among other roles.
[…]
Compounding the anxiety was a directive from the Office of Personnel Management instructing agency heads to turn over by Jan. 24 names of those who were still in their probationary period, typically within one or two years of their hiring.
The directive noted that such employees “can be terminated during that period without triggering appeal rights,” and that managers should determine whether they should be retained, according to a copy obtained by The New York Times.
[…]
One of the most sweeping changes made by Mr. Trump in his first week was to order federal workers back to the office full time by later next month, ending years of a flexible telecommuting policy, which in many offices dated to well before the pandemic. For some who want to keep working for the government, this could mean selling homes, changing children’s schools and moving hundreds of miles in a matter of weeks. New mothers are debating whether they will be able to return from maternity leave, and couples have been forced to choose who gets to keep their current jobs.
Many offices do not currently have enough room for all of the employees to come back. This, some contend, is the whole point. Shortly after the November election, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the men tapped by Mr. Trump to remake the government, wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed: “Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome.”
POLITICO
(“‘I am terrified’: Workers describe the dark mood inside federal agencies“):
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 of memos and documents they worry could be labeled as DEI-adjacent.
As federal employees searched this week for clues within the orders to see how they’ll be affected, a staffer with the Environmental Protection Agency said they were cleaning out their inbox and waiting for information about early retirement and buyout programs.
[…]
POLITICO spoke to almost two dozen federal workers for this article and granted anonymity to many in order to protect them from retribution for speaking out.
It’s too early to tell if a mass exodus of federal workers will occur. The vagueness of the president’s orders has many workers waiting to see how they will be implemented once political staff is in place. But what is clear is that the new administration intends to follow through on its threats to purge and dismantle the federal bureaucracy.
My wife and I are both Defense Department workers, so we are, at least for now, exempt from the hiring freeze. (That was not clear at the outset, and there was some concern at work that one person couldn’t accept a promotion and that we wouldn’t be allowed to replace two departing/ed professors.) The most likely impacts on us are from the return to office edict and just the general climate of a purge of those perceived as disloyal to the President. Neither of us are covered by collective bargaining.
My wife’s team requires people to show up to the office two days a week. Aside from one “core” day a month where everyone is there, they spend hours on Teams meetings regardless of whether they’re telecommuting. A requirement for 100 percent in-office will be challenging from a logistical standpoint and add some expenses for commuting and parking. And, since they barely have enough desks to support the current arrangement, it’s unclear how they’re going to accommodate the whole team at once on a daily basis.
While I have enjoyed considerable flexibility, my position is not coded as telework-eligible. For now, then, I don’t expect any changes on that front.
My greatest concern is that, while I ostensibly enjoy academic freedom
, my only protection in that regard is leadership adherence to the norm. My position is in the Excepted Service, so I enjoy none of the normal career protections if my position were to go away for any reason. Further, while the norm is “tenure without tenure
,” I essentially have no recourse if my contract is not renewed upon its expiration in July 2027.
That puts me in a considerably better position than those in the new administration’s immediate crosshairs, including those whose jobs are based on something that could be construed as “DEI.” To say nothing of, for example, transgender servicemembers. But it certainly creates a chilling effect on my ability to write in core areas of my scholarship, including defense policy and civil-military relations.
More broadly, it puts the federal workforce in general in a quandary. Do they comply with legal but objectionable orders? Do they resign their posts entirely?
To take one example, I’ve seen multiple posts from ostensibly seasoned folks in my social feeds arguing that agency heads and other senior officials ought to simply refuse to carry out perfectly legal orders, such as sending out letters based on an OPM template ordering the shutdown of DEI programs and the reporting of those trying to hide said programs using clever name changes. While the policies themselves may well be questionable—and will almost certainly be challenged in court—promulgating guidance is not. It’s not a hill to die on.
Rather clearly, Trump, Musk, and others are actively trying to purge the federal government of people who aren’t fully on board with the MAGA agenda and, indeed, just thinning the herd, period, by making federal employment less rewarding. Unfortunately, this will be quite popular even beyond Trump’s base.
It is likely to be effective in the most perverse way. Those most apt to leave will be younger workers with the best prospects in the private sector. Their departure will leave the federal workforce poorer in the short run, while also depleting the ranks of future leadership. The very oldest workers, who are financially able to retire, may also depart. With a hiring freeze in place, it’s not even clear when and whether they can be replaced. (The freeze doesn’t just apply to those entering government; even a move within an agency constitutes a “new hire.”) The result will be a less talented, less efficient civil service—which will, naturally, fuel the narrative that the civil service is mediocre and inefficient.
