Thousands of federal bureaucrats have lived through a Donald Trump administration. Many are not sure they can or will survive even a second.
POLITICO spoke with more than a dozen public officials, political appointees of President Joe Biden and recently departing Biden administration staff in the days since the presidential election was called for Trump, all of whom were granted anonymity. due to the sensitivity of the issue and the risk to their jobs. Many are bracing for a wave of departures from key federal agencies in the coming months, amid fears that the next president will gut their budgets, reverse their policy agendas and target them individually if they don’t show enough loyalty. The result is likely to be a considerable brain drain from the federal workforce, something Trump might welcome.
“The last time Trump was in office, we were all in survival mode hoping for an end date,” a State Department official said. “Now there is no light at the end of the tunnel.”
The former president and his allies deeply distrust the executive branch bureaucracy and the more than 2 million officials within it, blaming a federal “deep state” for trying to undermine him in his first term and push impeachment efforts in his against. As president, Trump appointed political appointees to several agencies for housekeeping purposes, and he will again have the opportunity to nominate people for approximately 4,000 political positions over the course of the administration. In 2021, his White House launched an effort to make it easier to fire public officials and replace them with political appointees, something that expected to reboot when I return in January. he is also threatened to move thousands of federal jobs out of d.c.
Trump-Vance transition spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt did not directly respond to a question about the future of the federal workforce, saying by email: “President-elect Trump will soon begin making decisions about who will serve in his second administration. “Those decisions will be announced when they are made.”
Trump’s policy agenda is also at odds with the core priorities of several agencies under the Biden administration.
Several of Biden’s political appointees at the Department of Transportation headquarters near Washington’s Navy Yard were despondent at the prospect of a new Trump administration determined to undo much of their work over the past four years, including consumer protections. of airlines and massive investments in infrastructure.
“There is a lot of anxiety among Biden appointees, like me, who need to find new jobs, and also among career staffers who are worried that Trump will try to remove career officials who had a role in making policy.” , a DOT official told POLITICO.
“I’m glad to be retiring soon. … The EPA is broke,” said one Environmental Protection Agency employee, whose efforts to fight climate change clash with Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” approach to energy policy.
However, several officials are struggling with the conflicting desire to remain in government and defend the mission of the agencies they work for.
“We do everything we can to make sure that either administration does what is legal,” said a Department of Homeland Security employee at a law office. “If I leave, they will replace me with a facilitator.”
Alarm over Trump’s return is particularly palpable among national security officials, environmental agencies and federal health agencies, who fear the president-elect will make good on his promise to allow well-known vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., “go crazy with your health.” “
In his victory speech early Wednesday, Trump reiterated that promise. “He is going to help make America healthy again. … He wants to do some things and we’ll let him do them,” Trump said.
On Wednesday, Kennedy toured radio and television, saying he wouldn’t try to stop vaccines.
Still, a current staff member at the National Institutes of Health said concerns are growing within the research agency about the future of vaccine research in the next administration.
NIH Director Monica Bertagnolli appeared to hint at those fears in an email sent to agency staff Wednesday and shared with POLITICO.
“Now that Election Day 2024 is behind us, I want to acknowledge that change can make us feel unsafe,” he wrote.
“I don’t want to dismiss those feelings, but I do want to remind everyone that throughout our 137-year history, the mission of the NIH has remained strong and our staff has been committed to the important work of biomedical research in the service of public health. “
A former Food and Drug Administration official told POLITICO on Wednesday that Kennedy’s claims that he would have outsized influence over health agencies during Trump’s second term are raising the risk that career staff will leave the agency. Responsible for the supervision of medications and food safety.
“Agency staff are concerned, especially in light of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s statements and his potential role at the agency,” the former official said. “The reality of that is something the agency has to deal with.”
“They’re worried, they’ve been through transitions before, so they clearly understand how to do it, but they read the news, just like you and I,” said another former senior FDA official. “I think it’s a lot of things driven by RFK.”
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staff also fear that under Trump, the public health agency so central to the Covid-19 response will have “a target on its back,” as one person who works with the agency.
Republicans have outlined clear plans for changes at the CDC, including the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which includes ambitions to split the agency in two. (The Trump campaign has insisted that Project 2025 is not its official policy.) And many conservatives, including Trump’s former FDA commissionerThey have argued that the CDC should limit its scope to focus primarily on disease control.
“What is very clear is that in 2016, Trump was completely unprepared, and now he has a plan, and public health is right in the middle of it,” the person said.
A national security analyst who recently left the Biden administration shared similar fears, saying that having lived through a previous Trump administration, many public officials are even more cautious about working for a second one.
“People are sad and scared. And what makes it worse is that this time we know what’s coming. It is not theoretical. “It is real,” said the analyst.
“At the State Department in particular, it’s hard to overstate how objective people, career officials, will be,” they said. “There will be no grace.”
Not everyone shared that bleak outlook. “I don’t actually see the panic yet, maybe it will come when the transition begins in earnest, but the people I’ve spoken to seem to have a pretty sensible view that Trump’s victory means we will carry out his policies.” said another State Department official. “If people don’t agree with those policies, no one will blame anyone for choosing to leave.”
A Health and Human Services official who has worked under Republican and Democratic administrations told POLITICO that while individual employees are freaking out about the election results, the general mood in his office this week is: “It’s business as usual.” . Keep working. It is what it is.”
She is trying to find a ray of hope in the Trump administration’s mixed record on health care.
“Sometimes there are strange synergies,” he said. “Just like during the first Trump administration, Scott Gottlieb was a strong advocate for tobacco control, and the Center for Tobacco Products was actually able to do more than it was able to do during the Obama administration.”
“So I wonder: Are there paths to working with people you disagree with and despise?”
Michael Doyle, Kevin Bogardus and Hannah Northey contributed to this report.