FOR THE WEEK OF FEB. 24, 2025

Washington whirlwind: Trump teams sweep through agencies with sharp cuts, data system takeovers

It has been a turbulent five weeks for federal workers and services since President Donald Trump's second inauguration, with thousands of firings, blocked spending and disrupted programs. Some prosecutors and department heads have quit in protest, and over 70 legal challenges are pending from states, unions and public interest groups. The wide-reaching tumult has nationwide impact and is caused by a new office – the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) – headed by tech billionaire Elon Musk, a huge campaign donor who became a presidential assistant.

He leads a group of mostly young software engineers gaining access to computer systems at agencies overseeing health care, food safety, education, foreign aid, science, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, national parks, atomic energy, veterans' services and more. They and political appointees are working aggressively to reshape federal spending and drastically shrink its workforce – an effort the administration calls "a controlled burn" designed combat waste, fraud and abuse.

Judges have paused about two dozen actions to await court hearings on opponents' lawsuits, which raise concerns about the privacy of Americans' personal data in federal records. "Musk and his corrupt DOGE hackers are attacking the Social Security Administration and IRS – accessing Americans' private data and trying to strip away vital benefits," Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., posted on social media last week. "An unelected billionaire should not be allowed to sort through your private records. This is unacceptable."

This is a sampling of mass purges and pending actions:

• Trump and Musk want Congress to abolish the Education Department, where at least 39 people are fired and nearly $900 million has been cut from a service tracking progress by America's students. Numerous DOGE agents have received credentials for headquarters access and at least two young engineers have full administrative privileges to the agency's information technology (IT) system, insiders say. A student-advocacy group sued to block access to a database with personal information on millions of students and parents with federal education loans.
• DOGE gained access to critical computer systems at the Treasury Department, including the government's massive payments system. (A longtime official was fired when he wouldn't grant access.) After 18 states sued, a judge temporarily halted DOGE's access to the payment system and ordered anyone who had obtained data from the system to delete it.
• In its most dramatic early move, DOGE is dismantling the Agency for International Development, dismissing all but 300 of its 14,000 employees. The abrupt cutoff affects hundreds of thousands of people receiving aid abroad, as well as U.S. businesses, farms and nonprofits that had served the foreign relief program founded in 1961. Its annual budget was $40 billion.
• DOGE agents have "sought access to payment and contracting systems across the Department of Health and Human Services that control hundreds of billions of dollars in annual payments to health-care providers," The Washington Post says. "They appear to have gained access to at least some of those systems." DOGE says it has cancelled millions of dollars in contracts.
• The administration fired about 1,000 newly hired National Park Service employees who maintain and clean parks, educate visitors and perform other functions.
• The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is ordered to stop nearly all its work, effectively shutting it.
• Soon after Trump took office, DOGE began a takeover of the federal government's human resources department, the Office of Personnel Management, which manages over $1 trillion in assets. The newcomers gained full access to a database of information about federal employees and applicants for federal jobs.
• The Department of Agriculture scrambled last week to rehire fired employees who were working to stop the spread of bird flu that has killed millions of livestock and boosted egg prices.
• DOGE is reviewing the organization structure at the Center for Medicaid & Medicare Services, which manages about $1.5 trillion in annual benefits for low-income families' and retirees' health care. DOGE reportedly has at least partial access to computer data, possibly including personal data.
• The Internal Revenue Service tax agency last Thursday began laying off roughly 6,000 probationary employees hired since 2023. It has about 100,000 accountants, lawyers and other staff nationwide.
• A Musk engineer from his Space X company now is chief information officer at the Energy Department. He's the huge agency's top IT official, with responsibilities that include protecting personnel data across a vast bureaucracy.

In addition, Cabinet secretaries and agency directors told their staffs to eliminate programs or funding agreements from the previous Democratic administration of Joe Biden that mention climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, racial equity, gender identity, environmental justice and hiring goals that reflect diversity, equity and inclusion. "The consequences will pile up," former Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin posted last week. "There may be no single catastrophe that drives home the extent of the Musk-Trump damage. But the cumulative effect of disabling government, reducing personnel devoted to health and safety, and throwing hundreds of thousands of thousands out of work will take its toll."

Musk says: "There's a vast federal bureaucracy that is implacably opposed to the president. What we're seeing here [from critics] is the sort of the thrashing of the bureaucracy as we try to restore democracy and the will of the people."

Democrat says: "Donald Trump and Elon Musk are recklessly and illegally dismantling the federal government, shuttering federal agencies, firing federal workers, withholding funds vital to the safety and well-being of our communities." – Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-New Mexico

Fired worker says: "This has been slash and burn. None of this has been done thoughtfully or carefully." -- Nicholas Detter, an Agriculture Department specialist who advised farmers

Front Page Talking Points Archive

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