President Donald Trump has long warned about an entrenched “deep state” of malevolent bureaucrats working to thwart his agenda. Many actual employees of the federal government have scoffed at this characterization, proud of the apolitical nature of the civil service and its ability to work across Republican and Democratic administrations.
This time might have been no different — if Trump and Elon Musk hadn’t come in and declared war on them.
While there were conflicts between Trump and civil servants in his first term, Trump may now be creating the broad resistance within the federal government he thought was there all along.
We’re looking to hear from federal government workers who have been laid off. If you’re willing to talk with us, please email us at tips@nbcuni.com or contact us through one of these methods.
Protests opposing the cuts and supporting laid-off workers have started popping up, but the real hotbed of organizing has been happening online, in Signal chats, on Facebook and in the popular “FedNews” channel on Reddit, where federal workers are sharing advice, talking about their experiences and encouraging opposition.
“KEEP SHOUTING THE TRUTH, KEEP RINGING THE BELL: It’s working!” read a post last week. “I just got a mass email from my agency branch ‘reminding’ us not to talk to the media, listing several regulations that state we’re not to talk to the media. They wouldn’t have sent that if the media wasn’t getting FLOODED with federal workers reporting the truth, reporting what is REALLY going on. It’s affecting them.”
“I’ve heard so many people ask: WHY is Donald T. so hell-bent on destroying Federal workers?” read another recent post. “Because we are in his way. … Hold the line.”
The totality of the effort is quite broad. Workers are filing lawsuits, joining protests and sharing internal documents with media outlets. They’ve launched anonymous websites and social media accounts to promote their narratives. They’ve built resource guides and recorded private meetings. And they’ve resigned, sometimes in large numbers, to protest Musk and the U.S. DOGE Service.
Amy Paris, who worked at the Health Resources and Services Administration, said she would “have very willingly collaborated with the Trump administration” if it had come in and looked for ways to increase efficiency. Instead, she and thousands of other federal workers were laid off last month.
“They sowed chaos,” she said. “They made everyone scared for their jobs. … What they’ve done is they’ve radicalized me. What they’ve done is they’ve taken someone who would have willingly served under their administration to help all of the American people, and what they’ve done is they’ve made me think that they want to destroy the republic. They want to destroy democracy. So now I am activated.”
Before she was fired, Paris was working on modernizing the federal web platform for organ transplants. She is considering appealing her termination.
One civil servant at an agency within the Department of Commerce said they previously thought the idea of a “deep state” was “ludicrous.” Now, however, they believe Trump and Musk have created the conditions for such a “resistance” to thrive.
“That is definitely something that appears to be happening,” this person said. “I do not believe the deep state existed before, but they could be getting something like that as a response. … Not trying to take over the world, just trying to oppose this.”
Limited options
The Trump administration first targeted federal employees tied to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. The Office of Personnel Management, which has been working closely with Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency effort, then offered most of the 2 million-plus federal workforce a “deferred resignation” to leave their positions. Weeks of confusion and court battles followed, though the program was allowed to move forward.
Next, the administration proceeded to go after people like Paris, who are either new to the federal government and don’t yet have full civil service protections, transferred to new departments or took a promotion. Many of these employees were told they were being let go for performance reasons, even though they had exemplary reviews.
The next step will be a “reduction in force,” which will mean large-scale layoffs across agencies, according to a new OPM memo. All along the way, Musk and other members of the Trump administration have belittled, insulted and mischaracterized federal workers.
The episode that stood out most to federal workers was a line in an FAQ that OPM shared to answer questions about the deferred resignation program that they felt diminished their efforts.
“The way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector,” the comment read.
Musk himself has sent a number of missives to civil servants, including when he posted that he is “1000% more trustworthy than untold numbers of deep state bureaucrats and fraudsters” or wrote on X that “a significant number of people who are supposed to be working for the government are doing so little work that they are not checking their email at all!”
That last comment followed Musk’s latest effort: telling federal workers that their jobs are at risk if they don’t respond to an email asking them to provide five bullet points on what they did the previous week. That email was sent by OPM on Feb. 22, a Saturday. But it was only on his social media platform X that Musk said a failure to respond would be taken as a resignation. A second such email started going out Friday evening.
The options for resistance are increasingly limited. Soon after taking office, Trump fired 18 inspectors general, who act as internal agency watchdogs. He also tried to remove Hampton Dellinger, who leads an agency tasked with whistleblower protection, as well as the chair of the Merit Systems Protection Board, an independent body that weighs federal workers’ employment appeals. (Federal judges have so far blocked those moves.) Both Dellinger and the MSPB chair were appointed by President Joe Biden.
“Anyone who thinks protests, lawsuits, and lawfare will deter President Trump must have been sleeping under a rock for the past several years,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “President Trump will not be deterred from delivering on the promises he made to make our federal government more efficient and more accountable to the hardworking American taxpayers across the country who overwhelmingly re-elected him.”
With few options for pushback, federal workers have centered their opposition on influencing public opinion and shaping narratives. They’re seeking to counter not just Trump and Musk’s effort, but decades of public perception that civil servants are unproductive and prone to wasting the taxpayer dime. They’ve held protests outside agencies DOGE has targeted, including the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Department of the Treasury. And the National Treasury Employees Union is slated to hold a protest near the Capitol on Wednesday.
They may also be getting more involved politically — with some expressing interest in running for office. Outside of a recent Democratic Party event in Virginia, a man named Matthew described himself as a political independent who never previously attended a Democratic gathering. That was until he was recently fired from his federal job.
Asked if the layoffs may factor into his vote in the state’s 2025 governor’s race, he said: “100%.”
‘We are all desperately trying to figure out how to navigate this’
But a number of federal workers who spoke with NBC News said they recoil at the idea of being hostile to the administration writ large.
“I’m not comfortable with the word combat, because it shouldn’t ever be adversarial, right?” one assistant U.S. attorney said. “We are all desperately trying to figure out how to navigate this. Whether or not I agree with the administration’s priorities or their worldview of anything is absolutely, positively not relevant. And I worked for this administration the first time. … I don’t think I’ve ever agreed with 100% of any administration’s priorities.”
“What I haven’t dealt with so far, and where I think we’re all extremely troubled, is that some of what is happening now appears to any reasonable observer to be blatantly unconstitutional,” this person added. “And so the question that we have in our minds is, how do we try to advance the administration’s objectives without running afoul of the law, quite frankly.”
A staffer at the Small Business Administration said “everybody’s too afraid” to take actions that could risk their employment.
But those who have already been fired have had fewer reservations. Already, Democratic lawmakers including Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., have highlighted stories from ousted federal workers on the services they provided the public and what the firings have meant to them personally.
Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, said the most effective pushback to the cuts involves sharing stories “about how the public is getting hurt.”
“They need to share not just what’s happening to them personally, which is important, but what’s happening to the public as a result of the chaotic management that is current now,” he said.
Stier said the firings of the head of the Office of Special Counsel and inspectors general have served as a warning to any employees who consider speaking out — even internally.
“By their oath of office, [civil servants] have a responsibility to speak up,” Stier said. “But I think you have an incredibly difficult situation for them because they’re being taught that to do so puts them in an additional harm’s way.”
Republicans have largely expressed resounding support for DOGE’s mission to cut federal spending and staffing, pointing to surveys that show support for streamlining government and adding that the mission was not only core to Trump’s presidential bid but is an undertaking that any Republican officeholder in this era would be pursuing.
But some grumblings over the effort have arisen, whether over Musk appearing to usurp powers that should be reserved for Trump’s Cabinet heads, a lack of compassion in the broader restructuring, or having Musk, the world’s richest man, be the face of the effort.
“I don’t think it sparks a resistance,” one Trump ally said. “I think those days are long over. I just think there’s risk and potential blowback on the political side if something gets messed up. I also think there’s risk in department heads appointed by the president clashing with Musk. You are already kind of seeing it in some instances.”
At Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting, Trump asked Cabinet heads directly if anyone was “unhappy” with Musk’s leadership. None spoke up against him.
“I still think what they’re doing is broadly popular, just that Elon is very off-putting and unpopular,” a senior Senate GOP aide said, adding that the job cuts so far are small when compared to the depth of the federal workforce as a whole. “Elon does this all very chaotically, but this is actually something I think you could have seen any generic Republican admin doing.”
Republicans have faced heat at town halls over the effort while others have shared concerns from federal workers in their own states. Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., told NBC News his “biggest concern is that we’re being compassionate.” Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, told CBS’ “Face the Nation”: “If I could say one thing to Elon Musk it’s, ‘Please put a dose of compassion in this. These are real people. These are real lives.’” And Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, on Monday called for “just a little bit of humanity and dignity to the process.”
Musk himself has bristled at some of the pushback, lamenting what he sees as a certain level of ridiculousness over federal employees stressing about responding to an email calling for them to list out their accomplishments.
“The email request was utterly trivial, as the standard for passing the test was to type some words and press send! Yet so many failed … urged on in some cases by their managers,” he posted to X. “Have you ever witnessed such INCOMPETENCE and CONTEMPT for how YOUR TAXES are being spent? Makes old Twitter look good. Didn’t think that was possible.”
But as civil servants and their advocates noted, there are codified processes by which federal employees have to go through performance reviews, are disciplined or terminated, and that the DOGE effort has so far skirted these systems.
“There’s a lot of civil servants who are trying in the best ways that they know how to resist what they believe are illegal actions,” Paris said, adding: “These are not people who are well-skilled in the idea of a resistance movement.”
