Federal agencies are reeling from Trump administration cuts to government
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There are a lot of metaphors floating around the Trump administration trying to capture its approach to reshaping the federal government. Here's one from Elon Musk. This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy. Chainsaw!

Musk wielded, said Chainsaw, on stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Through the Doge initiative, Musk has overseen many of the massive cuts to federal agencies so far. President Trump himself has been using different metaphors. We say the scalpel rather than the hatchet, he said on social media, or as he put it in the Oval Office last month. I don't want to see a big cut where a lot of good people are cut.

I want the cabinet members to keep the good people and the people that aren't doing a good job, that are unreliable, don't show up to work, etc. Those people can be cut. So far, the federal job cuts have affected a lot of people who were doing important work. People like Scott Laney, who worked on the Coal Workers Health Surveillance Program, run the

by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in Morgantown, West Virginia. We are the nation's doctors for coal miners when it comes to their lung health. By law, the program gave every miner in the country access to care for free.

It conducted mobile x-ray screenings for black lung disease, but staff for the operation was slashed and the program was shuttered. It's going to have impacts on my neighbors. It's going to be killing young men. And that story will go untold.

The cuts to the federal workforce are just part of Trump's plan to remake government, though. He has also appointed personal allies with little or no experience in government to key cabinet positions, like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at Health and Human Services. I'm gonna let him go wild on health. I'm gonna let him go wild on the food. I'm gonna let him go wild on medicines. And Pete Hegseth, who in his short tenure atop the Department of Defense has been engulfed in scandal. We're...

changing the Defense Department, putting the Pentagon back in the hands of war fighters, and anonymous smears from disgruntled former employees on old news.

Doesn't matter. Which brings us to one more metaphor, full-blown meltdown. That one comes from John Elliott, a former chief Pentagon spokesperson and veteran of Trump's first presidential campaign. Elliott resigned last week and then wrote an op-ed for Politico describing a, quote, month of total chaos within the Defense Department.

Consider this, scalpel, chainsaw, or meltdown, there's no denying Trump is reshaping the federal government. We'll look at what his changes have meant for three key agencies. From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly.

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It's Consider This from NPR. A change in presidential administration used not to be such a big deal, at least not for government lifers, meaning career civil service staffers in the federal government working for

Whoever's in charge. That has not been the case with this second Trump administration. The speed and size of the changes has brought dysfunction and chaos to a variety of federal agencies. We're going to hear from three NPR reporters following these changes. Michelle Kellerman, our longtime diplomatic correspondent covering the Department of State.

Selena Simmons-Duffin, our health policy correspondent covering the Department of Health and Human Services, and Tom Bowman. He reports on the Pentagon, the Department of Defense. Hi, all three of you. Hello. Hi. Nice to be here. So, Tom, I'm going to let you kick us off because the Pentagon is in the headlines again this week. We have fallout continuing around Defense Secretary Pete Hegsatz.

fondness for sharing sensitive intel on Signal group chats. We also have news now that several high-level advisors at the Pentagon have departed. What is the climate like there?

Well, Mary Louise, let me share what a former Pentagon official who served in Trump's first term characterized what we're seeing. He called it, quote, the height of dysfunction. So you have the top civilian officials who Hegseth himself brought in, fired or removed. And you have the ongoing problem of classified information being shared with two groups on Signal, one including his wife. It's being investigated by the Pentagon Inspector General.

And I'm told Hegsath is slow in putting out releases on decisions that have been made, like keeping U.S. troops in northeast Syria. That was approved by the White House, but it sat on its desk for two weeks. Also, there's no word on some upcoming high-level appointments, like who will take over for the top officer at Central Command, General Eric Carrillo, who leaves this summer. That should have been announced some time ago. So dysfunction, delays.

and a sense of unease among the senior ranks because of the abrupt firings of senior officers with no reason given. Michelle Kellerman, how does that line up with what you are tracking at the State Department, which I will note is also in the news this week? We have news of a massive reorganization, including a 15%, 1.5% personnel reduction?

Yeah, I mean, this is part of Secretary of State Marco Rubio's reorganization plan. But, you know, people were a little bit relieved by it because actually some of the proposals that have been floating around would do a lot more to gut the State Department and the professional foreign service. Some of that could still happen. You know, I'm hearing about the possibility of

cutting two dozen or more overseas posts, for instance. But this was reorganizing with a particular focus on offices that deal with human rights and democracy, things like that. Rubio says that the functions that are required by U.S. law will continue, but he's moved some of them around in his organizational chart. And he's put one of the offices under the control of the coordinator for foreign assistance, which is currently run by someone connected to DOGE.

Selina, what about at the country's many health agencies, which, as you have been reporting for weeks now, are already well into significant job cuts? How are things looking? Yeah, no size of relief over at the health agencies. Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced what he called an overhaul of HHS in late March and sent out reduction in force notices to about 10,000 staff members on April 1st.

And along with early retirements and other voluntary options, that's a cut of about 25% to HHS staff.

And I've been talking to a lot of health agency employees, FDA scientists, senior leaders, policy staff. And the picture that I'm getting is that the full force of the overhaul hasn't been felt yet. The staff that's left has been working to basically hold up a dam, keep experiments running and money flowing to programs like Meals on Wheels and community clinics.

But they don't know how long they can keep doing that. And, you know, some staff that will be fired have been told not to go on leave, but to keep working until their jobs officially end on June 2nd. And when that happens, staff say they expect to see the effects really hit the public all over the country in a big way. Well, let me ask you the why question. Why is Secretary Kennedy doing this? What does he say he's actually trying to accomplish?

Well, he says the country's population is not healthy. Life expectancy is lower than in peer countries, which is true. He says that the science that these agencies have been doing hasn't been good quality and hasn't done enough to address those problems. You know, he's very concerned about the food supply, chronic diseases, births.

But the confusing thing is that many of these cuts seem to work at cross purposes to those goals, like they cut CDC teams that worked on chronic diseases, for example. And so there's a lot of criticism from within HHS, but also health experts beyond that the cuts were done too fast and haphazardly. I did put in a request this week to talk to Kennedy about his vision for HHS and these cuts, and I did not receive a response.

Well, Michelle Kellerman, I'll put a similar question to you. Has Secretary of State Rubio laid out what he is trying to achieve with U.S. foreign policy with all of these changes at the department he now runs?

Yeah, I mean, he came in talking about how he wants to make this building the center of foreign policy again and talking about respecting the work that federal workers do. But, you know, since that opening speech, he defended the way the Trump administration dismantled the lead U.S. aid agency. He dismantled the group that's been focused on Chinese and Russian propaganda, accusing them without evidence of

silencing American conservatives. And he's been a key figure in the negotiations with El Salvador to jail alleged gang members. And he's been actively revoking visas of international students. You know, these are really highly charged political issues here at home. And it's not a comfortable place for diplomats who pride themselves on being nonpartisan.

Tom Bowman, back to the Pentagon. We know that Secretary Hegseth, he has laid out what he says he wants to do. He says the president wants to, quote, restore the warrior ethos of our military. Do we know what that means? Are we seeing a reshaping of the armed forces into more of a warrior ethos?

Well, Mayor Lewis, I don't think there's really any reshaping of the armed forces. Hegseth has signed off on increased physical standards for all troops and separately tougher standards for those in ground combat positions. That's something he pushed for years as a Fox News personality. He claimed that standards have been lowered so women can get into these combat jobs like infantry, but...

The Army denies any standards have been lowered. He also claims that there's an increase in recruiting because of Trump, but the Army for more than a year has seen a rise in recruits because of reforms they've put in place. You know, Hegseth talks about bringing back a warrior ethos, but I've been going out with soldiers and Marines for two decades in combat zones.

That warrior ethos never left. That is NPR's Tom Bowman, Michelle Kellerman, and Selena Simmons-Duffin. Thanks to you all for your reporting. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. At the top of this episode, you heard reporting on the Coal Workers Health Surveillance Program from Yuki Noguchi. This episode was produced by Alejandra Marquez-Hanse and Connor Donovan. It was edited by Patrick Jaron-Wadananen. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan.

Before we go, a quick thank you to our Consider This Plus listeners who support the show. Your contribution makes it possible for NPR journalists all around the world to do our jobs. Supporters also hear every episode without messages from sponsors. You can learn more at plus.npr.org. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Mary Louise Kelly.

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