What we know about Trump’s wave of federal firings so far

The spate of federal firings that stretched throughout last week escalated last Friday, and continued through the holiday weekend. 

Nearly all of those fired were “probationary” employees, a status usually conferred on new workers, those that switch agencies, and the recently promoted, that provides fewer protections against removal. 

Reports have been unclear about exactly how many people were fired and where. However, we do know some details:

• Roughly 400 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) workers focused on research, science, and administrative support; 
• About 3,600 Health and Human Services workers, including at least: 750 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) employees, at least 1,000 National Institutes of Health workers, and 750 people at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA);
• At least 400 Homeland Security employees, including 200 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) employees;
• About 2,300 at the Department of the Interior, including 800 at the Bureau of Land Management and 1,000 at the National Parks Service;
• More than 3,000 Forest Service employees at the Department of Agriculture;
• More than 1,000 Veterans Affairs professionals; 
• At least 300 Environmental Protection Agency workers;
• More than 1,500 NASA employees (10 percent of the agency’s workforce).

By several accounts, the firing process was a haphazard one — probationary employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration, which manages the US’s nuclear weapons, were asked to return to work after being fired, for instance.

The Trump administration has argued these cuts (and more) are needed to slash federal spending, and to shrink a bloated bureaucracy.

However, the latest reduction in force is unlikely to provide taxpayers with major savings, and could jeopardize the government’s mandate to protect its citizens.

Take, for instance, the VA’s claim that its terminations will save $98 million per year. That is a lot of money to me, but it represents only 0.00145 percent of the $6.75 trillion the federal government spent in the 2024 fiscal year. Celebrating that cut is like me jumping for joy because I managed to save a tenth of a penny by foregoing something at the grocery store. Sure it’s money saved, but not really an appreciable sum.

The point is — and it’s a point others have made — the US will need to make massive cuts, on the trillion, not million, dollar scale if it really wants to appreciably tighten its belt. To do that, it would need to slash spending on expensive programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and the defense. 

Now to the other claim: that the government is too big.

Much like with the VA’s savings, those let go represent a fraction of the federal workforce. If you combine the latest round of layoffs with previous rounds — and even with the roughly 75,000 people who took the government’s buyout offer — then just under 4 percent of the government’s 2.4 million person workforce has been cut. 

That means the government is still pretty big. The good news about that is it means government services are unlikely to keel over tomorrow. The worry is about the day after tomorrow. 

We’re not out of fire season, and fire experts and Forest Service workers are expressing great concern that they won’t have the manpower to keep communities safe.

“It’s just going to be a disaster for the wildfire response this season,” one Forest Service firefighter told Stateline.

Spring break and summer travel season are coming in fast too. The FAA was clear that it didn’t fire any air traffic controllers, but, as you read in this newsletter a few weeks ago, aviation experts believe our flight systems are seriously overtaxed. 

“Right now, flight operations are like a rubber band,” the University of North Dakota’s Daniel Adjekum told me recently. “And we keep pulling it.”

And it’s not just a matter of fire or flying: a disaster could happen at any time requiring FEMA’s full attention; the CDC might need to be called into action over a new pandemic — federal agencies were already struggling to get bird flu under control. 

It’s impossible to tell you right now what the effects of these cuts will be, and if things will go as badly as some now claim. But the worry is, if things do go south due to lack of personnel, it will be too late — avoidable tragedy will have struck.

This piece originally ran in the Today, Explained newsletter. For more stories like this, sign up here.