President Donald Trump this week touted his administration’s dramatic cuts to the federal workforce, as remaining workers steeled themselves for another potential government shutdown — and more possible cuts — in the new year.
“Big news for the USA!” Trump wrote in a post on his social media site, over a graph that showed plummeting federal employment.
The post cited jobs numbers from earlier this month showing federal employment at its lowest in more than a decade, down 271,000 jobs since he took office. The Trump administration casts those numbers in a wholly positive light, as indicative of a strong private sector, even as the labor market stalls.
MS NOW’s Emily Hung recently reported on the depressing holiday season facing federal workers, who fear not only for their jobs, but another government shutdown looming in 2026 and a potential Trump administration regulatory overhaul that would make it easier to terminate career civil servants. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employee told Hung that there’s “fear in the air” among federal workers, and that they’re “walking on eggshells.”
A PBS News/NPR/Marist poll this month found that more Americans than ever disapprove of the president’s handling of the economy. Americans also expressed concerns over the cost of living, health care prices and personal finances.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.