It’s been a crazy week for the roughly 2.4 million civil servants of the nation’s largest employer: the federal government. From the Trump Administration’s so-called “deferred resignation” gambit to get federal workers to resign, to a lockout of all USAID staff, to a purge of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion workers, the Trump Administration is wreaking havoc among federal employees.

To make sense of all that’s happening, host Douglas Haynes is joined by Bob Hennelly, who says that neither is Elon Musk an elected official and nor is the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) a legitimate governmental agency. 

Hennelly shares his insight into the role of Inspectors General, the DOJ, air traffic controllers, and how Trump undermines public trust in institutions while elevating himself. Labor unions and federal workers have been swift to respond to Trump’s executive orders. The American Federation of Government Employees Union President Everett Kelly wrote, “Purging the federal government of dedicated career civil servants will have vast, unintended consequences that will cause chaos for the Americans who depend on a functioning federal government.” 

Bob Hennelly is a print and broadcast investigative journalist specializing in labor issues both in the public and private sector. He writes frequently for Salon and his work has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, the Christian Science Monitor and  in dozens of other news outlets. He is the interim general manager at Pacifica’s WBAI in New York City. He is also the co-executive producer of We Decide: America at the Crossroads, which is supported by the sustaining contributions from American labor unions representing two million households.

Featured image via Wikimedia Commons.

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