Many participants who were at Monday’s gatherings are current or freshly dismissed federal workers who joined from the surrounding Washington, D.C. area. David DiMolfetta/NextGov/FCW
Federal workers decry recent firings in Presidents’ Day protest
“All I ask is that [the White House] follow f****** federal employment laws,” said one Consumer Financial Protection Bureau employee.
Thousands of people surrounded the reflecting pool in front of the U.S. Capitol building on Presidents’ Day to protest the Trump administration’s terminations of recently hired federal employees and billionaire ally Elon Musk’s inroads into troves of sensitive federal systems through his Department of Government Efficiency.
Many participants who were at Monday’s gatherings are current or freshly dismissed federal workers who joined from the surrounding D.C. area, concerned that recent moves from the White House — including the decision to mass fire thousands of employees over the past week and offer a deferred resignation package to feds in moves to reduce purported taxpayer spending “waste” — are unfair, illegal and create risks for Americans and allies nationwide.
“It’s a lot of people,” said a current Consumer Financial Protection Bureau employee, referring to dozens of their probationary colleagues fired this past Tuesday, which they said included veterans and participants in agency rotational programs for recent college graduates. Employees on probationary periods are typically those who were hired into government within the last one or two years, though some affected feds have said they are longtime government employees that were recently hired or promoted into new positions.
“It’s f****** nonpartisan,” said the CFPB employee, referring to the nonpolitical nature of many civil servants’ work. “All I ask is that [the White House] follow f****** federal employment laws,” said the person who, like many others at the protest, spoke with Government Executive on the condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisal from the Trump administration.
One recently axed National Institutes of Health worker said that they and fellow employees’ terminations were justified through poor performance, but noted that “everyone that I know that was let go actually had stellar performance evaluations last year, so it’s obviously not that.” They were canned on Friday, the former NIH worker said, adding that the decision likely had to do with the affected peoples’ probationary status.
“Morale is low,” said the now ex-NIH employee when asked about feelings in their office. “But it’s great to see everyone out here show support, whether you’re a former fed, current fed or just a concerned citizen,” they added.
Protesters, bundled in hats, jackets, scarves and masks, held signs and American flags around the Capitol Hill reflecting pool. Much of the signage referenced Musk or Trump, others referred to vows from the White House to defund or cut agencies, including the Department of Education.
On one protester’s backpack, a pinned button, displaying a kitchen fork, read, “Hey Elon get the fork out of here!” in reference to the subject line of the recently closed deferred resignation offer for feds, which read “Fork in the Road” when it arrived in their inboxes.
One sign, seemingly referencing the U.S. Agency for International Development, said “Global Security = National Security.” Amid Trump’s moves to fold USAID into the State Department, critics have argued that USAID projects are effective at asserting “soft power” in nations that can prevent foreign adversaries like China or Russia from planting themselves in the place of current U.S. projects, which have included humanitarian aid to malnourished populations in Africa, as well as government and security development assistance for Ukraine.
Current NIH employees at the protest echoed those sentiments. “We’re in public health, so our mission is to ensure that medical sciences and advances reach everybody,” one of the NIH workers said. “In essence, what we do is health equity and alleviate health disparities, and these are now words we can’t even use,” they said, referring to the Trump administration’s crackdown on terms related to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility initiatives in the government.
“This is setting us back 20 to 30 years in terms of medical research, and maybe making the disparities worse,” the second NIH worker said, referencing the White House’s efforts to pause certain research grants.
“Most of us have been there for a while. Most of us love working there. We love what we do. We want to make sure that science gets funded,” a third NIH employee said. To protect themselves, these NIH staffers elected to not publicly disclose the specific health and disease research they focus on.
Chris Armstrong, a 60-year-old product manager and AI researcher, came from the Virginia suburbs to support federal workers and express dismay at DOGE entering into the sensitive systems of multiple federal agencies.
“I’m also very concerned that Congress, especially Republicans in Congress, are not freaking growing a spine and standing up and fulfilling their responsibilities under the Constitution … to ensure that the funds that they have allocated are actually spent in the way that they are intended to be spent,” he said.
“The hypocrisy here is that Elon Musk is going after all these agencies that he has conflicts of interest with,” Armstrong added, referring to Musk’s companies like SpaceX that have been awarded billions in federal contracts with the Pentagon.
One current Defense Department employee showed up to show solidarity for work they do as a civilian hire for the nation’s premiere military agency, and stressed fears about how the government may function without apolitical staff members.
“As a parent, I want to make sure that we have democracy to leave to our child,” they said. They added that some of their friends are furloughed federal employees who are single parents that can no longer afford daycare.
The layoffs and Monday’s subsequent protest also brought in people representing government contractor clients. One person who works for a major cybersecurity contractor says the recent terminations “destroys the fabric of the community that I live in and work in with my colleagues and friends.”
“To see them struggling with such a level of uncertainty impacts me personally and impacts the things that I’m passionate about as well,” the federal cyber contractor said.
In Washington, D.C., ordinary people are bound to run into government workers, they added. “It’s a big reason why people are here, and to see our community in such uproar is a little unsettling, but positive in the sense that there's a [collective] voice out there, and … there’s some strength behind it.”
The fear of mass layoffs in the federal ecosystem continues. Several people still employed at agencies at the Monday protest are anticipating they or their friends might be on the chopping block next. Some said they are confused and disheartened at remarks from Trump and his allies online, noting that they take significant pay cuts and dedicate years to their work because they, in a way, choose to work for the government for a higher cause.
“It’s not the same hunger. Our hunger is a patriotic hunger,” said a former General Services Administration official that spoke to Government Executive an hour before the protest started. “Private industry’s hunger is revenue and building up sales — they’re not the same.”
Yet, many feds said they will still remain, because they believe in what they do.
Said a current OPM employee at the protest: “I think [the White House] underestimated the intelligence and loyalty of the civil service and American people.”