Brian Barrett: Well, and I’ll start, just to clarify too, I think an important part of this is the initial email didn’t say they would be fired if they didn’t respond. The email itself just said, send us a bulleted list of five things of what you did last week. And then Elon separately on X tweeted, by the way, if you don’t write back, you’re going to be forced to resign.
Katie Drummond: I hope that all sort of 2.3 million federal workers are checking X regularly or they will apparently miss important updates about their employment status from the government.
Brian Barrett: And truly, I talked to one person who works at the federal government who has muted Elon Musk on X and had not seen it until late Monday. So that’s just part of the chaos that ensued. The other part, and the bigger picture part is that leadership at all of these agencies seemed to have no idea this was coming. It was just a bomb dropped in the middle of the weekend on the federal workforce. And because of that, there was a scramble at every agency figuring out how to respond. At NOAA, there was a sense of don’t respond yet. It might be a phishing email. Let’s figure it out. Then once they decided=
Katie Drummond: It sure seems like spam.
Brian Barrett: Yeah, it does. At other agencies, there was sort of, in general there’s a sense of like, let’s hold, let’s wait until Monday and you’ll get more guidance. Then meanwhile, some people are already writing back to the email. Some people aren’t. Some people haven’t even seen it. Then some agencies started to take a stand, including reportedly the FBI, where Kash Patel, who is maybe the most loyal of Trump loyalists in these positions, apparently drew a line and said, “No, don’t write back to this.” The State Department also said, “Absolutely not. You’re not doing this.” And then we sort of saw mixed guidance at NIH. There was sort of yes but no but yes. Other agencies didn’t get any directives. In some cases, federal judges got this email.
It was a really shambolic episode that speaks to, I think, to how arbitrary, capricious, just silly, a lot of DOGE’s actions are, and I mean silly in the sense of not thought through, but with very serious implications obviously. In terms of where we landed on it, OPM later said, “Never mind. You’re not going to get fired. Don’t worry about it.” And Elon Musk helpfully tweeted after that, that people would get another chance, but next time, next time, they will be fired. Which again was just a tweet.
Katie Drummond: And I believe the president himself Monday afternoon said something to the effect of they better respond or they’ll be sort of semi-fired or fired. Which again, incredibly unclear, and to be serious for a minute, I mean, it’s a ridiculous email. It’s a ridiculous situation. But putting myself in the shoes of someone working for the federal government right now, this is their livelihood. This is how they support their family. This is how they get paid.
