Federal workers who 'voted for Trump' are furious over his 'assault' on government: report
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President Donald Trump in the White House Oval Office on April 23, 2025 (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok/Flickr)
The BBC reports U.S. federal workers are describing a state of uncertainty mingled with animosity at President Donald Trump over the federal government shutdown.
This is not Trump’s first shutdown, but it is the first that the president has made clear he intends to exploit by permanently firing federal workers.
Anonymous sources reached by BBC News suggest workers appear to have identified one particular enemy in the standoff.
“The last shutdown was brutal,” one federal worker told BBC, referencing the impasse between Republicans and Democrats in the 2018-19 shutdown that lasted more than a month. "It forced me to withdraw money from my retirement plan just to cover my bills. Now, they've made it more difficult to withdraw from our retirement accounts, so if this goes as long as the last shutdown, I don't know how I'm going to pay my bills."
“I voted for Trump, but I did not vote for his abuses against us,” the same worker told BBC.
Another New Jersey employee with the Department of Homeland Security admitted he was aware of the incoming financial insecurity, but he supported Democrats’ reasons for not signing onto the Republican budget and its deep cuts to healthcare coupled with tax cuts for wealthy tax brackets and large corporations.
"Despite working without timely pay, I support the shutdown,” he told BBC . “The president's circumvention of Congress' power of the purse has been left unchecked by the Supreme Court. Checks and balances must be maintained.”
The BBC reports an employee at the Department of the Treasury urged Democrats refusing to sign on with the Trump budget to hold fast against Trump’s Republican majority.
"I strongly implore Democrats to stand firm and not cave to the continued assault on healthcare and affordability for everyday Americans," she said, adding that no amount of threats to her job would “cause her to waver” in her views.
Read the full BBC report at this link.