'They don’t have a clue': Ex-senator says Trump’s botched firings prove he’s 'incompetent'

18 February

U.S. President Donald Trump sits in the Oval Office of the White House, as he signs executive orders, in Washington, U.S., January 23, 2025.

Less than a month into his second term, President Donald Trump has already had to scramble to undo some of his mass firings of federal workers at critical agencies.

On Tuesday, NBC News reported that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is now attempting to undo the administration's decision to fire multiple USDA officials working on the federal government's response to the H5N1 avian flu outbreak. The agency stated that it considered the fired Food Safety and Inspection Service frontline staff "public safety" employees, and that it "continues to prioritize the response to highly pathogenic avian influenza." The ongoing bird flu crisis has been a major contributor in the price of eggs skyrocketing to new record highs.

During a recent segment on MSNBC, former Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) slammed the administration's abrupt reversal of its mass firings, calling it "a level of incompetence that we've never seen before in government."

"When Donald Trump first came in in 2017, he at least had people surrounding him that ... understood government, understood the workings of government and what people in civil service do. These guys don't. They don't have a clue," Jones said. "They think that just by cutting individuals they're somehow cutting waste and abuse, and they're not ... They're cutting out so many programs that are vital to so many Americans across this country. Whether it is NIH grants, whether its defense contracts, you name it. It is really, truly an incompetent level of government."

The reversed mass firings at the USDA come just one day after the Trump administration fired Department of Energy employees who manage the United States' stockpile of nuclear weapons – including some who build nuclear warheads. White House officials have reportedly been attempting to reach out to the fired workers to rehire them, but because their government email accounts were disabled, the administration has lost the ability to contact some of them.

Trump has deputized centabillionaire Elon Musk and his "Department of Government Efficiency," or DOGE (which is not yet an official federal agency authorized by Congress) to go into federal agencies and make sweeping changes to both headcount and how money is spent. Administration officials have since argued in court that Musk is not the administrator of DOGE, but who supposedly runs the initiative is currently unknown. Jones asserted that it isn't Trump calling the shots, but Musk himself.

"To say that Elon Musk is not running the United States right now is really a fallacy," Jones said. "Donald Trump is just basically a yes man right now for everything that Elon Musk is doing."

Watch the video of Jones' comments below, or by clicking this link.

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