U.S. President Donald Trump, and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio attend the UFC 327 event at Kaseya Center in Miami, Florida, U.S., April 11, 2026.
The U.S. State Department appears to be pushing experienced diplomats toward retirement and elevating those loyal to President Donald Trump and his agenda, insiders say.
Speaking to the Washington Sun for a Wednesday report, nine current and former staff members revealed that the State Department is being run into the ground as experience gives way to political ideology.
According to some, senior State Department officials are outright asking longtime employees to retire. Others "have been reassigned other top career staff into the Administration Bureau, what employees consider to be a 'purgatory' where employees’ careers 'go to die.'"
“A whole lot of senior foreign service have left because there are no jobs for them,” said one current foreign service officer.
The report explained that the State Department is similar to the military's "up or out" system where either you get promoted or you're removed if you aren't being promoted.
So far there's a loss of about 3,500 foreign service workers since Trump took office. The American Foreign Service Association reported that the overwhelming majority of those departures come from senior posts or one level below. Last year, 1,300 came in 2025.
Meanwhile, current and former employees say the department is using the Ben Franklin Fellowship, a Trump-aligned network where like-minded people can be promoted and identified, for hiring and promotion. One employee said that they were in an interview when they were told it was just for show because a fellowship member had already been selected.
New employees also must align themselves with the goals of "the current government." So, "loyalty" takes precedence over experience. Younger employees simply don't have the financial stability to resign, so they find themselves committing to the Trump loyalty pledges and sticking with leadership.
“Those bureaucrats who are complaining to the press prove the point that they shouldn’t have, and can’t be, trusted with sensitive information,” Tommy Pigott, a State Department spokesperson, said.
Former diplomat Kelly Adams-Smith said she left after she felt that her expertise was neither valued nor welcome anymore. Other departing staff warned that experienced officers take decades of relationships and institutional knowledge with them. The younger staff can't simply fill the gaps.
Ultimately, the State Department says that for the first time the diplomatic corps is in a battle over which is more important: doing what's right for the United States or executing the president's personal political agenda. Doing the former means having difficult conversations with inconvenient facts that could result in retaliation. They caution that sidelining those people increases the risk of poorly informed decisions and could even lead to international disaster.
“Honest advice is not being rendered,” a former diplomat said. “At some point, god forbid, something is going to come back and bite them, and maybe all of us, in the behind.”