Scarborough slams DOGE layoffs for making red states 'suffer'

Many right-wing media pundits are applauding President Donald Trump and the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) for pushing mass layoffs of federal government employees. The Trump Administration and DOGE, they argue, deserve high praise for going after government waste so aggressively.

But on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," host Joe Scarborough is attacking the mass layoffs from the right.

Scarborough, a Never Trump conservative and former GOP congressman, is saying that while government waste and the United States' federal deficit need to be addressed, the Trump Administration and DOGE are going about it in a reckless, dangerous fashion.

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During a Tuesday morning, February 25 broadcast, Scarborough warned that the layoffs are endangering crucial government functions like "food and drug safety" and "nuclear safety."

Scarborough told a "Morning Joe" panel, "(There are) real concerns from some Republican members of the Senate and from the House who were watching programs in their districts gutted. Red State America is going to suffer far more than Blue State America…. in many instances. And wait 'till the Medicaid cuts start coming…. You talk to conservatives — and by conservatives, I mean people that actually want smaller government — what most of them say is: This isn't going to do anything."

The MSNBC host continued, "At the end of the day, this is just creating chaos. This isn't going to do anything to pay down a $36 trillion debt, or to pay down the $20 trillion in new debt that will accumulate over the next decade if their reconciliation bill passes. So at the end, some small-government conservatives in government are asking: why are we doing this?"

Scarborough went on to lambast the Trump Administration/DOGE layoffs for having "no plan" and "no transparency" — and argued that "random" cuts to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and other agencies endanger public safety.

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The former GOP congressman told the panel, "Certainly, when you're firing people at the FAA or TSA or people that are responsible for nuclear safety — and then you're desperately trying to get them back, desperately trying to get health care workers back, desperately trying to get back people in the FDA — obviously, there is no long thought -out plan. It's just random."

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Watch the full video below or at this link.