Week 17 saw Trump doubling down on his war on science and public health with continued attacks on federal workers.
In Week 17, chaos continued at several public health agencies as Trump proceeded with mass layoffs and severe budget cuts that will make America sick again.
In the case of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which has laid off 10,000 employees with 10,000 more choosing to resign or retire early, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continued to defend those cuts at a congressional hearing, claiming the administration is simply shifting “funding away from bureaucracy.”
Of those 10,000 employees laid off, about 1,300 were at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the largest federal funder of medical research in the country and the world’s premier biomedical agency that inspires innovation and scientific advances.
One day before Kennedy’s testimony, a Senate minority report released May 13 revealed that in just three months, Trump cut $2.7 billion in research funding for NIH.
Federal funding for medical research at universities and institutions benefits all Americans as private companies are unlikely to invest time and money on research that could drag on for decades without a guarantee of success. Without federal funding, a successful gene-editing treatment for a rare condition like this would not have happened. Now it could transform health care in this country and around the world.
But Trump proposed a budget cut of about 40% for NIH next year.
Chaos continued at the Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) which had laid off about 1,000 employees and reinstated some after a public outcry. In an absurd move, the administration is now trying to find additional cuts to make up for reinstating these public health employees.
Here’s a quick recap of Trump’s attacks on America in his 17th week in office, how these actions hurt federal workers and the American people they serve, and how We the People fight back:
May 14: A coalition of labor unions along with a manufacturer of personal protective equipment filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for its illegal dismantling of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).
May 14: Under new leadership, Trump’s Office of Special Counsel (OSC), a whistleblower protection agency, now says probationary federal employees could be fired for any reason with very limited restrictions, reversing its own previous ruling earlier this year that probationary employees could be fired only for poor performance or conduct. OSC’s new stance is in an amicus brief filed with the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). Trump in February fired then Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger who ruled that mass firings of probationary employees without individualized cause violated the law.
May 14: A group of 27 congressional Democrats led by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., urged the Trump administration to rescind its plan to revive Schedule F, now renamed Schedule Policy/Career, that would politicize public service and strip workplace protections for an unknown number of federal workers.
May 14: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. was grilled during a congressional hearing over deep staffing cuts at HHS and his false claims against childhood vaccines.
May 14: Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its plans to weaken a safe drinking water rule issued during the Biden Administration to curb forever chemicals in drinking water that has led to illnesses. The EPA’s new stance echoed that of utility companies that sued Biden’s EPA over the safe drinking water rule.
May 14: More than 80 members of Congress from both sides of the aisle urged Trump to unfreeze funding for a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) program that helps local communities prepare for natural disasters. Trump’s FEMA announced last month it would unilaterally cut funding, already approved by Congress, for the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program.
May 13: Following a push back from lawmakers and the public, Trump’s Health and Human Services Department (HHS) reinstated about 300 employees working at the Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) who had been laid off. Later on the same day, in response to a lawsuit in Morgantown, W.Va., a judge ruled the layoffs there were illegal and ordered Trump to permanently reinstate more than 100 NIOSH employees working in the Respiratory Health Division in Morgantown. These workers oversee health surveillance and monitor coal miners' health. Not all NIOSH employees who had been laid off were recalled, however. About 700 employees are still slated to be laid off in June and July. A few days later, news broke that Trump’s Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the parent agency of NIOSH, is cutting 300 additional jobs to make up for reinstating NIOSH employees. It’s not clear where the cuts will come from.
May 13: House Democrats opened an investigation into reports that the Department of Veterans Affairs is skirting whistleblower protection laws by requiring employees working on staffing cuts to sign non-disclosure agreements, preventing them from reporting waste, fraud, and abuse to Congress, the Office of Special Counsel, and inspectors general.
May 12: Trump’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has fired a judge who fought against Trump’s directives attacking the LGBTQIA+ community. This is in addition to the previous firing of two Democratic commissioners and dismissals of cases filed by transgender people seeking protection from discrimination. The EEOC enforces civil rights laws, but under the Trump administration, its mission is being undermined as the president moved to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and attack minorities, women, and people with disabilities.
