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Fox News hosts struggle to defend DOGE [1]
['Daily Kos Staff']
Date: 2025-02-25
Federal workers who haven’t faced the chopping block are receiving mixed messages from billionaire Elon Musk, President Donald Trump, and his administration.
On one hand, the chainsaw-wielding Musk, who leads the Department of Government Efficiency, doubled down on his ultimatum to 2.3 million federal workers: Tell him what they did last week, or else.
But if you ask Trump’s administration, a lot of workers are in the clear to ignore the email demand.
But then Trump seemingly walked back the walk-back, endorsing Musk’s ultimatum.
“By asking the question, 'Tell us what you did this week,' what [Musk is] doing is saying, 'Are you actually working?'” Trump said during a public meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday. “And then if you don't answer, like, you're sort of semi-fired or you're fired because a lot of people are not answering because they don't even exist.”
“I thought it was great because we have people that don’t show up to work and nobody even knows if they work for the government,” Trump added, without citing evidence.
As Musk, the newly minted father of 13, callously slashes American jobs, even his typical supporters are starting to waver.
Fox News’ Steve Doocy extended some empathy to the federal workers on Monday.
At the end of a segment on the confusion surrounding Musk’s threat to workers, White House correspondent Madeleine Rivera said, “We’ll see if we get more clarity later today.”
Jumping on the opportunity to criticize, Doocy replied, “See, that last word: clarity. There hasn’t been a lot of that. Madeleine, so for the federal employees who are watching right now: What are they supposed to do?”
Elon Musk
Even Fox News host Brian Kilmeade has shown his exhaustion on the matter. In a separate segment, Kilmeade addressed the rise in disgruntled federal employees taking to town halls.
As Daily Kos has previously reported, infuriated voters on both sides of the aisle are showing up at town halls demanding answers over the federal job cuts.
Kilmeade took to Monday’s “Fox & Friends” to acknowledge how “real” the anger is from these people, noting that even Trump’s voters are “casualties” of these spending cuts.
“The blowback they’re getting in some of these town halls is real. I’m sure there’s some people in there that voted for Trump and said, ‘I walked into work and I lost my job,’” he said on air. “But that’s going to be one of the casualties of having to take a $2.7 million federal workforce and knock it down to maybe half of that.” (Kilmeade seemingly misspoke here, likely meaning “2.7 million federal workers”—which is almost correct—and not “$2.7 million federal workforce.”)
Already, Trump and his “first buddy” have faced a harsh response from laying off workers at the Federal Aviation Administration just days after a deadly crash in the Washington, D.C., area. They have also slashed the workforce that oversees the nation’s national parks, which prompted protests at Yosemite National Park.
In the midst of their firing frenzy, DOGE canned experts who were handling the response to the rise of avian flu as well as workers who oversee the U.S.’s stockpile of nuclear weapons.
Having immediate regret, the Trump administration has tried to rehire employees from these groups.
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