Trump’s “Buyout” Offer for Federal Workers Is Already Backfiring

Trump’s ultimatum to federal workers is backfiring—making them vow to stay in their positions out of sheer spite. 

On Tuesday, the president announced that he’d be giving federal workers a choice: return to the office full-time or quit with a buyout and severance pay through September 30. This is part of his effort to revamp the federal bureaucracy in his own image, and with his own supporters.

“The President required that employees return to in-person work, restored accountability for employees who have policy-making authority, restored accountability for senior career executives, and reformed the federal hiring process to focus on merit,” a mass email said. “As a result of the above orders, the reform of the federal workforce will be significant.

“If you resign under this program, you will retain all pay and benefits regardless of your daily workload and will be exempted from all applicable in-person work requirements until September 30, 2025 (or earlier if you choose to accelerate your resignation for any reason),” the email continues.

Federal workers aren’t taking this lying down.

“I’ll be honest, before that email went out, I was looking for any way to get out of this fresh hell,” said one user in the popular r/fednews subreddit. “But now I am fired up to make these goons as frustrated as possible, RTO be damned.”

These sentiments were echoed throughout the thread.

“I’ll continue to do my job and fight for the position I’ve earned,” another said. “It took me 10 years of applying and 20 years experience in my field to get here. I will not be pushed out by two billionaire trust funds babies. I’M NOT LEAVING!”

“I’ve never been more motivated to stay. Before the ‘buyout’ memo, I was ready to go job hunting, but then a revelation hit. I took an oath under this position to the American people and leaving my job under the current state would be failing to maintain my oath as civil servant,” another worker wrote. 

“You can’t buy me off, scare me away, or intimidate me into resigning. I’m angry, spiteful, and resolute in holding the line and outlasting anyone trying to destroy the agency whose work I believe in and a mission I take to heart,” one comment stated. “My colleagues feel the same way and we’re not leaving, you’ll have to drag us out. We’ll continue to follow mission we’re charged with executing and serving the individuals we’re charged with serving.… We will be here and continue to be here.” The user also noted that he and 12 other co-workers would be wearing “Rebel Alliance” T-shirts under their work clothes every Friday in the office.

“They just created the imaginary deep state they convinced everyone they were fighting against, oh the irony,” another user noted.

Federal employees also noticed that the memo announcing the buyouts was eerily similar to the one Elon Musk sent Twitter employees in 2022.

A judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked Donald Trump’s move to freeze funding for all federal grants and loans. 

U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan ordered a brief administrative stay on the Office of Management and Budget’s effort to stop funding to federal grant contracts.

AliKhan’s order, which landed just as the freeze was to begin at 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, will go into effect immediately and last until 5:00 p.m. on February 3—little less than a week. 

A hearing for further arguments has been scheduled for Monday morning. 

“I think there is the specter of irreparable harm,” said AliKhan, according to Politico. 

The Trump administration’s decision to pause all funding caused widespread chaos and confusion Tuesday as officials across the country reported that they’d been locked out of  essential government services, such as Medicaid and Head Start. 

The sweeping memo from OMB will affect 2,600 accounts across government, holding hostage the funding for essential government agencies, programs, and nonprofits until they’re willing to answer questions about their commitments to environmental justice, “gender ideology,” and diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Lawmakers from across the country warned Tuesday that the systems for crucial programs such as Head Start were shut down as a direct result of the funding freeze, forcing the organizations to grind to a halt. Medicaid portals were down in every single state.

But OMB insisted that certain programs  would not be affected by the order. The White House claimed that the Medicaid portal had experienced an “outage” and that they expected it to be up and running “soon.”

Attorneys general from at least 23 states joined a federal lawsuit Tuesday against Trump to oppose his freeze on vital health services. 

This story has been updated.

Speaking before a crowd at the March for Life in Washington last week, House Speaker Mike Johnson promised that the anti-abortion movement would be “entering a new era” under Donald Trump’s leadership. The newest benchmark for the conservative party under that banner is, apparently, allowing people to attack and shutter health care clinics providing abortion services.

Republican lawmakers held a private meeting with anti-abortion activists, pledging to repeal the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances, or FACE, Act, reproductive rights columnist Jessica Valenti reported Tuesday. The FACE Act prohibits the use of physical force, threat, or intimidation to prevent people from obtaining an abortion, and prohibits damaging or destroying the clinics that provide them.

“God demands justice,” said Representative Andy Biggs, according to Valenti.

The meeting followed an effort by Representative Chip Roy last week, in which the Texas Republican introduced a bill in the House to formally repeal the act.

“Americans just spent the last four years being targeted by a weaponized justice system,” Roy said in a statement at the time. “The FACE Act was one of the primary weapons of abuse—being used to politically target, arrest, and jail pro-life Americans for speaking out and standing up for life.”

Regardless of the FACE Act’s future, the Department of Justice announced it won’t enforce the protective statute, anyway. In a memo issued Friday, the acting attorney general’s chief of staff directed the agency’s Civil Rights Division to dismiss several FACE Act cases against anti-abortion protesters, claiming that the act embodied the “weaponization of the federal government.” The department also ceased future prosecutions under the statute, except under “extraordinary circumstances,” such as death, “serious bodily harm, or serious property damage.”

In the same week, Trump pardoned 23 anti-abortion activists who blockaded the entrance of a Washington clinic in October 2020. They included Lauren Handy, who was arrested in 2022 for retaining five fetuses at her house.

Meanwhile, conservatives are also attacking abortion access through the judicial system: Anti-abortion activists have asked the Supreme Court to overrule Hill v. Colorado, which established a buffer zone around abortion clinics that prevents activists from speaking to patients or distributing anti-abortion materials to them within 100 feet of a facility.

The intention, for Republicans, is clear.

Speaking at the National Mall last week, Vice President JD Vance pledged to protect Christians and anti-abortion activists from federal prosecution.

“This administration stands by you, we stand with you, and most importantly we stand with the most vulnerable,” Vance said. “America is fundamentally a pro-baby, a pro-family, and a pro-life country.”

The first foreign leader to visit President Donald Trump at the White House in his second term will be wanted for war crimes.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Tuesday that Trump will host him at the White House on February 4. Trump had earlier hinted at the announcement on Monday by saying he’ll be “speaking with Bibi Netanyahu in the not too distant future.”

Less than two weeks ago, a ceasefire in Israel’s war in Gaza went into effect. Netanyahu deliberately delayed the ceasefire to be implemented the day before Trump’s inauguration, agreeing to terms with Hamas that were nearly identical to previous ceasefire proposals months before.

Now Trump and Netanyahu will gloat before media cameras and will probably discuss how Trump plans to thank the Israeli leader—perhaps more military aid, a green light for annexing the occupied West Bank, or a revival of the idea to ethnically cleanse Gaza. Trump already lifted the Biden administration’s superficial ban on exporting 2,000-pound bombs to the country last week.

Netanyahu is facing allegations of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust back in Israel, along with an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. The U.S. under the Biden administration rejected the warrants against Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant, and Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio has similarly defended Israel’s actions during its brutal war against Gaza and condemned the ICC.

Senate Republicans attempted to give Netanyahu a gift on Tuesday by trying to advance a bill sanctioning the ICC, but Senate Democrats (minus John Fetterman) blocked the bill. Regardless, Netanyahu will be able to travel to the White House next week and meet with his corrupt American counterpart worry-free.

Trump fired two prominent officials of the National Labor Relations Board while everyone was rightly worried about the federal funding freeze.

The president fired the board’s general counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, who was a Biden appointee, as well as Democratic member and former Chair Gwynne Wilcox Monday evening. Their departures leave the board two members short of what it requires to actually function as the country’s top labor watchdog.

The NLRB protects nonfederal employees from unfair labor practices and preserves their right to unionize—and during the Biden administration went further than ever before in doing so. Trump’s firings come as the NLRB is already facing lawsuits from SpaceX and Amazon for apparently doing too much to protect workers.

The NLRB allows the president to remove board members only in exceptional circumstances, like negligence of duty or malfeasance.

“These moves will make it easier for bosses to violate the law and trample on workers’ legal rights on the job and fundamental freedom to organize,” AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler wrote.

Wilcox, the first Black woman to serve on the labor board, believes her firing was illegal.

“I will be pursuing all legal avenues to challenge my removal, which violates long-standing Supreme Court precedent,” she said.