Deep State Fights Back Against Trump

President Donald Trump went into the election vowing to dismantle the “deep state.” Now, the deep state is quietly fighting back.

Multiple federal government employees, all but one speaking on condition of anonymity to protect their positions, told Newsweek that they are living in fear but will ignore any instructions from the White House they deem unlawful—and they are determined not to sacrifice their jobs.

They said morale had cratered since Trump’s inauguration, which ushered in a wave of policies including an end to remote work as well as diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Elon Musk, the billionaire Tesla CEO who leads the new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, was also singled out for driving what the employees see as a threatening and counterproductive agenda. Many federal employees have turned to the over 350,000-strong r/fednews Reddit page.

One meme there features a star, a stapler and the motto “Come and take it”—a play on campaigns against gun control. Another proclaims: “Hold the line. Do not resign.” One post added that “we made an oath to protect the constitution from threats, both foreign and domestic.”

Trump and his supporters say the deep state consists of progressive-leaning federal government employees who continue to wield substantial power, regardless of who controls the White House and Congress. They say spending is too high and federal agencies need to be more responsive to the public’s needs to restore trust in government.

Among such supporters is Senator Jim Banks, a Republican from Indiana. “The American people overwhelmingly voted for President Trump in part because of his promise to root out government waste and bring common sense back to the White House,” he told NBC News.

“With a $36 trillion national debt, I welcome his administration working to ensure every tax dollar is spent responsibly on the agenda he promised.”

Newsweek has emailed the White House press office for comment.

‘Terror and Paranoia’

A January report by the conservative America First Policy Institute concluded that a “significant minority” of federal employees actively sought to undermine Trump’s agenda during his first term, using tactics such as failing to inform political appointees about key developments and producing “legally unusable” policy drafts.

After Trump’s 2025 inauguration, the White House wrote to government agencies the same day telling them to “take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements,” with many federal workers offered eight months’ pay if they agreed to resign by February 6. Trump also said he would purge over 1,000 Biden appointees “who are not aligned with our vision to Make America Great Again.”

On February 3, The Washington Post reported that Trump was preparing an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education. Musk—who has indicated he wants to cut federal spending by “at least $2 trillion”—responded on his social media platform X, formerly Twitter, that Trump “will succeed” in the shutdown.

The same day, amid Trump’s freeze on foreign aid, Musk said on X Spaces of the U.S. Agency for International Development: “We’re shutting it down.” On February 7, a federal judge blocked an attempt to put over 2,200 USAID employees on paid leave and recall nearly all of those posted abroad.

A federal employee who said they’d worked for the Interior Department and its bureaus for nearly 30 years told Newsweek that morale was “the worst I’ve ever seen in the federal government,” adding: “I can say that 98 percent of all the federal employees are hardworking people who really do care about their work and their service to the public. The ‘lazy’ government workers are few and far between.

“I can also add that the level of terror and paranoia is incredibly extreme. For example, many of my colleagues have spent most of the week scrubbing websites for ANY mention of DEI programs,” they said.

“Even the word ‘equity’ is being removed from all internal and external digital platforms (this is an order from the highest levels of my department). These workers are so scared that even one word that doesn’t align with the Trump administration will result in firing.”

A federal worker for the Department of Health & Human Services in the Midwest echoed these sentiments. “The general mood is one of anxiety, distrust and siege,” they said.

“We’ve always felt undervalued, sometimes thankless, but now I’d say it’s shifted to being targeted. The Elon ‘Fork in the Road’ email seems to be a quasi legal coercion or warning for an empty, unbanked promise…. Remote work has increased efficiency. It’s saved the government millions of dollars in electricity, bandwidth usage, etc.”

“A Fork in the Road” was the title of the email sent to over 2 million federal workers by the Office of Personnel Management with the deferred resignation offer. A federal judge temporarily blocked the initiative on the day of its deadline, ordering it to be extended to at least February 10 after a hearing. Moments after the order, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that 40,000 employees had accepted the resignation offer.

Speaking to Newsweek prior to this, Matt Wilson—a 20-year federal employee who works as a social security analyst in Baltimore and the only employee willing to be identified—said: “I haven’t talked to a single person who is interested in taking up the deferred retirement offer. Our service ethos is strong, and we remain committed to doing the important work the American people expect from us.”

However, a Department of Defense employee based out of Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine expected “more people to leave if telework goes away,” adding: “Older workers may stay because they are vested in retirement. Younger workers will go.”

An Office of Personnel Management spokesperson, McLaurine Pinover, said in a statement reported by NPR: “This is a rare, generous opportunity—one that was thoroughly vetted and intentionally designed to support employees through restructuring.

“Instead of spreading misinformation and using workers as political pawns, they should be making sure federal employees have the facts and freedom to make the best decision for themselves and their families.”

Federal agencies can pay relatively well, as Trump’s supporters have pointed out. The average salary in the U.S. is $66,622, according to the Social Security Administration. A Newsweek analysis last year found many federal agencies have average salaries in the six figures.

But pay isn’t everything, employees indicted. One working for a federal agency in New England said: “Federal employees have the right to disobey unlawful orders because we have to uphold the Constitution…. We take our oaths serious. The same oath Congress takes. We love our country. We believe in our missions.”

They added: “The people demonizing us have never served anyone other than themselves. They have never made an honest living. They have never punched a clock. They have never taken a reduction in pay for the opportunity to serve their country. Gainfully employed adults are being harassed and bullied by a convicted felon.”

A United States Citizenship and Immigration Services employee, based out of Maryland, said: “I swore an oath to the Constitution, not the president. As Lincoln stated, this government is ‘of the people, by the people, for the people.’ This administration needs to be reminded of that. We serve the American people, not the president.”

Another Department of Defense worker was “dealing with a lot of stress” because they are transgender and “p***ed off at the new administration”—which has attempted to reverse protections for transgender people. Trump has also instructed the Pentagon to review policies that could lead to barring transgender individuals from military service. But the defense worker added: “There’s a pretty strong sense of solidarity among federal workers, and that extends up and down the chain of command.”

A Veterans Affairs department worker who specializes in mental health was also defiant. “The current administration’s targeting of federal employees is causing high levels of stress and making it harder for us to focus on doing our job,” they said. “We help veterans struggling with mental health issues, including suicidal thoughts, PTSD…”

They added: “I am passionate about my job and hoped to dedicate my entire career to the VA, but I’m increasingly worried about whether our work will be sustainable under the current pressures…. Public servants aren’t the enemy and it’s extremely discouraging to see us scapegoated as such.”

“If the administration’s aim was to demoralize us, I would say that has backfired. My colleagues and I are fired up, angry and even more determined to hold on to our jobs, challenge the nonsense and keep doing good work to serve veterans.”

Nonetheless, one Veterans Health Administration employee from the southeast noted: “We are being told we are lazy and incompetent, and Trump is turning the general public against us, even though we are regular people with jobs just like them. It’s demoralizing and chaotic, which I fear is exactly what he wants.”

‘Staggering’ Waste

Senior Trump administration officials continue to insist radical reform is needed. Musk wrote on X after Trump’s election win that government waste was “staggering to behold!”

The number of federal employees has been steadily growing since summer 2022, though it peaked in 1990 at more than 3.4 million, according to the St. Louis Fed.

According to Treasury Department figures, the federal government spent a total of $6.75 trillion in the 2022 fiscal year. Achieving Musk’s spending reduction will require huge cuts, increasing tension between the Trump administration and critics inside it.

The stapler memes may be just the start.