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- [00:07]
Tyler Foggatt
Hey, Tammy.
- [00:08]
Tammy Kim
Hi, Tyler. It's good to see you.
- [00:09]
Tyler Foggatt
Yeah, it's good to see you, too. So, yeah, we're here today to talk about the shutdown, which I think it's already been a very, very hard time for federal workers. And I guess I'm wondering, you know, in your view, how much worse it's gotten. Like, if you're a federal employee in the midst of this shutdown and you've been furloughed or maybe you've been laid off completely, or you're working without. Is this worse and more chaotic than what things were like earlier in the Trump administration, when the first version of DOGE was kind of wreaking havoc on the federal workforce? Or is this. Would you say this is almost like, par for the course at this point?
- [00:47]
Tammy Kim
It's very 2025 is the vibe. And I have to say, some of the federal workers I'm in touch with are signal texting me emojis of shrug emoji, you know, which is sort of indicative of the sense of, yeah, how much worse can it be? How much more can they do to me? And so I think, in a way, there's a little bit of a recapitulation of the start of the year, of this uncertainty of what's gonna happen. Are there gonna be more reductions in force, mass firings, all this stuff, the things that people were waiting for in February and March, and then in other quarters, it's a little bit of like, all right, this is another week in the course of this year. It's not so different from the way that omb, the Office of Management and Budget, has been treating me this whole time.
- [01:28]
Tyler Foggatt
I know that you're talking to all sorts of people across the government, but I'm wondering if you could almost separate into categories, like, the kind of worker who was left at this point, like, you know, like, are these people who basically are. Are they just the ones who are, like, kind of the most committed to public service, and they're sort of like, I know that this is a, you know, a tough administration to be a part of, but my life is public service, and so I'm not going to try to get a job using my skills at McKinsey or these people who have such specialized skills that they kind of can't go anywhere else? Are they. Are they old? Like, what is, like, the profile of the kind of worker who you speak to most often?
- [02:05]
Tammy Kim
Yeah, right now, if I were to be very sort of general about it, I might say there are, like, three buckets. One is yes, the extremely committed, the people who, you know, on the one hand are saying, I am a federal worker for life, I want to do civil service. This is what I'm meant to be. And might also, on the other hand, have a little bit of mischief in them. Like, I'm not going to go, they're going to have to drag me out of here. I'm not going to let President Trump and Russell vote, you know, drag me out of my job. A second category might be people who really need the money and aren't sure where else to go, especially if you're in an area where there are a lot of federal workers. The job market is incredibly tight. In a piece we worked on a few months ago, we talked to a worker who I think had applied for 75 jobs. She had done a very specialized task inside an agency on the contracting front and now was applying for Costco, Trader Joe's, this sort of thing. So, yeah, I think that's a second bucket. And the third bucket I would say is, yes, older workers who are, you know, getting close to retirement, they want to make that 20 or 25 year mark so they can get their payout. So, yeah, I would say it's, it's kind of along all dimensions, but it's exhausting, stressful. People are getting sick. It's been, it's been a hell of a year.
- [03:25]
Tyler Foggatt
That's E. Tammy Kim, a staff writer at the New Yorker who covers politics and labor. The government shutdown is poised to continue for its third week with no clear end in sight. Thousands of federal workers have been furloughed or are working without pay. And the Trump administration is also seizing on this moment to weaken the federal workforce permanently by carrying out large scale reductions in force or layoffs that would last long after the shutdown is over. I wanted to talk with Tammy about how this shutdown is affecting federal workers day to day, how it fits in into the Trump administration's broader attempt to downsize the government and what this moment might mean for the future of public service. This is the political scene. I'm Tyler Foggatt and I'm a senior editor at the New Yorker. So before we talk about what this all means for the workforce, I'm wondering if we can talk a little bit about the shutdown itself and how we got here and why, for the first time since 2019, the government has actually shut down. Like, what were the conflicts that led to the situation that we are in now now?
- [04:32]
Tammy Kim
It almost feels not that interesting in a way. We're so used to these shutdowns. But yes, it has been six years, so that is significant. So the basic impasse is that Democrats are saying that an extension of health care subsidies under the Affordable Care act, so this is basically allowing poor and sort of middle class people to buy health insurance off of the exchange, that those subsidies are going to expire at the end of 2025, and that Democrats, with the help of Republicans, need to extend that so that more people are insured and they're not going to budge from that position. And so that's what's causing the shutdown. It's been interesting because you would think, I think that people might feel resentment towards the Democrats. All right, like, you know, don't hold out on this because it's affecting the entire federal government and all of these services. But I think the Democrats in their, especially in their conversations with federal workers, have felt supported in this strategy of holding out. But that appears to still be the sticking point. I think in contrast to previous shutdowns, there's been very little dialogue between the parties and between minority congressional leaders and the White House. So I would say that's what distinguishes this period from previous shutdowns.
- [05:41]
Tyler Foggatt
That's interesting that people within the Democratic Party have felt supported by the federal workers who are kind of seeing their jobs be put on hold or who are being furloughed because of the shutdown. Just given that, I feel like a lot of the talk before the shutdown happened, you know, when we were all kind of waiting to see whether there would be a shutdown or not, the way that this happens, you know, every year, basically, and then luckily a shutdown is typically averted. I just feel like all those conversations were sort of about how if there were to be a shutdown, the Trump administration would just use this to continue its firing of federal workers, which is exactly what we've seen. I mean, we'll talk more about that later. But I mean, do you think that that's true, that that was kind of, everyone sort of knew that if the Democrats were going to stand firm on healthcare, that it would probably lead to layoffs.
- [06:29]
Tammy Kim
Yeah. It's interesting because technically, and I think the federal worker unions have made this point in court. Now, you're not really supposed to use a shutdown to be able to go through with formal reductions in force, the formal firing procedure for the federal government, the reduction in force has this whole really bureaucratic process with all these requirements. And it can't just be because, hey, the government isn't funded right now. And so that's being litigated in court. And so I think in a way, because that seems, on its face, illegal, a lot of federal workers thought, are they really going to go through with these firings during the shutdown? And then maybe this kind of goes back to the point of like federal workers being in hell or in a job like situation already. They thought, well, all right, maybe they will do the reductions enforced during the shutdown, but they were probably going to do that anyway. They had it out for certain of these agencies. So I think that maybe causal connection, you know, how strong that is, is part of the reason that maybe federal workers aren't feeling, feeling as angry about this. I think also generally, I would say federal workers obviously are kind of mostly democratic and because of all of the stuff that has happened this year, are probably much more willing even than before to support the democratic agenda.
- [07:40]
Tyler Foggatt
So, yeah, before we talk more about the reductions in force, I'm wondering if we can talk about the kinds of categories of ways in which federal workers are either seeing their jobs be put on hold or like, I know that there's you have like the essential federal workers and then you have the ones who have been furloughed, and then there's fee funded and Federal Reserve funded. But like, I guess what is kind of the status of various federal workers at this point? Like, you have the ones who are, who the administration is like actively trying to just like fire forever. And then what about the other ones who are in more of a like a purgatory situation?
- [08:14]
Tammy Kim
So the federal workers are sort of split between those who are considered essential and are therefore still on the job but not getting paid, and those who are furloughed, meaning they're able to stay home and do whatever, also not getting paid. The essential worker category is interesting. I mean, it's sort of people like air traffic controllers. Exactly. It's like people who you would think, yeah, emergency workers, right? Like air traffic controllers, tsa, the National Guard, interestingly, who are being deployed across the country. Military, all of those guys are considered essential workers.
- [08:44]
Tyler Foggatt
Are they always considered essential workers or is that like a definition that the administration gets to like, Was the National Guard always essential? Or is that the kind of thing where Trump is like, they're essential because I'm using them in various places.
- [08:56]
Tammy Kim
So those categories, I think have always been essential because they're sort of, you know, kind of law enforcement or safety type categories. But what's interesting is, for example, immigration court judges, like, in 2019, the immigration court judges were split between certain Ones were essential because they were handling people who were in detention. And you kind of don't want to keep people imprisoned longer than you have to versus, you know, normal immigration court judges who weren't essential. Now all of them are considered essential because deportation and detention are obviously priorities of this administration. So there is some flux in that category. And that's been interesting actually to see because they, I think you can see that throughout the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security, people who are working on that kind of immigration enforcement are definitely going to be considered essential right now. And then, yeah, the furloughed workers, and then you mentioned fee funded and Treasury. It's kind of complicated, but basically there are certain agencies that don't get their money through congressional appropriations. So for example, people who are paid out through the Federal Reserve money, like they can still go to work because that's coming from a different pot or going back to immigration, the part of immigration that does benefit United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, that's fee funded through like paying for a naturalization application fee. So those people are still at work, although it seems like some of them are getting fired.
- [10:12]
Tyler Foggatt
So how many workers would you say have been furloughed?
- [10:15]
Tammy Kim
I think it's about 600,000, although that number is evolving. And of course the firings will affect that. That is now, by my count, the majority of the federal workforce because of so many terminations and resignations since the start of the year. So it's.
- [10:33]
Tyler Foggatt
And when does this start to kind of inconvenience or affect the lives of, you know, like average people like you and me? I mean, obviously we pay very close attention to something like this because it's part of what we cover as journalists. But like, let's, I don't know, like my family in Arizona, like, when are they most likely going to remember that there's a government shutdown happening? Is it like when they try to fly somewhere and their flight's delayed because there aren't enough air traffic controllers? Or is, I mean, it seems like even in that case, it's the air traffic controllers are still working. But I think basically this question just comes from a place of like, we talk about the shutdown a lot. It's obviously a massive deal for the people who are experiencing the effects of the shutdown directly. You know, they're not getting paid, they're not able to work. But if you were just kind of like an average American who doesn't work for the government, when are you going to be confronting the consequences of the shutdown like most directly.
- [11:27]
Tammy Kim
Yeah. I think the air traffic controllers actually is an interesting example because they are considered essential. But a lot of them have been calling in sick because people don't want to work for free and they've already felt really badgered. So, yes, I think at airports we're starting to see some signs of trouble. I think the FAA has been trying to find enough workers to cover shifts. There have been reported shortages at a number of airports. National parks are closed in many places or their services are massively reduced. That's also true for the Smithsonian and other tourist sites in Washington. Then there are things that if you poor or disabled, you might be seeing already. For example, the Social Security field offices, they are open, but the things they are allowed to do for you are very reduced. So depending on the kind of service you're seeking at a place like that, you might be in trouble.
- [12:17]
Tyler Foggatt
Over the weekend, Trump announced that he was directing the Defense Department to pay members of the military this week. And this comes after both Republicans and Democrats voiced concerns about active duty military not receiving paychecks on the 15th. Where is this money coming from?
- [12:32]
Tammy Kim
I know, it's an interesting example. I mean, again, we can see where the administration's priorities are. And of course, there's always a lot of concern around service members. So now it seems like for the military and also for ancillary agencies like the Coast Guard, they are going to be paid and that the money is going to be taken out of a sort of vague category of research funds. I don't know if that's research on particular weaponry and things like that or different aspects of scientific research that are housed within the military. But that seems to be now the pot that they're going to be drawing on. But even that, I think, is showing a lot of strain. They're trying to sort of COVID themselves.
- [13:09]
Tyler Foggatt
Yeah. And then you mentioned the National Guard earlier. And of course, Trump is continuing to explore deploying them in various US Cities, most recently using the Insurrection act as justification. And, you know, if he continues to do this while the shutdown is going on, will those Guard units be paid? Will they be doing this for free?
- [13:29]
Tammy Kim
It seems like they're not going to be paid. So far. I don't think that he's considering them under the active duty military category. And so we shall see. I mean, like most of the essential workers, they are just going to be praying that they'll get the back pay that they've been promised. But in the case of the reservist National Guard, I mean, this is a very sort of precarious category because in a lot of times they are being pulled out of regular employment to do this.
- [13:55]
Tyler Foggatt
You were talking earlier about being in touch with federal workers who have seen their jobs be affected by the shutdown. And, you know, I'm wondering what they're doing to get by. Like, is, are some of them looking for, you know, service jobs to do in the meantime while they are unable to work? If you're a federal worker, do you kind of try to have as much in savings as possible just for situations like this one? Like, I kind of wonder what they, you know, how they, you know, anticipate these sorts of things and whether they're prepping for it all year, essentially, or whether it is kind of like a mad scramble for income.
- [14:29]
Tammy Kim
Yeah, there's definitely a range. Just because the federal pay scale is so vast from top to bottom. You know, there is a stereotype that federal workers, obviously, I mean, that's what Trump is kind of going on, that they are overpaid and lazy bureaucrats and that, you know, they just are sort of sitting on slush funds. But, you know, at the bottom of the pay scale, these are fairly, you know, modest incomes. And so for people who have families and tuition and all of this stuff, rent, it's very, very tight. Just I am in touch with a lot of federal workers from my reporting over signal and chat, and people have been talking about going to soup kitchens. And people are. Some of the essential workers I'm in touch with are requesting kind of emergency work from home situations so they don't have to expend money on gas and parking. You know, it's getting tighter and tighter. We're already at, what, day 16. So I'm anticipating now to be a lot of. There's to be a lot of sort of hardship requests in different agencies for essential workers and then for furloughed workers. Yeah. To be relying on public services. They could, I suppose, in certain cases apply for certain kinds of jobs. I mean, there are sort of like ethics constraints around what they can do. But, you know, that's difficult to do given that you don't know when you're going to be called back.
- [15:41]
Tyler Foggatt
Yeah. I mean, and also how long it takes to get a job. It's like by the time you get a job at the grocery store, it's like, maybe the shutdown will be over. Since no one really knows. I mean, what you said about employees trying to work remotely just made me think about how we're really kind of seeing this terrible Combination of a series of Trump policies. Like, you know, it's like you already lay off all these people, and so the workers remaining have more work to do than they did before. And then they also have to come into the office and then you have this shutdown, which is maybe making it so that they have to do this work now with no pay, I guess. What are the other ways in which it's just become harder to be a federal employee? Like, even if your job isn't actively under threat, but just like the various things that Trump has sort of inflicted on them these past few months?
- [16:28]
Tammy Kim
Yeah, there's been so many changes to working conditions. I mean, one thing that's kind of overarching is kind of a surveillance culture or people being afraid to just sort of do normal things. So, for example, on Friday, there were a bunch of firings of people in the Education Department. I was in touch with a number of education workers who thought they were probably fired because they had read reporting that those units had been eliminated, but they actually couldn't confirm whether they were individually fired because they had been prohibited from accessing their computers or checking their email during the pendency of the shutdown. And so another thing where they want to check, but they're afraid because then their digital fingerprint would be on the device that they had checked. Just sort of strange, kind of like Kafkaesque situations that federal workers find themselves in. I think a lot of also federal workers, they have lost their union rights. Their unions have been decertified over this time, over a million workers. And so sort of like who to call and what kind of rights they have, whether there are particular contractual provisions that would protect them even during the shutdown periods like this. That is all sort of a question mark.
- [17:37]
Tyler Foggatt
I know that's like an entirely, you know, that could be its own episode. The losing of the union rights. I didn't even really know that, but, yeah, how did that happen? I mean, is that something that can Trump just decide, like, yeah, we're gonna decertify your unions, or did it happen because the reductions in force up until this point were so large that, like, do they have to be a certain size to have a union? Like, what's going on there?
- [17:59]
Tammy Kim
They've primarily been through executive order. And the way that Trump has done that is to say that because he's always using his sort of like, war time or emergency powers right to do various things. And so under that same logic, he has said, for example, we cannot do collective bargaining with X agencies workers. It would be a threat to national security. It would somehow undermine my ability to be the commander in chief. So that has been the logic in a lot of these cases for decertifying the unions by fiat. All of this, of course, is being litigated. I can't even keep up with the number of lawsuits in the federal sector. But yeah, that's been a huge hit because different rights are obviously just enumerated. You don't really even have to be a very active union member or a supporter of your union to have just relied for years on the kind of like bureaucratic structure that it imposes on your workplace. Now nothing is there.
- [18:52]
Tyler Foggatt
Wow. Well, let's take a quick break and then when we come back, I want to talk more about how the Trump administration is using the shutdown to shrink the federal government in a more long term way. This is the political scene from the New Yorker. The New Yorker Festival is approaching and I'll be taking part in two events on Saturday, October 25, with first, I'll speak with Jeopardy. Host Ken Jennings about his time on the show. Later on, I'll join Cal Newport, Charles Duhigg, and Anna Weiner for a panel called Recalibrating for the Digital Age, a discussion about practical uses of AI and how it's reshaping everyday life. I hope to see you there. You can find more details@newyorker.com festival.
- [19:40]
Katie Drummond
Katie I'm Katie Drummond. I'm Wired's global editorial director. I'm Michael Colory, Wired's director of consumer Tech and Culture.
- [19:47]
Tammy Kim
And I'm Lauren Good.
- [19:48]
Tyler Foggatt
I'm a senior correspondent at Wired. And our show Uncanny Valley is about the people, power and influence of Silicon Valley.
- [19:56]
Katie Drummond
And right now, Silicon Valley and Washington have never been more intertwined. So each week we get together to talk about a big story, often at the intersection of tech and politics. Right. So whether we're talking about Trump, Coin Doge, or Elon Musk, we will always.
- [20:11]
Tammy Kim
Explain how these Silicon Valley forces are.
- [20:14]
Tyler Foggatt
Affecting Washington and how they affect you.
- [20:17]
Katie Drummond
Make sure you're following Uncanny Valley in your podcast app of choice so you don't miss an episode.
- [20:32]
Tyler Foggatt
So beyond the immediate effects on the lives of federal workers between the start and eventual end of the shutdown, we're also seeing further developments with a much larger restructuring of the federal government. So, you know, we were talking earlier about the way in which Russell Vogt, who leads the Office of Management and Budget, announced mass layoffs within the federal government. He announced this in a variety of places, but notably one of them was on Twitter or X, I should say with vote tweeting out, the Rifs have begun. So as of right now, the number being thrown around is 4,200 federal workers. We're speaking on Tuesday afternoon. So who knows, by tomorrow it could be much more than that. But, you know, you mentioned earlier that it's unclear whether Trump and the OMB even have the authority to do this. Can you speak a little bit more about the kind of legal question here?
- [21:20]
Tammy Kim
Yeah. So I'll try to make this not boring, but RIF reduction in force is the sort of legal bureaucratic process by which federal workers, a federal workforce can be reduced. And it requires all kinds of different things by statute and regulation that, for example, like the Department of Education, if they're saying they only need, you know, whatever, two workers instead of 2,000 workers, they have to explain why they need to make a detailed plan. They need to say, like, how they're going to fulfill their statutory obligations with that many workers, where those workers are going to be located, et cetera, et cetera. And it has to be for certain kinds of reasons. And when Trump and Russ votes started threatening, hey, Democrats, if you shut down the government, if you don't cooperate with us, we're going to start firing people. The federal unions that remain immediately filed a lawsuit in California. And so it's because of that lawsuit and their contention that this actually is not the proper way to do a reduction in force, that we know that 4200 number because then the government was made to tell the judge how many people they were laying off and why some federal workers have gotten notices now that say something like, due to the shutdown, you are being fired. Which again, that seems not quite legal.
- [22:36]
Tyler Foggatt
That's also never happened before. Right. Isn't that completely unprecedented to fire people forever? I thought that the whole thing was like, we're, you know, we're laying you off temporarily so that we can save money during this time where we don't have a budget.
- [22:51]
Tammy Kim
Exactly right. So the furlough, that's normal. You know, a reduction in force, a firing for a permanently, that is not normal. And so that is now sort of this question. You know, I think given the way that the courts have been ruling under the Trump administration, you know, there's a pattern where it's like 90 something percent of the cases at the district or trial court level will be against the administration. But then as it goes further up on appeal and to the Supreme Court, they have less and less luck. So I guess we'll kind of see, I Mean, are they remaking a new way to do reductions in force that is ultimately going to be approved by the Supreme Court, or is it going to be struck down as sort of obviously out of step with precedent?
- [23:35]
Tyler Foggatt
Some of the announcements have also just been really clumsy, you know, for lack of a better word. Like on Friday, 1300 CDC workers were laid off, but then more than half of those layoffs were rescinded. Do you have any insight into what happened there? I mean, was the original number and announcement a mistake or did the administration give in to public pressure?
- [23:57]
Tammy Kim
Yeah, that part was very confusing to me. My sense was that it was probably more just mismanagement. Within Health and Human Services, there's been a lot of that kind of thing over the course of this year. So I think, especially at the cdc, maybe not totally unexpected, but yes, I think also it was probably responding to some public pressure, given that a lot of the people called back were researchers into things like measles that for various reasons have become more, shall we say, societally pressing as of late.
- [24:32]
Tyler Foggatt
Would you say that what we're seeing with Vote and Trump is kind of an example of these two just not letting the shutdown get in the way of their larger plan for laying off a bunch of federal employees? Like, you know, the shutdown's happening and so we're just gonna keep going forward with these RIFs that we were planning on doing anyway? Or do you think that they're actually trying to use the shutdown in order to create an opening to go further with layoffs?
- [24:58]
Tammy Kim
I think they do see it a little bit as the latter, as a sort of exceptional circumstance that they can use to do things that perhaps were on their minds anyway or are sort of repetitions of things that they had attempted that were overturned in the courts. The way that in their framing and even the language that the administration has been using throughout the shutdown, which is so partisan, which is completely blaming the Democrats, like this shutdown is a Democrat caused shutdown. And I think the administration sort of thinks that they are going to be able to get away with it and have even a sort of more justification than usual to do the firings. One of the shocking things to me was despite all of the tortures that different federal workers have suffered this year, a ton of people messaged me on the first day of the shutdown, October 1, about the messages that were appearing on their government websites. This, to me, was so bizarre. Okay, so the messages basically were, for example, like, at Housing and Urban Development, we tried not to shut down the Government, but we had to, because of the Democrats, was essentially the gist of the message on the homepage. And then federal workers at different agencies were instructed to use similar language in their away messages. I was really shocked to get those messages from all those workers because I thought in the context of the firings, rehirings, place on admin leave, discrimination, it wouldn't be such a big deal. But I think a lot of federal workers have just prided themselves for so long in their careers that range from whatever, 2 to 5 to 10 to 40 years to play by the rules, that the fact that they were told to say to the American public in their away messages that it was because the Democrats did this, that they are furloughed, was really deeply offensive and sort of triggered some ethical boundary that they had.
- [26:47]
Tyler Foggatt
No, I mean, it's, it's crazy just how many lines have been crossed at this point. And yeah, that is interesting that for them, that was like a. That, that was like another red line because it does seem milder in comparison to other things. But, yeah, I, I'd imagine it's a very sensitive time where it's like you don't even know if you're going to get your job back. You don't know if you're going to get the pay that you're owed. It's like, is not repeating the party line going to be the thing that further jeopardizes your career that's already very much in jeopardy? Right. I can't even imagine.
- [27:16]
Tammy Kim
There was also an interesting thing where Trump, and he sort of backpedaled on this at some point, too, was saying that he was, in fact, gonna be selective about who he compensated, who he gave back pay to among the furloughed workers, so that he wasn't, in fact, going to pay all of the furloughed workers their back pay.
- [27:34]
Tyler Foggatt
Is there a precedent for that?
- [27:35]
Tammy Kim
Is totally unprecedented and not, to my mind, lawful. And so there have been a number of things like that where they're sort of treating it like a shutdown, like no other shutdown. Yeah, but, yes, of course, it also, you know, accords with their agenda over the past year.
- [27:49]
Tyler Foggatt
You mentioned the partisan rhetoric that's coming out of. That's sort of evident in the messaging that's coming out of agencies. And I'm glad you did, because I found it really striking, like when Trump said himself in a Cabinet meeting last week that, you know, we're only cutting Democrat programs, we'll be cutting some very popular Democrat programs that aren't popular. With Republicans, frankly. And then he went on to say that's the way it works. They wanted to do this, so we'll give them a little taste of their own medicine. What are those Democrat programs that are being cut?
- [28:20]
Tammy Kim
So I think what he's referring to are, for example, things that they have always been against. So the Department of Education, a tiny, tiny agency that they had vowed to essentially abolish, has managed to survive and.
- [28:32]
Tyler Foggatt
Actually they've cut it in half, basically.
- [28:34]
Tammy Kim
Right, they cut it in half. But then there were some rehirings and so its number was in flux and now there were a bunch of layoffs or I guess firings on Friday. So that's one. You know, I think the place that there have been the most reductions in force so far are in Health and Human Services, clearly all of that kind of thing. I was talking to a group of workers who had been in the mental health and substance abuse section of that. That is completely gone. And so are these Democrat programs. I mean, it's kind of interesting. I mean, something like substance abuse, like addressing the opioid crisis has been a sort of bipartisan thing and has affected a lot of red states. And so I'm not entirely sure kind of what the benefit of that is.
- [29:15]
Tyler Foggatt
Yeah, that's like Trump and Vance's whole thing, I thought.
- [29:17]
Tammy Kim
Yeah, it's really strange. Sort of not in keeping with kind of the hillbilly elegy themes, I would say.
- [29:23]
Tyler Foggatt
Yeah.
- [29:24]
Tammy Kim
So I'm not entirely sure. And then, you know, I think there are, have been smaller cuts at different agencies that are more of a question mark, like why are they cutting jobs at Homeland Security when immigration is a priority? I don't know. So, you know, I think that is, is very confusing to me and I'm still sorting that out. But they have promised more firings to come and so maybe that'll become clearer. But I think the Health and Human Services definitely sticks out.
- [29:47]
Tyler Foggatt
In addition to the firings, there's also just been the freezing of money for different projects. Right. Like the administration froze nearly $2 billion for infrastructure projects in New York and then canceled $8 billion in climate related projects in Democratic led states. And so while there is at least a process for, you know, it seems like these firings are being contested in court and you know, hopefully all of the workers who are being furloughed will be returned and will also get back pay. But when you just have Trump like canceling climate projects, is there a process for bringing funding back for that sort of thing after the shutdown? Or is that just a cut that we need to accept as a cut?
- [30:28]
Tammy Kim
I wish I had a better answer. I'm glad you mentioned the environment, because there were cuts at the Environmental Protection Agency last week as well, and that is certainly a, quote, Democrat program. The reason I don't really have an answer for that is because it doesn't really seem like the president has had the authority to make those sorts of cuts anyway. Again, the sort of overriding question on all of this is can the president interfere to this extent with congressional budgets and, you know, with things that are congressionally approved? Congress is supposed to have the power of the purse under the Constitution. And again and again this year, there have been from micro to macro ways in which the executive has tried to take that over.
- [31:10]
Tyler Foggatt
We'll have more of the political scene from the New Yorker in just a moment.
- [31:21]
Katie Drummond
What the hell is going on right now and why is it happening like this? At Wired, we're obsessed with getting to the bottom of those questions on a daily basis, and maybe you are, too. I'm Katie Drummond, the global editorial director of Wired, and I'm hosting our new podcast series, the Big Interview. Each week I'll sit down with some of the most interesting, provocative and influential people who are shaping our right now. Big Interview conversations are fun. I want a shark that, that eats the Internet, that turns it all off, unfiltered and unafraid. So in a lot of ways, I try to be an antidote to the unimaginable faucet of reactionary content that you see online. To the best of my ability every week, we're going to offer you the ultimate luxury of our times. Meaning and context. True or false. You, Brian Johnson, the man sitting across from me, one day, at some point, as of yet undefined in the future, you will die.
- [32:20]
Tyler Foggatt
False.
- [32:21]
Katie Drummond
Tell me more. Listen to the Big Interview right now in the same place you find WIRED's Uncanny Valley podcast. Subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcasts.
- [32:39]
Tyler Foggatt
So you have Trump trying to get federal workers to blame the shutdown on the Democrats. Do you think that the public also blames the shutdown on the Democrats? I mean, how do you think this is all working for the administration or not working?
- [32:54]
Tammy Kim
I haven't seen recent polling on this, but I do not think it's working, at least within the federal workforce. I have not talked to a single federal worker who has said the Democrats should just come to the table. And I think they're just kind of fed up and maybe this will be different if we reach 30 days of shutdown the way that we did in 2018. But as it stands now, I don't think it's changing anybody's opinion of the Democrats or the Republicans. I think the question I have is, sure, the Republicans are making all this effort to say, like, this is a Democratic shutdown. Right. And to play partisan politics around it, but do parties even suffer anymore for, quote, unquote, causing a shutdown? You know, I don't know that this is going to have sort of like existential consequences for either party.
- [33:43]
Tyler Foggatt
Yeah, I mean, I guess maybe not yet. But I do agree that if, you know, 30 days go by, if two months go by and we see that during that time, Trump is able to continue to, you know, not only furlough people, but, like, just straight up, you know, fire them. I do wonder at what point will it be like, will there just be this narrative of, well, the reason why we no longer have a federal workforce is that the Democrats just wouldn't give in on healthcare spending.
- [34:09]
Tammy Kim
Yeah.
- [34:10]
Tyler Foggatt
Especially given that this is a time where, like, I feel like I've never heard people talk about healthcare less than, like, during the Trump administration. It's like, I think that during the one big beautiful Bill act, there was a lot of discussion of sort of the impact, you know, of like the bill on healthcare. But, you know, it wasn't really like a big issue during the campaign. It was all, I feel like both parties were talking more about immigration. And it isn't like it was during the Obama years where that was kind of like the big thing. And so I wonder if people will start to think of it almost as like a, you know, luxurious battle to fight when you have all these people getting fired.
- [34:46]
Tammy Kim
Yeah, we shall see. I mean, I think at this point it's like if you're a federal worker, you understand the stakes of debating these subsidies and who they're going to affect. And perhaps you have a sort of commitment to the welfare our state. Right. And then if you're in the general public, this hasn't gone on long enough for your life to be like that dramatically affected. And so you don't sort of care about the reason why. But, yeah, I mean, I've been trying to think about, you know, who paid the price for the longest shutdown in government history in 2018. And I don't know that we have like a good answer for that. I mean, was Trump successfully able to say that that was the Democrats fault? Were the Democrats able to say that it was the Republicans fault, but they didn't suffer anyway? I don't really know.
- [35:25]
Tyler Foggatt
Yeah, no, that's a good point. I would not be able to tell you definitively who was at fault there. I'm wondering how much the impact on federal workers has become part of the narrative on either side as they talk about the shutdown and try to blame the other party. I was reading, I think it may have been Mike Johnson who was just like, we gotta bring our federal workers back. And so the way for us to do that is to get the Democrats to agree to these. And it's just like, it's really interesting to see Republicans acting as though they are the ones who were really concerned about the federal workforce, given that they are also the party that people most associate with trying to decimate the federal workforce.
- [36:03]
Katie Drummond
Yeah.
- [36:04]
Tyler Foggatt
And so I'm wondering if you're seeing similar rhetoric on the Democratic side or if a lot of the Democratic rhetoric has been more about just, like, the importance of healthcare.
- [36:13]
Tammy Kim
I think the Democrats have been doing something similar, which is, yes, they want to underscore that this is really about the healthcare subsidies and making sure that people are insured and are not going to get sick in 2026. But also every time they say that, they need to say, I'm Senator Andy Kim and I just met with my federal workers in New Jersey, they need to make sure that they can sort of justify that claim by saying they are also feeling supported by the federal workforce, which, again, I don't think actually is just for show. I think that's probably generally true. And obviously Trump and vote through the firings on Friday and the promise of continued firings are trying to that screw a bit and say, hey, Dems, this is the eventuality which is that there's just going to be thousands and thousands of firings and making it about federal workers in that way. And so does that bolster or sort of undermine Johnson's argument? I don't really know. Because who's causing that pain?
- [37:13]
Tyler Foggatt
I know this is kind of an impossible question, but I'm wondering what you think the most likely scenario is here. Or maybe the better way to put it is like, what the federal workers you're speaking with are anticipating. Like, do they kind of think that, you know, by the end of October this will all be said and done and there will be an agreement? Or is this just a time of such crazy polarization that they are preparing for, like, you know, Christmas and they still haven't been paid?
- [37:40]
Tammy Kim
Oh, gosh, that's really hard to imagine people making it that far. I mean, right now they have had one partial paycheck. So they had one paycheck that was cut short last week, and now they're looking at no paychecks into the future. I think from the federal worker perspective, they are probably only budgeted for a bit more. Right. At the lower levels of pay. I wonder, actually, if we're gonna see more activity like we're seeing with the air traffic controllers, where people are just calling in sick or trying to use leave in various ways. Although actually that's restricted right now.
- [38:13]
Tyler Foggatt
Yeah, I mean, thinking of, like, people traveling for Thanksgiving, and, you know, we were talking about air traffic controllers, and people are often flying around Christmas and Thanksgiving. And so you could see that being a moment where push really comes to shove. And I was looking at this Times article from yesterday where they kind of talked about how a lot of people thought that air traffic controllers missing work was the reason why the shutdown came to an end in 2019. But then, according to controllers and aviation safety experts and congressional aides from both parties interviewed for this article, they basically said that it was really just the Trump administration and its allies who were generating fears of a possible air traffic controller walkout, which then sort of created pressure on lawmakers to make a deal and the shutdown.
- [38:58]
Tammy Kim
Yeah, yeah, I think something like that is possible, but I think we might even see more sort of organic activity among different slices of the workforce, because they truly are so fed up. So I think if people stop showing up for work, if there are mass outages, that could be a thing that starts pushing the Democrats more. I think Susan Collins is trying to set up something sort of in between where she's saying, all right, Dems, if you come back, we promise to vote on the subsidies as soon as people return. So we might see something like that. I thought maybe that would happen next week. That was kind of what I was predicting. But, gosh, it changes every day.
- [39:35]
Tyler Foggatt
To go back to where we started this conversation, I'm wondering if you see this moment as one of a real sea change within the federal workforce. Just kind of thinking about what you were saying about the federal employees being kind of scandalized by the idea that they would have to put up on their websites or in their out of office messages that this is happening because of the, you know, the Democrats. Like, if there are things that have happened throughout this shutdown process, whether it be Trump playing with the idea of not giving them back pay, trying to use the shutdown as a way to fire entire departments, like if some of the people who were holding out, maybe because they are incredibly, you know, public service oriented. And so they're the ones who are going to be there the longest. Like, like if you think something has shifted even within those people, just given how this has all played out in such a horrible way.
- [40:24]
Tammy Kim
Yes, I think this is, it's so difficult to forecast what this means for the continued functioning of the federal government and for federalism. What is the relationship going to be on a sort of like regulatory or lawmaking level between the feds and the states and localities moving into the future? It would be expected for me to hear from federal workers that they think that this is cataclysmic and that it's going to take decades to remake the federal government. And they are saying that. But you hear that from sort of just observers and commentators of various persuasions as well, because it's sort of just like a basic kind of building blocks. Question of all right, not only have we sort of like dismantled and fired workers to a level where in certain agencies they kind of just are not going to function in the same way and they're going to lose so much institutional knowledge, but also who's going to be applying for these jobs with the partisan cast of the functioning of the federal government? It's really only going to be people who are loyal, and I don't mean just loyal to Trump during this period, but it sets it up for every time the government changes hands. You see Democrats coming in under Democratic administrations and not wanting to stay then after those four years are up. And that, I think, is the sort of primary injury to the functioning of the American government. And not to get too grandiose about it, but potentially democracy.
- [41:45]
Tyler Foggatt
Thanks so much for being here, Tammy.
- [41:47]
Tammy Kim
Thank you, Tyler. Fun.
- [41:48]
Tyler Foggatt
Sort of as fun as a shutdown can be. E Tammy Kim is a staff writer for the New Yorker. You can find more of her writing, including her Deep State diaries series@newyorker.com this has been the political scene from the New Yorker. I'm Tyler Foggatt. This episode was produced by John Lamay, with mixing by Mike Kutchman and engineering by Vince Fairchild. Our executive producer is Stephen Vas. Chris Bannon is Conde Nast Head of Global Audio. Our theme music is by Allison Layton Brown. Thanks so much for listening.
- [42:34]
Katie Drummond
I'm Katie Drummond. I'm Wired's Global Editorial director. I'm Michael Colori, Wired's Director of Consumer Tech and Culture.
- [42:40]
Tyler Foggatt
And I'm Lauren Good. I'm a senior correspondent at Wired. And our show Uncanny Valley is all about the people, power and influence of Silicon Valley.
- [42:49]
Katie Drummond
At Wired, we're constantly reporting on how technology is changing every aspect of our lives. So each week on the show, we get together to talk about one of the biggest stories in tech. Right? So whether we're talking about privacy, AI, social media, or a major tech figure, we will always explain the Silicon Valley forces behind these stories and how they affect you. Make sure you're following Uncanny Valley in your podcast app of choice so you don't miss an episode.
- [43:20]
Tammy Kim
From prx.