Oops! RFK Jr. scrambles to rehire essential employees fired by mistake
In the latest instance of Trump administration incompetence, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Thursday that his department is in the process of rehiring some of the 10,000 workers he unceremoniously purged from the health agency earlier this week.
Entire groups of staff working on critical programs were fired as part of the HHS bloodletting, leading to questions about whether certain programs could continue to function at all. That included the monitoring of childhood lead exposure, aid for low-income Americans to afford heating and air conditioning, and veterinarians working to contain bird flu. The Administration for Community Living—which oversees the Meals on Wheels program that helps feed more than 2 million seniors across the country—was also scrapped.
But now Kennedy told ABC News that some staff will be hired back—though he did not specifically list which or when—ridiculously claiming that rehiring those workers was always part of the plan. (Yeah, and I have a bridge to sell you.
“We’re streamlining the agencies. We’re going to make it work for public health, make it work for the American people,” Kennedy told ABC News. “In the course of that, there were a number of instances where studies that should have not have been cut were cut, and we’ve reinstated them. Personnel that should not have been cut were cut—we’re reinstating them, and that was always the plan.”
ABC News reported that Kennedy specifically referred to the childhood lead exposure staff as some that would be brought back.
“There were some programs that were cut that are being reinstated, and I believe that that’s one,” Kennedy said.
Democrats were aghast at RFK’s admission that he seriously effed up the firings.
“After laying off 10,000 public health workers and researchers this week, RFK Jr. suddenly realized he made a mistake. Too little, too late,” Democrats on the House Oversight Committee wrote in a post on X. “It’s irresponsible and reckless, and Americans are going to pay the price.”
This is just the latest instance of the Trump administration’s indiscriminate purges through co-President Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency putting Americans’ health and safety at risk. For example, Musk fired the entire staff maintaining the country’s nuclear arsenal, Food and Drug Administration staffers working to contain bird flu, and foreign aid workers who stop the spread of deadly diseases like Ebola—only to say they were being hired back.
The chaotic cutting of federal employees is wildly unpopular. A Quinnipiac poll from earlier in March found 55% of voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the federal workforce, and 60% disapprove of DOGE’s work in general.
Backlash to DOGE cuts like the ones Kennedy made hurt Republicans in elections on Tuesday. Republicans overwhelmingly lost a race for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, after Musk turned the contest into a referendum on himself.
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And Republicans severely underperformed in two heavily Republican U.S. House districts in Florida. In one instance, Democrats even flipped a deep red county on the Florida Panhandle that is home to a large population of federal workers on a military base.
If the results from Tuesday night hold for next November, Republicans could be swept out of power in a Democratic wave.