A frenzy inside the federal government right now as the Trump administration backtracks on a threat to fire workers who don't respond to an emailed ultimatum from Elon Musk. CNN's Rene Marsh is joining us now. She's got all the latest details.
Tell our viewers, Rene, what you're learning. Well, we've just about six hours until that deadline to respond to that email. And the confusion among the federal workforce remains high.
Now, the Office of Personnel Management formally notified agencies this afternoon that that so-called what did you do last week? Emails sent over the weekend is voluntary and and that the failure to respond will not result in, resignation. Now that guidance runs counter to what Elon Musk said over the weekend.
Must posted on acts and I'm quoting, failure to respond will be taken as a resignation. It also runs counter to what the president said today, president Trump saying that, anyone who doesn't answer is semi fired or fired. Well, all of this is just, again, really difficult for many of these employees to figure out who to listen to.
One employee at the Department of Veterans Affairs telling me today, and I'm quoting, no one knows who's in charge and who to listen to. Now that what Did You do? Last week?
Email appeared to also reveal a rift between Trump appointed agency heads and Elon Musk. Musk is unelected. not Senate confirmed to run any government agency, and was essentially telling employees throughout the federal government to report outside the chain of command to him.
Now, some seven agencies, including the Department of Defense, the State Department and the FBI told employees not to comply with this request for information at the time that, federal employees received it. but today, President Trump downplaying any rift between his cabinet secretaries, and the power that Elon Musk is wielding in his capacity outside of the government, to shrink the federal government's workforce, Wolf. But again, lots of questions, lots of confusion, despite OPM now saying that this is voluntary and, of course, the labor union saying that none of this was legal to begin with.
We're in a marsh reporting for us today. Thank you very much. For more on the breaking news, I want to bring in CNN's chief national affairs correspondent, Jeff Zeleny, joining us from the white House.
Jeff, what are you hearing from inside the Trump administration? Well, if there is no question that this is one of the first signs of, certainly some disagreement among some cabinet secretaries and others at what Elon Musk is doing with their agencies. We saw example after example, as Renee was just saying, there were agencies were instructing their workers to not follow along.
But as for the president, he was asked today in the Oval Office what he thinks of all of this. He called it genius. You know why he wanted that, by the way?
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. So by asking the question, tell us what you did this week. What he's doing is saying, are you actually working?
There's a lot of genius in sending it. We're trying to find out if people are working. And I'm told the white House did have a heads up Saturday afternoon before this email was sent out across the federal workforce, but only by a couple hours or so.
Well, so it does beg. The question is Elon Musk acting at the direction of the president, or is the president responding to things that Elon Musk is doing? There's no doubt Republican senators on Capitol Hill were expressing some concern about this, particularly because of those national security, type agencies and employees who are being asked to this.
But the bottom line is some cabinet secretaries, as they are filling up the cabinet, want to have their own requests and orders for their workers. The first cabinet meeting actually will be on Wednesday, Wolf. I wouldn't be surprised if this comes up.
Yeah, a dramatic flip flop on the part of the Trump administration. Pretty embarrassing indeed. Jeff Zeleny, thank you very much.
Our legal and political experts are joining us right now. Mandela Barnes, let me start with you. What do you make about this rather abrupt about face from the Office of Personnel Management that runs counter to the threat of termination from Elon Musk?
I mean, it's been an incredibly haphazard experience anyway. I've had friends who've personally lost their jobs. So this is personal in many ways.
But also just think about the thousands of other people across this country who want nothing more than to serve their country by working for the federal government and putting in that public service. And it is a shame how people are being treated. I think we're going to lose the human aspect of it all as we have this conversation, as we look at the authorities.
And I'll tell you, if they were really serious about it, they would have made JD Vance actually reply to that email telling us what he's done because nobody knows what he's up to. In fact, it feels like his position has already been terminated as vice president. But in order for us to truly, you know, instill the type of, respect for institutions that we should have.
it's the president needs to take this more seriously instead of having a manchild. We have the world's most socially insecure person in control of our Social Security numbers. And we have an election coming up in Wisconsin.
This is one of the things that keeps coming up. People are concerned about Elon Musk. they didn't elect him.
They don't like the way, that he is wielding so much power and influence over our daily lives. And you're the former lieutenant governor of Wisconsin. Lauren Tomlinson, let's, let me get your thoughts.
As you know, we've recently seen pushback to Musk's influence from voters at several GOP town halls across the country. Do you think that played a factor in this reversal today from the Trump administration? No.
I think the greatest, influence that happened with this reversal was that this was set so broadly and that there were so many national security heads that pushed back on the fact that their workers did not need to justify, the type of work that they were doing. And there was also other concerns about exposure of sources and methods and other things. So, I mean, this this indiscriminate email that went out, was kind of poorly thought out in that regard.
So they had to walk it back. Now, I will say, though, to your other point, there's been recent polling, Harvard Harris being the most recent, that Americans very broadly support, DOJ's efforts to find waste and abuse, within the federal government, that there is almost 80% of Americans support reducing the size of government, reducing our spending. And so I do think that the white House knows that it is a winner here to continue to focus on reducing the size of our federal government, to reduce our spending, to reduce our debt, and get that under control.
It's just the manner in which that, Elon Musk stepped out this week, I think had to be walked back because it was irresponsible. Ellie Honig is with us as well, our legal analyst. You were a federal employee for several years.
Ellie, as all of us know, how would you respond to an email like this? And the confusion, lots of confusion that clearly followed. Well, that's exactly what I would have felt, Wolf confusion when I was at DOJ if I had gotten an email like this, my first thought would have been, who the heck is OPM?
The Office of Personnel Management? Basically, the HR managers for the government to make a substantive demand of me to fill them in. That is actually the basis of the lawsuit that's been filed to try to block this.
My next thought would have been, I'm not putting information about a sensitive criminal investigation that I may have opened. Last week, in an email to the Office of Personnel Management, I would report up the chain to DOJ, but not to OPM. And again, that's another argument that's made in the lawsuit.
So those are two things that I think would jump out at me. The last one would be even more confusion because the OPM email says, tell us five things you've done, but it doesn't say anything about firing a resignation. Then Elon Musk tweets, if you don't respond, we'll take that as a resignation.
And then when the president is asked, he says, well, it will be a semi firing that was his, quote, a semi. You'll be semi fired if you don't respond. So I would be utterly confused as to who rules as between OPM, Elon Musk, Donald Trump.
It puts these federal employees in an impossible situation. Mandela, I want you in our viewers to listen, to House Speaker Johnson, what he said earlier about this email. Listen to this.
The private sector where most of us come from, it is it is not unusual for you to have to fill out an Air Force routine, your routine reports on what you're accomplishing, what you're doing. I don't think it's a crazy concept, but Elon is going to do what Elon goes, and we're going to codify a lot of these changes. We can make them better.
But asking people to to justify their work, I think is a reasonable step. He says asking people to justify their work is a reasonable step. Mandela, what do you think?
Look, this isn't the private sector. We're talking about federal employees who are tasked with, in many instances, the daily lives of Americans, whether they're veterans, people with disabilities, processing all sorts of requests day in and day out, our whole economy. And for them to think that it could be as simple as putting in an email of five things just shows that they are not equipped for the positions that they're in.
Speaker Johnson included a person who was hanging on by a thread anyway with his speakership, who's going to say whatever it takes to appease the president? This is a person with no concept of reality or any political, or political stability. His only attachment to the role of speaker is because of his allegiance to President Donald Trump.
So his opinion is null and void in this conversation. But we have to get back to understanding that. So many folks have taken sacrifice as people who could have been paid, three times as much as they make in the private sector, but decide to commit themselves to public service to make this country better.
And these are folks whose political leanings are all over the place, and that's something that should be respected. Service should be respected. Once again, not this sort of, selfish politics that we see from Donald Trump.
