President Donald Trump held his initial Cabinet meeting on February 26, 2025, in which he criticized the American public and expressed discontent over government spending cuts. He ended the session with a derogatory depiction of the nation as “bloated, fat, disgusting,” attributing the claimed decline to the administration of former President Joe Biden.
Interestingly, Trump’s own physical condition has been a subject of public debate. During a 2023 jail booking in Atlanta, Georgia—resulting from charges linked to his efforts to reverse the 2020 election results—the 6’3″ Trump recorded his weight as 215 pounds, 30 pounds less than his final official White House physical.
At age 78, Trump recognized for his preference for McDonald’s burgers and the recently restored Diet Coke button in the Oval Office, continued his onslaught against Biden, accusing him of irresponsible government expenditure.
When an anonymous reporter asked about a performance assessment email sent to federal employees, questioning the follow-up schedule and the obligatory nature of responses, Trump offered further details. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) had earlier sent an email to millions of federal workers, requiring them to enumerate five accomplishments from the preceding week, with a strict deadline of February 24 at 11:59 pm EST.
Elon Musk, heading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), weighed in, stating, “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.” By February 25, the White House announced that about one million employees had complied, leaving many yet to respond. During the Cabinet meeting, Trump confirmed that a follow-up email would be sent to the non-responders.
“They’re on the bubble,” Trump commented on the unresponsive federal employees. “Do they exist? Who are they? It’s possible many will be fired. And if that happens, that’s okay, because that’s what we’re aiming for. This country has become bloated, fat, disgusting, and incompetently run.”
Trump further clarified that his administration felt obligated to reduce federal funding and workforce due to what he believes to be mismanagement by the previous administration. “I think we had the worst president in our country’s history. He just left office,” Trump said, referring to Biden.
This initiative to reduce the federal workforce aligns with a larger strategy. The Trump administration recently mandated federal departments and agencies to submit reorganization plans by March 13, outlining how they would implement large-scale layoffs. The reasoning? The federal government is “costly, inefficient, and deeply in debt,” and “not producing results for the American public,” as per administration documents.
While Trump has consistently criticized his predecessor, some experts question the effectiveness of his proposed federal workforce reduction plan. An analysis by the Brookings Institution suggests that offering federal workers buyouts would save only approximately $10.8 billion annually—a small fraction of the federal deficit. The study also cautions that such cuts could disrupt vital government services, like air traffic control, potentially sparking public anger.
Furthermore, implementing such extensive changes poses political risks. As the Brookings analysis highlights, execution failures can be “politically deadly for presidents,” as they are typically held responsible for government disruptions, even those that they did not directly provoke.
The push to reduce the federal workforce isn’t a recent development. Shortly after assuming office in January, the Trump administration fired thousands of provisional federal employees, including CDC, Forest Service, and Department of Interior staff. Democratic lawmakers criticized these actions as harmful to government services and public servants’ careers.
In response, on February 27, a federal judge in San Francisco, California, ruled that the mass dismissal of probationary employees was likely unlawful, providing temporary relief to a group of labor unions and organizations that had filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration’s extensive effort to cut the federal workforce. U.S. District Judge William Alsup instructed the OPM to notify specific federal agencies, such as the Department of Defense, that it lacked the authority to mandate the termination of probationary employees.
“OPM does not have any authority whatsoever, under any statute in the history of the universe,” to hire or fire any employees except its own, Alsup stated.
The coalition’s lawyers applauded the ruling, even though it does not ensure the rehiring of dismissed employees or prevent the possibility of future dismissals. Danielle Leonard, an attorney representing the coalition, stated after the hearing that the practical implication is that federal government agencies should heed the court’s warning that the order was unlawful.
