As President Donald Trump’s largest donor, Elon Musk, continues his tear through the federal government, firing employees in what seems like a random fashion, out MSNBC host Rachel Maddow and out former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called Musk out for a particularly inexplicable episode concerning nuclear safety workers.
Maddow discussed how the Trump administration recently fired hundreds of workers at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which only has 2,000 workers. The NNSA is charged with maintaining, refurbishing, and overseeing the safety of the United States’ nuclear arsenal.
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“Trump is firing them,” Maddow said. “Firing hundreds of them.”
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About 300 of the NNSA workers received termination notices last week, and Maddow pointed out that their work includes ensuring that terrorists don’t get ahold of a nuclear weapon or get nuclear technology on the black market.
“Isn’t there anything about the name of that agency that might suggest to you that maybe this isn’t the best place to make cuts?” she said sarcastically. “What about ‘National Nuclear Security Administration’ bugs you and makes you think that one is dispensable?”
She also brought up news that the Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) – which isn’t a real federal executive department – scrambled to hire back the NNSA workers.
“By Friday, the geniuses in the Trump administration had maybe googled what this agency does or something? Maybe heard from a few members of Congress?” she said. “They tried on Friday to take it back. They tried to un-fire the hundreds of people from the National Nuclear Security Administration that they had just fired the night before.”
She explained, though, that the Trump administration had fired the workers “effective immediately” and cut them off from their work email, so they couldn’t get the email that they were being hired back.
“They had no way to get in touch with all those people they just fired to say, ‘Oops! Sorry! Will you please come back?'” she said. “This is the level of expertise and efficiency we’re dealing with, with this new administration.”
Buttigieg also slammed the administration for firing the nuclear safety workers.
“Even worse incompetence: they accidentally fired, then apparently today un-fired, hundreds of the people who manage America’s nuclear weapons,” Buttigieg wrote, calling the entire episode “sloppy.”
Even worse incompetence: they accidentally fired, then apparently today un-fired, hundreds of the people who manage America's nuclear weapons.
— Pete Buttigieg (@petebuttigieg.bsky.social) February 15, 2025 at 4:35 AM
More details on this shockingly sloppy episode.
— Pete Buttigieg (@petebuttigieg.bsky.social) February 15, 2025 at 4:35 AM
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