Are federal employees the next Democratic stars?

Feb 25, 2025

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Federal employees affected by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency budget cuts and employee terminations enter the offices of Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).

Federal employees affected by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency budget cuts and employee terminations enter the offices of Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) to request a meeting today. | Bryan Dozier/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

HELP WANTED — The shock of Donald Trump’s first victory in 2016 — and his wrecking-ball style of governance — played a pivotal role in shaping the next generation of Democratic Party stars. He had a catalytic effect on the pipeline of candidates running for Congress in 2018, an election marked by a groundswell of women who surged into House races and helped deliver a Democratic House majority.

Some from the House class of 2018 — like Michigan’s Elissa Slotkin and New Jersey’s Andy Kim — are now in the Senate. Others — like New Jersey’s Mikie Sherrill, Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger and New Mexico’s Deb Haaland — have announced bids for governor.

Which raises the question — what effect will Trump’s second term have on creating the next generation of Democratic talent? Our colleague Elena Schneider reports today on one potential source of candidates in the 2022 midterm elections — the thousands of federal employees who are being jettisoned from their jobs by Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative. Democratic political groups that help prepare candidates to run for office are already seeing a sharp spike in interest.

They’re mad, they’re motivated and they already believe in the power of government to affect change. But it’s not clear whether government employees can raise enough money to be viable candidates or whether their skills translate to the campaign trail. Or whether general election voters are ready to cast ballots for a much-maligned character — the federal bureaucrat.

Already enraged by Trump and Musk’s chainsaw approach to reducing spending and resizing the federal bureaucracy, Democratic primary voters will certainly be receptive to their message. They’ve rewarded other prominent Democratic resistance characters like Sen. Adam Schiff of California and Rep. Dan Goldman, both of whom played prominent roles in Trump’s impeachment, or Rep. Eugene Vindman, the Pentagon whistleblower who also played a role in Trump’s impeachment.

Divisive presidencies have a habit of generating a surge of highly motivated, like-minded classes — such as the Watergate babies of 1974 or the Republican Revolution class of 1994 — but even if angry federal employees fail to constitute a political force, Trump’s first month back in the Oval Office suggests he’s already minting the resistance stars who the party will look to for leadership over the next four years.

Take Janet Mills, the relatively little-known Democratic governor from Maine, whose unyielding exchange with Trump at the White House on Friday is already generating admiring chatter in Democratic circles. After telling Trump she’d “see [him] in court” because Maine refused to accede to an order banning transgender athletes in women’s sports, interest in Mills spiked dramatically over the weekend.

At the conclusion of their clash, a peeved Trump told Mills to “enjoy your life after governor, because I don’t think you’ll be in elected politics.” Yet the clash could actually fuel Mills’ prospects since it has generated national interest in a prospective run for Senate against Susan Collins next year — and likely will turbocharge her campaign treasury in the event she runs.

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What'd I Miss?

— House budget plan advances to final floor vote: The House Republican approach to President Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic policy agenda moved a step closer to approval after Republicans stayed united on a test vote, setting up a possible final floor vote this evening. The Trump-backed fiscal blueprint still faces tough odds on final adoption, with a handful of conservative hard-liners demanding it get rewritten to guarantee deeper spending cuts. Speaker Mike Johnson can only afford one GOP defection on a party-line vote if all members are voting.

— The White House has evaded for weeks on saying who is leading DOGE. Here’s who it is: After repeatedly refusing to identify the administrator of the new Department of Government Efficiency, the Trump administration today pointed to Amy Gleason, a former U.S. Digital Service official, as the operation’s acting administrator. A White House official granted anonymity to speak openly confirmed to POLITICO that Gleason — who, according to her LinkedIn, served as a digital services expert at U.S. Digital Service during Trump’s first term and most recently worked as chief product officer at Nashville health care firm Russell Street Ventures — is helming the operation.

— Consumer confidence buckles as Trump’s policies revive inflation concerns: Consumer confidence plummeted in February as more Americans grapple with concern that President Donald Trump’s policies could slow growth and cause prices to rise, according to a new survey. The Conference Board’s widely cited consumer confidence index notched its sharpest monthly decline since August 2021, when the country was experiencing a resurgence of Covid-19 variants. The index now stands at 72.3, well below the threshold that normally signals an imminent recession, as respondents reported increasing pessimism over income, business and labor market conditions. Average 12-month inflation expectations also spiked as Americans face higher prices on eggs and other household staples, according to the group’s summary of its findings released today.

— Trump administration says it won’t shut CFPB: The Trump administration intends to keep the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau operating, although in a more streamlined form, according to a new court filing. “The predicate to running a ‘more streamlined and efficient bureau’ is that there will continue to be a CFPB,” consumer bureau Acting Director Russ Vought said in a motion filed late Monday in federal court in Washington. The motion was filed in response to the CFPB union, which sued the Trump administration earlier this month over what it said were plans to “dismantle” the agency after Vought ordered staff to stop working.

— White House says it will determine which reporters have access to the president: Fresh off a legal victory allowing it to ban the Associated Press from White House events, the Trump White House announced today that the administration — not an independent group of journalists — will determine which outlets have access to the president as part of a pool allowed into the Oval Office, aboard Air Force One and into other otherwise closed meetings and events. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the changes in the briefing room today, asserting that the White House Correspondents’ Association “should no longer have a monopoly” on organizing pools and that the White House would determine the makeup of the pool on a day-to-day basis.

Donald Trump's unprecedented effort to reshape the federal government is consuming Washington. To track this seismic shift, we're relaunching one of our signature newsletters. Sign up to get West Wing Playbook: Remaking Government in your inbox.

AROUND THE WORLD

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy answers questions during his press conference in Kyiv on Feb. 23, 2025.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy answers questions during a press conference in Kyiv on Feb. 23, 2025. | Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

WE HAVE A DEAL — Ukraine and the United States have agreed on the terms of a minerals deal and could sign it this week, according to several media reports.

President Donald Trump today hinted Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy could travel to Washington to sign the deal this week, telling reporters: “I hear that he’s coming on Friday. Certainly, it’s OK with me if he’d like to.”

Ukrainian newspaper Economic Pravda cited a version of the deal dated Feb. 24 which would see Kyiv pay 50 percent of the revenues from its state-owned natural resources into a fund that would invest in Ukraine.

Notably, the agreement lacks American security guarantees for Ukraine, which Kyiv was reportedly pushing for.

But it also does not mention the $500 billion figure Trump was demanding in compensation for Washington’s support for Kyiv in fending off Moscow’s invasion.

The agreement could be inked as early as Friday, with a potential visit by a Kyiv delegation to Washington in the works, according to AFP. It is set to be signed by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha‎ and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

SECRET WEAPON — After being left out of discussions with the U.S. and Russia Feb. 18 on ending the war in Ukraine, European governments could go for the equivalent of the nuclear option — seizing the Russian sovereign assets that were immobilized after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago.

Luckily for the bloc, the lion’s share of those funds — around €200 billion ($210 billion) — is being held in Brussels-based financial institution Euroclear and is earning interest. The U.S., on the other hand, holds a mere $5 billion.

Seizure of those assets is a drastic option that would almost certainly guarantee Europe a bigger seat at the table, after it was frozen out by the U.S. and the Kremlin in their recent talks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

But as finance ministers and central bank governors gather in South Africa this week for the G20, EU governments remain divided on whether unfreezing those funds would prove to Trump that Brussels still has some muscle — or whether it would backfire.

Amid the looming threat of U.S. disengagement from Ukraine, Russia hawks argue that unfreezing the cash and handing it to Kyiv would allow the war-torn country to gain the upper hand on the battlefield and resist Trump’s demands to end the war.

But the opposing camp in Europe contains the big guns — France, Germany, Italy, Spain and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen — who fear that in confiscating the funds the EU would spook international investors and relinquish its greatest advantage in the peace talks.

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Nightly Number

Over 1 million

The number of federal employees — about a third of the total federal workforce — who replied to last weekend’s controversial email, which was amplified by Elon Musk, demanding a list of five things they did on the job last week.

RADAR SWEEP

FLUSHED AWAY — In the 1990s, as the United States began to get more environmentally conscious, the federal government mandated that new toilets require less water to flush. A company based in Southern California began to give them out for free in a trial run. There was just one problem — they barely worked. Users complained of having to flush multiple times, making the innovation essentially useless. This set off decades of questions — does using more water actually make a toilet better? Researchers now insist that there’s a whole other host of questions that are more important than the amount of water, and toilets appear to have become more efficient. But some people remain unhappy with many of these changes. Anna Gibbs reports for Slate.

Parting Image

On this date in 1986: A jubilant crowd gathers at the Philippine consulate in Los Angeles to celebrate the end of President Ferdinand E. Marcos’ 20-year rule of the Philippines and the new leadership of Corazon Aquino.

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