Trump Attorney Begins Revenge Quest With First Target: Chuck Schumer

“They’re the front line of surveillance for the entire outbreak,” Keith Poulsen, the director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, told Politico. “They’re already underwater and they are constantly short-staffed, so if you take all the probationary staff out, you’ll take out the capacity to do the work.”

This isn’t the first time Trump and Musk’s sweeping cuts have chopped off a limb sorely needed. Last week, 300 employees who oversee the U.S.’s nuclear stockpile were fired from the National Nuclear Security Administration, and then quickly invited to return to their highly essential jobs.

Earlier this month, Trump’s new Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said that the agency had invited Musk’s DOGE team in with “open arms,” and promised that layoffs would be “forthcoming.” The White House has stated that DOGE doesn’t make the cuts to federal agencies and departments itself, but rather advises the heads of those agencies on where to trim the fat—or in this case, crucial staff.