Trump’s Administrative Purge Hits a Wall: HHS and Other Agencies Push Back on Musk’s Federal Workforce Purge

By Justin Jest – Gonzo Journalist, Reluctant Realist, Connoisseur of Chaos

It’s finally happening. For the first time since Trump’s second reign of chaos began, his own government is starting to resist him.

Elon Musk’s dystopian bureaucratic purge—where every federal worker must justify their job in five bullet points or face unemployment—isn’t going down as smoothly as he hoped. Some of Trump’s own agency heads are now actively resisting orders from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and it’s exposing just how reckless, short-sighted, and dangerous this whole operation has been.

The first major pushback? HHS—an agency that has already been gutted by mass firings—is telling its employees not to comply with Musk’s absurd “justify your job” mandate.

This isn’t some minor bureaucratic scuffle. It’s a sign that even within Trump’s government, people are realizing that his and Musk’s “efficiency” crusade is actually just mass sabotage disguised as reform. And it’s already causing real, deadly consequences.

1. The Mass Firings at Critical Health Agencies are a Disaster in the Making

Let’s talk numbers—because the scope of this carnage is staggering:

• Over 700 employees at the CDC have been fired.
• More than 700 employees at the FDA have been fired.
• Over 1,100 employees at the NIH have been fired.
• USDA has had to backtrack on firings after realizing they gutted their own ability to respond to the bird flu outbreak.

And this is all happening in the middle of:

• A brutal seasonal flu outbreak
• A measles outbreak fueled by anti-vaccine hysteria
• The ongoing H5N1 (bird flu) crisis, which is threatening livestock and food prices nationwide

If you’re wondering who the hell thought this was a good idea, the answer is nobody who actually understands public health.

Even the USDA, which enthusiastically went along with Musk’s cuts at first, is now scrambling to rescind some of them because they just realized they need actual experts to fight the bird flu crisis.

You’d think maybe they’d consider this before firing everyone—but when you’re running a government like an unstable tech CEO who just bought a website, there’s no time for planning.

This isn’t about cutting waste. This is about gutting the government until it can’t function—so the people in charge can turn around and say “See? Government doesn’t work.”

2. Former FDA Commissioner: “This is a Catastrophe in the Making”

Dr. Robert Califf, the most recent FDA commissioner, has now gone public about how badly this is screwing up the country’s ability to function.

Here’s what he just revealed:

• The FDA regulates 20% of the entire U.S. economy. That’s everything from drugs and medical devices to food safety and disease outbreaks.
• The 700 FDA employees who got fired weren’t “waste”—they were the exact people hired to oversee the most critical, fast-moving public health challenges.
• Vital regulatory meetings have been canceled because there’s literally nobody left to hold them.

Want an example?

A joint FDA-NIH meeting on rare diseases that could help cure genetic disorders in children was supposed to take place this week.

It’s now canceled because nobody from the FDA or NIH is available to run it.

Meanwhile, families of kids with deadly, untreatable conditions are begging Califf—who doesn’t even work there anymore—to step in and help.

Imagine that.

Parents desperate for experimental treatments that could save their children’s lives are being told, sorry, we fired the regulators working on that.

How the hell is this making the government more efficient?

3. HHS is Defying Musk’s Orders—Telling Employees to Ignore Doge Mandates

Not everyone is rolling over for Musk’s reckless purge.

HHS—the Department of Health and Human Services—is actively telling its employees NOT to respond to Doge’s demand that every worker justify their job.

This is a huge deal for a few reasons:

• HHS oversees the CDC, FDA, and NIH—the very agencies that have already been hit hardest by mass firings.
• It means that even within Trump’s administration, there’s serious pushback happening.
• Some agency leaders are quietly acknowledging that this is total insanity.

This isn’t just a few disgruntled employees complaining.

This is an entire department within Trump’s government saying “No, we’re not doing this.”

And they’re not alone.

4. The Fallout: Bird Flu, Food Safety, and Vaccine Chaos

These firings aren’t happening in a vacuum. They’re happening in the middle of actual public health crises that require expertise—expertise that Musk and Trump just fired.

Bird Flu and Food Prices

• Bird flu is ravaging U.S. poultry farms.
• Egg prices are spiking again.
• The FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine—crucial for monitoring livestock disease—was gutted in the firings.
• The USDA is now desperately trying to rehire people they just fired.

Flu & Measles Outbreaks—With No CDC Staff to Handle Them

• Seasonal flu is surging.
• Measles outbreaks are hitting unvaccinated communities (thanks in part to RFK Jr., the new anti-vax HHS secretary, who just indefinitely postponed vaccine advisory meetings).
• Hospitals are already getting overwhelmed.

This is exactly the moment when we need a strong public health response.

Instead? Trump fired the people in charge of that response.

5. Musk’s Involvement is a Massive Conflict of Interest—And a National Security Threat

It gets worse.

Dr. Califf is now publicly warning that Musk’s involvement in government operations is deeply corrupt.

Why?

• The FDA regulates drug and biotech companies.
• Musk owns drug and biotech companies.
• The FDA handles classified information, including trade secrets and confidential medical data.
• Musk now has access to it.

This is not just a bureaucratic nightmare—it’s a national security risk.

The FDA protects confidential medical data and trade secrets of companies developing life-saving drugs.

Califf flat-out said that foreign actors like China and Russia are constantly trying to hack this information.

Now, Musk has access to it.

And we’re just supposed to trust him?

The man who called a cave diver a pedophile on Twitter because he suggested a better way to save children?

The man who let Nazis run wild on X while banning journalists who criticized him?

The man who lied about taking over Twitter, wrecked it, then started posting about how “woke mind virus” is ruining civilization?

Yeah. That’s the guy we’re handing over confidential drug research to.

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Final Thoughts: This Isn’t Reform. It’s Sabotage.

The federal government was not bloated with inefficiency.

The waste wasn’t in the FDA, NIH, or CDC—the people who keep your food safe, your medicine working, and your vaccines effective.

The waste is in corporate subsidies, tax loopholes, and defense contracts that never get audited.

Instead of cutting actual waste, Trump and Musk are gutting the parts of the government that actually serve the public.

And now?

Even Trump’s own agency heads are realizing how catastrophic this is—and pushing back.

The question is: will it be enough?

Because if this continues, people will die.

This isn’t efficiency.

This is deliberate destruction.

And we’re watching it happen in real time.