RFK Jr. Launches Bloodbath at Health Department in Mass Layoffs
Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s mass firings have begun at the Health and Human Services Department.
HHS employees started receiving layoff emails on Tuesday, just days after Trump signed an executive order revoking the collective bargaining rights of most federal workers. Ten thousand HHS workers are expected to be fired.
This loss, along with the other 10,000 people who resigned or took buyouts, has led to HHS losing a quarter of its employees, bringing its workforce down to about 62,000 people. The firings include at least four NIH institute and center directors, and nearly the entire communications staff, according to the Associated Press. One email obtained by the AP offered department heads stationed in Bethesda, Maryland, long-term leave or relocation to Alaska.
“We are streamlining HHS to make our agency more efficient and more effective,” Kennedy wrote on X over a video announcing the layoffs last week. “We will eliminate an entire alphabet soup of departments, while preserving their core functions by merging them into a new organization called the Administration for a Healthy America or AHA. This overhaul will improve the health of the entire nation—to Make America Healthy Again.”
According to a Wall Street Journal report last week, the HHS cuts will include:
—3,500 people fired at the Food and Drug Administration
—2,400 fired at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
—1,200 fired at the NIH
—300 fired at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
These are all very active departments that help maximize public safety. Now they’ll be under the thumb of RFK Jr.’s anti-science, pro-conspiracy MAHA platform. In addition to the firings, RFK Jr.’s HHS has revoked over $11 billion in Covid-19 aid funding, leading to layoffs at state and local level health departments.
“I want to promise you now that we’re going to do more with less,” RFK Jr. said.