Trump State Department Cuts: A National Security Own Goal
One of the darkest days in American diplomatic history
Today the State Department began firing more than 1,300 diplomats and civil servants. As I told ABC News earlier today: this is a massive own goal. The Trump administration is undermining our national security, weakening American diplomacy, and giving a massive gift to our adversaries.
The Trump administration spin on these State Department firings is they are 1) carefully done, 2) reducing bureaucratic bloat, and 3) streamlining diplomatic functions in line with policy priorities. These are all lies.
These cuts were arbitrary and sloppy (as were other, earlier cuts at State and across the Executive branch).1 The Foreign Service Officers pink slipped today were fired based not on their performance, but on their assignment - in other words, if the office to which they happened to be assigned was viewed as a low priority by the Trump administration, the diplomats who happened to be serving there were fired from the entire State Department.
Not reassigned. Fired.
Bear with me as I get in the weeds a bit, so you can understand how dumb this is. Foreign Service Officers (aka the diplomatic corps, as opposed to the civil servants who have permanent jobs in the US), are generalists who serve across bureaus and functions throughout their careers. Maybe they serve as a human rights officer today, but they’ve also negotiated trade deals, mitigated Ebola outbreaks, or repatriated the bodies of American citizens who died overseas.
Firing a diplomat because of where they were directed to serve at a particular moment in time is worse than reckless. Your taxpayer dollars trained them in everything from how to work with foreign law enforcement on terrorism prevention to teaching them multiple foreign languages. Now their years of experience, expertise, unique skills sets are arbitrarily gone. And it’s impossible to quickly rebuild that lost capacity to meet the both the opportunities and challenges America is facing in a complicated, messy world.
Every State Department official who was fired today was a nonpartisan public servant. Every one of them has worked for both Republican and Democratic administrations. When I became a State Department civil servant nearly 20 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic: not to support the whims and priorities of a particular President or political agenda.
Yes, every new administration has its own policy priorities, and the career service adapts accordingly. And of course, there are always ways to make bureaucracies more efficient.
But tell me how eliminating the bureau focused on stabilizing post-conflict societies helps prevent more violence and war. Explain how cutting the office that resettles Afghan refugees fulfills our moral commitments to the interpreters who worked with American troops. Justify how firing Diplomatic Security officers who work with international partners to stop terrorist attacks makes Americans safer. No really, how does gutting the bureau that supports refugees and migrants keep international migrant flows down?
They can’t explain it. So they’re not really even trying.
Tellingly, Secretary of State Marco Rubio wouldn’t even face the men and women he fired today. As I write this, many diplomats are leaving the State Department headquarters for the last time. Rows of their colleagues gathered in the lobby and outside headquarters to clap them out. But Rubio, overseas on an official trip to Malaysia (yet somehow having plenty of time to tweet about Cuba and Israel) is nowhere to be seen.
The Secretary of State can’t be bothered to publicly acknowledge the 1,300+ people he fired today, much less thank them for their years of service to our country. There’s no mention of these public servants and their years of accomplishments and hard work on any State Department social media or statement, at least that I can find.
Spin Class Lesson: If a leader genuinely believes massive personnel cuts are about streamlining and efficiency, then they should have the decency to acknowledge their human impact while making that case. There’s a way to do layoffs that acknowledges the humanity and dignity of those being let go. That’s basic leadership and basic communications. But from what I’ve seen and heard, State Department leadership is not taking even those basic actions. It’s cowardly. It’s disrespectful. It’s insulting.
If I sound upset, it’s because I am. State Department diplomats and civil servants risk their lives serving alongside our armed forces. I’ve lost colleagues like Anne Smedinghoff, who was killed by a suicide bomb while serving as a diplomat in Afghanistan. I have dear friends serving overseas in combat zones as President Trump and Secretary Rubio fire their colleagues, cut their essential funding, and denigrate their service. The disrespect they endure from their leadership while sacrificing so much makes me sad, and angry.
I wish every American could see the sacrifices State Department employees and their families make to serve our country. They move every few years, hauling their families around the world, resettling their kids in new schools or leaving them behind because their assigned posts are too dangerous for families to accompany them. Most State Department officials are paid way under what they could get in the private sector. They learn languages and go places most Americans will never encounter, so that the rest of us can keep living our lives without worrying how a war, famine, or disease outbreak on the other side of the world may impact us at home.
Diplomats and State civil service officers deserve our gratitude and respect, not pink slips and an empty cardboard box for their belongings on a Friday afternoon.
Others have spoken eloquently about how these firings harm our national security, and it’s all 100% true. As former US Ambassador to Russia
has noted: “According to a study by the Lowy Institute, the People’s Republic of China now has a greater diplomatic presence worldwide than any other country, including the United States.” The US can’t compete with China if we’re diplomatically withdrawing from the world stage while the PRC is building new consulates and plussing up their own diplomatic corps. We can’t end wars and keep the peace in places like Gaza and Ukraine without diplomats to negotiate and maintain peace agreements. And we can’t stop transnational threats like pandemics, human trafficking, and narcotics rings without working with partners and diplomatically (i.e. non-militarily) dealing with the bad guys.We won’t see the full impact of these State firings right away. It’s basically impossible to trace a terrorist attack or war back to the violence prevention community program that didn’t happen, the refugee camp that wasn’t funded, or the meeting that the US should have attended but didn’t. It’s a complicated world, and very little is single-origin or mono-causal.
But while I can’t tell you exactly when, where, or how it will manifest, I know we’re less safe tonight than we were this morning because of these firings. As General Jim Mattis said in 2013 when he led CENTCOM: “If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition.”
And even if Secretary Rubio and others in the Trump administration won’t acknowledge this, we should still witness and honor how these patriots served our country - and how those who survived this round are still serving.
Thank you all. You deserve better. We all deserve better.
POLITICO reported that officials mistakenly received RIF emails today that State had to walk back. Since the Trump administration has been undergoing months of legal wrangling to get permission to fire these employees, you’d think they maybe would have confirmed the final list was accurate before hitting send? Perhaps that’s just what happens when you put Tucker Carlson’s lawyer in charge of your HR operations.