‘It’s not patriotism. It’s cruelty’: Michigan workers fired by Trump and Musk speak out

A veteran, a scientist, and a housing specialist are warning Michigan lawmakers about the consequences of mass terminations by the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

LANSING—Andrew Lennox is a proud Marine and public servant. 

After serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, he found a new way to serve his country—by supporting doctors at a US Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Ann Arbor as they cared for thousands of veterans like him. But that mission came to a halt in February, when the Trump administration abruptly fired him and thousands of other federal employees across the country.

This week, Lennox testified before Michigan lawmakers at a state Senate committee hearing—joining a growing chorus of fired federal workers from Michigan who say Trump’s so-called “efficiency” agenda, led by billionaire Elon Musk, is rooted not in reform—but in cruelty.

“It’s not patriotism. It’s  cruelty. It’s not leadership. It’s bullying,” Lennox testified at Thursday’s state Senate committee hearing. “And in the Marines, we’re taught to stand up to bullies.”

‘Veterans are Going to Die’

Lennox got the email at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 13.

The message came from someone he’d never met in Washington, D.C., informing him that his performance had “failed to demonstrate” that his continued employment was in the public interest. He was told to return his government-issued equipment the next morning.

But rather than walk out, Lennox came back to the office—and spent the next full day working unpaid hours to help ensure his colleagues and patients wouldn’t suffer from the disruption.

“I kept working because there had been no transition of authority. There was no transfer of duties. I had projects that I was still actively working on, and if I were to walk away right then, our veterans would be in jeopardy,” Lennox told state lawmakers on Thursday morning.

Lennox was one of the thousands of VA employees fired, but ultimately reinstated by a court order. 

He said the firings were neither random nor actually rooted in his so-called poor performance. Instead, they were mass terminations disguised to avoid legal protections for workers—and their consequences are still being felt.

“ No one at our facility had been consulted. There were no performance reviews conducted. This is not based on merit. It was a reduction in force that was disguised as poor performance to avoid the legal protections and due process,” Lennox testified. “When you hide the true impact of terminating 15% of VA employees, veterans are going to die.”

While Lennox has since returned to work, he told lawmakers that he spent weeks in limbo, unsure if he still had health care or whether he’d be allowed to work in federal service again. He also warned lawmakers that the consequences extend far beyond the federal workforce.

“We received no  mental health support, no resources to cope with the trauma of being fired without cause,” Lennox said. “That’s not just a failure of leadership. That’s negligence.”

Pending a legal battle, the Trump administration still reportedly has plans to fire an additional 80,000 workers at the Department of Veteran Affairs. Lennox said he is crossing his fingers that his name won’t appear on that list. 

“My mission was supporting our service members, but this time it was making sure that our nearly 100 doctors could focus on caring for 3,000 patients,” Lennox said. “I love my job. I believed in it. … We don’t care about the money. We care about the mission.”

No forecasts. No maps. No data.

Nicole Rice had worked as a communications specialist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for over a decade when she was abruptly fired via email by the Trump administration in February.

“I was terminated from my federal position at NOAA with less than 90 minutes’ notice after 13 years of federal service,” Rice testified at this week’s Senate committee hearing. “My income, my healthcare, and my dignity were stripped away without warning and without cause.”

As a disabled worker, Rice said she was placed in a probationary category—despite her long tenure and recent promotion—that made her vulnerable to being fired (without any clear explanation) under new guidance issued by the Office of Personnel Management.

Without providing any detailed explanation, federal officials simply declared—via email—that Rice was “not fit” for continued employment. She was abruptly cut off from her health care benefits and wasn’t given the documents needed to file for unemployment, Rice testified. 

“As a disabled person, this has left me vulnerable to debt, illness, or worse—and I’m not alone,” Rice said. “Hundreds of my colleagues, many of whom are disabled or veterans, have been dismissed. … The whirlwind of joblessness, unknown status, lack of communication, and not to mention the influx of media and social media [attacks], have taken a toll on our mental health.”

Rice said more than 35% of the staff at NOAA’s Great Lakes environmental research lab in Ann Arbor had been lost due to terminations or resignations—including its director, top scientists, and the entire communications team. Now, she said, vital services are grinding to a halt.

“ A federal hiring freeze means none of these roles can be filled. And it’s not just people. We are losing capacity. NOAA has halted contract approvals, delayed vessel deployments, and cut funding for basic field work. That means no algal bloom monitoring, no shoreline mapping, no new data for forecasts, and no shipwreck buoys for divers in our marine sanctuaries,” she said.

The Trump administration has also proposed $1.7 billion in cuts to NOAA that, if passed by Congress, could decimate critical climate and extreme weather research. Rice said that would also jeopardize everything from public health to clean water access, environmental protections, emergency response coordination, and the future of the Great Lakes fishing industry.

“ The lab is not replaceable,” Rice told lawmakers, also noting that cutting federal staff or funding for NOAA would also invariably lead to more inaccurate weather predictions. “This work is not optional. It’s essential to public safety, economic vitality, and environmental stewardship.”

‘Cruelty Under the Guise of Financial Responsibility’

Leslie Desmond, of Dearborn, was only a few months into her federal career when she was abruptly fired—by email, without warning, without a signature, and without a clear explanation.

Desmond said that she left a lucrative private-sector job to work as a financial analyst at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, where she helped oversee an array of risk portfolios for public housing and housing voucher programs across the state of Michigan. 

She said her role was all about helping people—ensuring taxpayer dollars were spent responsibly and that housing authorities were using the federal assistance available to them.

But like many others, Desmond was placed in a probationary status when she was hired—making her vulnerable to the sweeping, politically motivated terminations that have been carried out under the Trump administration’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

“I’m on leave until the current administration figures out a way to legally fire me,” she said.

Now, instead of monitoring federal housing compliance, she’s in limbo, working nights behind a bar to support her two kids, taking loans from her family, and worrying about losing her house.

“ These past few months have caused me unnecessary turmoil and stress,” she said. “I’ve chosen to serve my country and to serve Michiganders and to help our most vulnerable populations in our state have access to safe and affordable housing. Now, I stress about whether I can maintain the quality of life that used to be the power of our middle class.”

Desmond warned state lawmakers that the firings have already weakened oversight and support at a time when demand for affordable housing is skyrocketing across Michigan. Detroit’s largest housing voucher program alone has more than 28,000 people on its wait list—and yet only 206 vouchers are currently available statewide, she testified. 

She also raised alarms about a growing culture of censorship and fear inside federal agencies under the Trump administration—where staffers are actively being told to scrub words like “diversity” and “equity” from programs to avoid being targeted by Musk and his team.

“There has been a full-scale change management project over certain words in programming,” Desmond explained during this week’s committee hearing. “A lot of agencies have been scrambling to cut words out of their grants. … It makes for a very tumultuous workplace.”

Desmond said the culture of fear isn’t just disrupting internal operations—it’s also stifling the very mission that brought her and so many others to public service in the first place.

“These unthought-out firings and massive cuts are an attack on all Americans,” she said. “They’re already causing instability not only in our housing availability, but in our communities. And what’s worse is that it’s being done in the name of efficiency, when what is happening is actually being done in the name of cruelty under the guise of financial responsibility.”

What Happens Next?

As the Trump administration continues to face legal challenges over its mass firings, the Michigan Senate Labor Committee, led by Sen. John Cherry (D-Flint), will continue holding special hearings on the consequences of mass terminations and federal funding cuts. 

Lawmakers have also promised to explore more ways to protect public workers at the state level—and some are already pushing back against the rhetoric being used to justify the cuts.

“Cruelty is the point. That’s what they’re doing. They’re making it harder on everyday Americans who work for our government—all in service of giving a tax cut to billionaires,” state Sen. Darrin Camilleri (D-Trenton) said. “These cuts don’t make any sense. There’s no logic behind them. Cruelty is the point, and that is something that we have to continue to fight back on.”

READ MORE: Michiganders sound the alarm on Trump’s funding freeze

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Editor’s Note: This story was updated to correct erroneous biographical details about Lennox and the manner in which he was fired.