Trump shares article blasting federal workers, calling for long shutdown

President Trump on Monday shared an op-ed from a writer claiming to be an anonymous senior member of his administration who harshly criticizes federal workers as disloyal to the White House and worthy of losing their jobs.

The writer of the op-ed, published by conservative news site The Daily Caller, argues the partial government shutdown is an opportunity for Trump to greatly reduce the size of government.

{mosads}“On an average day, roughly 15 percent of the employees around me are exceptional patriots serving their country. I wish I could give competitive salaries to them and no one else,” the op-ed reads. “But 80 percent feel no pressure to produce results. If they don’t feel like doing what they are told, they don’t.”

Later in the op-ed, the author states that the first goal of the shutdown should be to win better security particularly at the southern border. Uniformed border officials should be paid, but nonessential employees should be let go, the author writes.

“Furloughed employees should find other work, never return and not be paid,” the op-ed states.

The second goal should be finding savings for taxpayers, according to the op-ed.

If the shutdown is just about “rhetorical bickering,” it is a loss, the author states. “But if it proves that government is better when smaller, focusing only on essential functions that serve Americans, then President Trump will achieve something great that Reagan was only bold enough to dream.”

Trump shared the op-ed on Tuesday, a day after it was published by The Daily Caller, by retweeting a tweet by his son, Donald Trump, Jr.

Worth the read.

I’m A Senior Trump Official, And I Hope A Long Shutdown Smokes Out The Resistance https://t.co/6ahfOlyl5K via @dailycaller

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 14, 2019

The writer of the op-ed, headlined “I’m a Senior Trump Official and I Hope a Long Shutdown Smokes out the Resistance,” is described by website as a senior official in the Trump administration “whose identity is known to us and whose career would be jeopardized by its disclosure.” 

The story does not indicate whether the writer is a political appointee of Trump or a civil servant. 

The government has been shut down for 25 days over Trump’s demand for funding for a southern border wall. Roughly 800,000 federal workers are furloughed or working without pay.

The op-ed’s argument that most federal workers should lose their jobs and that the shutdown should be a way to drive them out is at odds with the public comments of Republican lawmakers and even Trump, who have cast federal workers furloughed or working without pay as a result of the shutdown as victims. 

The writer claims that a majority of federal workers “do nothing that warrants punishment and nothing of external value.”

“That is their workday: errands for the sake of errands — administering, refining, following and collaborating on process,” the op-ed reads.

A long shutdown can eliminate the sabotage and waste in the government so workers can focus on the president’s agenda, the author of the story wrote.

“Most of my career colleagues actively work against the president’s agenda. This means I typically spend about 15 percent of my time on the president’s agenda and 85 percent of my time trying to stop sabotage, and we have no power to get rid of them,” the op-ed states. “Until the shutdown.”

“Federal employees are starting to feel the strain of the shutdown. I am one of them. But for the sake of our nation, I hope it lasts a very long time, till the government is changed and can never return to its previous form,” the op-ed states.

The Daily Caller, which was founded by Tucker Carlson and Neil Patel, in its note on the op-ed said it was publishing the story by an anonymous author because “we believe publishing this essay anonymously is the only way to deliver an important perspective to our readers.”

This isn’t the first time a publication has published a story from an anonymous author claiming to be working within the administration.

The Daily Caller op-ed appears to be a response to a blistering op-ed titled  “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration,” which ran in The New York Times in September.

The writer of the Times op-ed also claimed to be a member of the Trump administration and tore into Trump’s “amorality,” describing a group of White House staffers working against Trump’s “misguided impulses.”

The president tore into the author of that anonymous piece, calling them “an anonymous, gutless coward.”

“You look at this horrible thing that took place, is it subversion, is it treason?” Trump asked during a campaign-style rally in Montana. 

The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment on the latest op-ed.

UPDATED at 11:27 a.m.: This story was updated to reflect that Trump shared the story by retweeting a tweet by Donald Trump Jr.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated the founder of The Daily Caller.