White House firings continue despite speed bumps

• In the meantime workers are eyeing the exits, and the ability of critical government agencies to function is at stake.

Zoom in: In two words, an IRS employee who recently resigned from the agency explained why: "The uncertainty," he told Axios.

• There was the return to office order, but no office to go to. The agency didn't have the space for him. Then there was the "fork in the road" push to resign, rumors of layoffs, and the firings of probationary employees.
• Now the IRS plans to cut its workforce in half, the New York Times reported this week.
• "Are we going to have a job next week? An office?" the IRS employee said, requesting anonymity because he's still working there for a few more days.

Where it stands: Yesterday the USDA was ordered to reinstate nearly 6,000 employees. Last week a federal judge ruled the initial order from the Office of Personnel Management to fire probationary workers was unlawful.

• Though the judge ruled that OPM's orders were illegal, he did not order employees be reinstated for technical reasons, including the plaintiffs' standing to sue and the fact that agencies weren't named defendants.
• The plaintiffs hope the judge will eventually issue such an order, but they must first amend their lawsuit and have another court hearing next week.

Between the lines: Even as some of these fired workers are reinstated, agencies are moving ahead with the next step: Plans to do wide-scale reductions in force that will be harder to overturn.

• In a leaked memo, the Department of Veterans Affairs has outlined its intention to return to 2019 staffing levels, which would mean firing as many as 83,000 workers.

In the meantime, federal workers are in a terrible spot, with no severance, no benefits, and for some, unemployment insurance may be tricky to secure, Michele Evermore, a senior fellow at the National Academy for Social Insurance, told Axios.

The bottom line: Firings, once set in motion, are hard to slow down.