Bonfire of expertise: Trump drives scientists, spies and soldiers out of government
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Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
Centuries' worth of experience walked out of key government agencies this summer, including high-level departures from the CDC, Pentagon and intelligence community just in the past week.
Why it matters: President Trump and his allies believe the "Deep State," scientific establishment and federal bureaucracy were overdue for a purge. They're ushering in a government in which the officials maintaining nuclear weapons, monitoring medical trials or guarding state secrets have shorter resumes and smaller staffs — likely for many years to come.
Driving the news: Three of the CDC's top scientists resigned this week after director Susan Monarez was fired, with hundreds of staffers staging a walkout in support of their outgoing colleagues and opposition to HHS leadership.
- Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned as the CDC's vaccine chief, claimed Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his team were manipulating data "to achieve a political end."
- He also warned that the hollowing out of agencies like his would leave the U.S. ill prepared for future public health emergencies, telling the NYT: "We really are losing the people who know how to do this."
- Kennedy, who once called the CDC a "cesspool of corruption," said Thursday that "there's a lot of trouble at CDC, and it's going to require getting rid of some people over the long term... to change the institutional culture."
Zoom out: Around 3,000 CDC staffers have resigned or been fired since January. Agencies like the FDA and National Institutes of Health have also shed thousands of staff, including many highly trained scientists.
- The exodus of expertise has also affected roles focused on cyber defense, nuclear safety, extreme weather forecasting and disaster response.
Departures over the last week or so from America's national security agencies have been particularly eyebrow-raising.
- Defense Intelligence Agency director Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse was fired, Doug Beck abruptly resigned as the head of the Pentagon's Silicon Valley-based Defense Innovation Unit, and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin retired two years ahead of schedule.
- The list of exits since Trump took office includes the heads of the Joint Chiefs, the National Security Agency, the Coast Guard and the Naval Reserve, as well as senior leaders from the Air Force, Navy and NATO — all career officers with decades of service, Axios' Colin Demarest reports.
- While the administration hasn't provided explanations for each individual ouster, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has railed against "woke" generals and emphasized Trump's authority to elevate leaders he trusts.
Friction point: When Intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard announced she was slashing her staff by 40% last week, she called the intelligence community "bloated" and "rife with abuse of power, unauthorized leaks of classified intelligence, and politicized weaponization of intelligence."
- One outgoing veteran of the intelligence community told Axios that under Gabbard's leadership, experience garnered suspicion rather than respect. "It just means you have been brainwashed for 30 years — sucking off the teat of the American people for decades."
- The official contended that Gabbard's tenure had been fraught with mistakes — like her alleged unmasking of an undercover CIA operative in an X post last week — that could have been avoided if she trusted the experienced officials around her.
- That view chimes with comments Daskalakis made Thursday on Kennedy's leadership: "I am not sure who the Secretary is listening to, but it is quite certainly not to us."
- The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
The bottom line: "I've been going to these going-away parties, it feels like every week," another long-time intelligence official told Axios. "You look at what we're losing ... It's depressing."
- For Trump and his team, it seems, the sentiment is different: Good riddance.
