Under Joe Biden’s leadership, remote work became the norm in the civil service for an extended period. This led to a situation where even after the pandemic restrictions ended, a cafeteria in the Department of the Interior remained closed.
In contrast, Donald Trump and his close associate Elon Musk have taken a different approach. They aim not only to decrease the number of employees in the federal workforce but also to insist that those who remain must return to working from the office.
During the Biden administration, the Department of the Interior was among those that did not enforce a return-to-office policy for its staff. As reported by Fox News Digital, a recent photograph taken on a Thursday depicts the Interior Department as a deserted and empty place, resembling a ghost town.
‘You have federal workers showing up to protest President Trump’s plan to make government work for the people on a federal holiday, but they refuse to show up to work when they are collecting a paycheck courtesy of American taxpayers. It’s just nuts,’ the source said.
Doug Burgum, President Trump’s new Secretary of the Interior, isn’t waiting on Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to fix this.
The former North Dakota governor said in a statement: ‘Under the Biden administration, there were so few people in the Interior office that the cafeteria closed.
‘The American people elected President Trump because they want results,’ he said.
‘Getting the workforce back to the office will help accelerate America’s sprint to Energy Dominance.’
The Interior was one of many departments that did not require employees to return under the Biden administration and a photo taken Thursday shows it as a complete ghost town
Joe Biden allowed remote work to dominate the civil service for so long, a cafeteria in the Department of the Interior remained shutdown years after the pandemic ended
An anonymous source close to the situation said the photo ‘shows you exactly what’s wrong with the mindset of far too many federal workers.’
While they understood why the cafeteria was closed in the early days of the pandemic, they wondered why Biden was so asleep at the wheel during his presidency that it didn’t reopen.
Similarly, the department of housing and urban development resembles ‘a taxpayer-funded Spirit Halloween’ that looks almost like no one has been inside since Biden took office.
DailyMail.com has reached out to the White House for comment.
Elon Musk has made returning to in-person work a requirement for those that DOGE does not get rid of.
‘Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome: If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home,’ he wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion essay last year.
They argue that Trump had the authority to order ‘reductions in force’ despite existing civil-service protection laws that would prevent the executive branch from firing personnel.
But they sounded a compassionate note, reassuring potentially exiled government employees they would receive a soft landing.
Doug Burgum, President Trump’s new Secretary of the Interior, isn’t waiting on Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to fix this
Donald Trump and JD Vance both want federal employees to return to work
‘Employees whose positions are eliminated deserve to be treated with respect, and DOGE’s goal is to help support their transition into the private sector,’ read the op-ed.
At least 75,000 federal workers have accepted a buyout from the White House and many more are expected to be cut.
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) sharply divided opinions in Washington in the early months of Trump’s second presidency.
While some have fumed over some cuts, including firing a number of Department of Energy workers that oversee America’s nuclear arsenal, which Trump quickly reversed, MAGA Republicans say other funding was a huge waste.
In one of the most shocking announcements, DOGE said last week that it has cut at least $1.9 billion of misplaced funds from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and said that former President Joe Biden’s administration was to blame.
‘These funds were earmarked for the administration of financial services, but were no longer needed,’ DOGE wrote in a post to X, adding that the funds were lost in the first place due to a ‘broken process.’
‘The funds are now available for other use by the Treasury,’ the department said.
Amid the slew of cuts to other agencies, Musk floated an idea that would sent a ‘DOGE dividend’ of $5,000 to every American taxpayer, a slice of the $55 billion he claims to have saved so far.
DOGE claims the savings were found through a combination of detecting and deleting fraud, canceling contracts and leases, and selling assets.
The savings were mostly made in the US Agency For International Development (USAID), the Department of Education, the Office of Personnel Management, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Agriculture.
After investment firm CEO James Fishback said sending cash to taxpayers would show off the savings, Musk replied to say that he ‘will check with the President.’
