Fox News host Laura Ingraham ignited a social media firestorm after mocking thousands of recently laid-off federal employees, dismissing their plight by advising them to “get real jobs.” Since President Donald Trump began his second term last month, his administration—led in part by Elon Musk, now at the helm of the newly established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—has executed sweeping cuts to the federal workforce.
Musk’s aggressive downsizing campaign has left thousands out of work, and Ingraham made it clear on Monday night’s show that she had little sympathy for them. Mocking Democrats for trying to frame the layoffs as a crisis, Ingraham ridiculed the idea that the firings would hurt Trump’s popularity. “How do you resurrect your party, though, by protecting red tape and the bureaucracy?” she asked, before answering her own question, the Independent reported.
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“By trying to gin up sympathy for federal workers who need to get real jobs in the real world like most of America. Ever heard of it?” As the network aired footage of a laid-off government worker venting frustration over the cuts, Ingraham doubled down. “Do Democrats really think that Americans will stop liking Trump because he fires these people?” she scoffed.
Musk, who has taken an aggressive approach to shrinking the government, issued his most drastic move yet on Saturday, February 22. In a mass email from the Office of Personnel Management, every single federal employee was ordered to justify their position by detailing what they had accomplished in the past week.
“Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation,” Musk warned. The directive sent shockwaves through the federal workforce. “I felt absolutely infuriated getting this email with a demand within 48 hours to provide a response on what I did within the last week or face termination,” said government worker MT Snyder in an interview with CNN.
She accused Musk of using intimidation tactics. “This is clearly an attempt from Elon Musk to harass and bully and intimidate the federal workforce, which is part of his broader plan to gut the federal workforce and privatize public sector services,” Snyder added.
But if Snyder was expecting sympathy, she wasn’t getting it from Ingraham. The Fox News host ridiculed the outrage over Musk’s demands. “Now, making a list of what you accomplished in a week—that she was whining about—is ‘harassment’ and ‘bullying?’” Ingraham scoffed. “Of course, because that requires, what? Fifteen minutes of work?”
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She continued her critique of federal employees, taking aim at those pushing back against returning to in-office work. “These are the same types that think requiring them to return to the office, oftentimes where they haven’t been for four years, basically amounts to a hate crime,” she sneered to, told NPR.
While Democrats and federal workers continue to decry the mass layoffs and restructuring under Musk’s leadership, Ingraham and Trump’s allies appear to see the cuts as a long-overdue reckoning for bloated government agencies. As the debate over government efficiency rages on, one thing is certain—this battle is far from over, told the New York Times.
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