Trump's Trials - Supreme Court allows Trump administration to resume mass federal layoffs for now

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

The Trump administration can move ahead, for now, with plans to lay off hundreds of thousands of federal workers following a U.S. Supreme Court decision on Tuesday.Support NPR and hear every episode of Trump's Terms sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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It's called The Prophets of Technology. What they got right, wrong, and where these pioneers think we're headed next. Listen to the TED Radio Hour wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Michelle Martin. And I'm Amartinez. The Trump administration can move ahead with its plans to lay off hundreds of thousands of federal workers. That's after the US Supreme Court put on hold, for now, a lower court ruling which

blocked a February executive order announcing large-scale cuts at government agencies. Those layoffs will be allowed to move forward while legal challenges play out in the lower courts. Joining us now to talk about all this is Andrea Shue, NPR's Labor and Workplace Correspondent. Andrea, how sweeping is this order? This is a really big deal, A. It affects close to 20 agencies, including very large ones like the Department of Health and Human Services,

the Department of Agriculture, the Treasury Department, and many others. And in some cases, like at Health and Human Services, some 10,000 employees had already been issued layoff notices. And the reason most of them are still on the payroll is because of that lower court order that's now gone for now anyway. We don't know how soon people might be formally separated.

My colleague, Michelle Kellerman, has heard the State Department will be moving forward with cutting hundreds of foreign service officers, and that could start as early as today. So are we likely to see this across the entire federal government? Actually not necessarily. You know earlier this week the Department of Veterans Affairs announced that it would not carry out the large-scale layoffs that it had announced a couple months ago

because it's already on pace to reduce its staff by some 30,000 employees through other means like normal attrition and early retirements and the Trump administration's deferred resignation or buyout program and the hiring freeze. You know, earlier the VA had said it planned to cut about 80,000 people, and a lot of people chose to leave because they feared being fired, so it's not clear how a reduction of 30,000 people is now deemed adequate. Could it be tied to Elon Musk's departure from Washington? Maybe, but there was a lot of pushback

from veterans groups over this proposal, from employee unions. We just don't have a clear picture of how these decisions are being made. Okay, what was the reaction or what has been the reaction to the court's decision? Yeah, well, the labor unions that sued to block Trump's reorganization called the decision

serious blow to our democracy and warned that this order from the Supreme Court would put the government services that Americans rely on in jeopardy. They had argued that Trump's executive order was unconstitutional, saying he could not carry out such a radical transformation of government without authorization from Congress. And The lower court agreed with the unions on that point. But yesterday, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who sided with the Supreme Court majority yesterday, she pointed out that Trump's executive order explicitly tells agencies to comply with the law when carrying out their layoffs. She noted, it's not yet clear what the agencies are doing, that the courts haven't yet assessed whether

the agency's reorganization plans are legal. Now what has the White House said about the order? Well, A, they're calling to ruling another definitive victory for President Trump. In a statement, the spokesperson Harrison Fields wrote this, he said, it clearly rebukes the continued assault on the president's constitutionally authorized executive powers by leftist judges who are trying to prevent the president from achieving government efficiency across the federal government. That's a quote. Now remember, this is not the end of the case.

It goes back to the lower court. But bottom line, this is a big win for the president. The Supreme Court has once again issued an order without any public arguments allowing Trump to forge ahead with his agenda. All right. That's NPR's Andrea Hsu. Thanks a lot. You're welcome. Before we wrap up a reminder, you can find more coverage of the Trump administration on the NPR Politics Podcast, where you can hear NPR's political reporters

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