OAN Staff Blake Wolf
3:43 PM – Wednesday, January 29, 2025
President Donald Trump provided a simple ultimatum for approximately two million federal workers who insist on working remotely, or those who argue that they will defy the order – either show up to work in person “or be terminated.”
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“We’re requiring them to show up to work or be terminated,” Trump said on Wednesday.
“We think a very substantial number of people will not show up to work, and therefore, our government will get smaller and more efficient,” Trump continued. “And that’s what we’ve been looking to do [anyways] for many, many decades, frankly.”
Trump’s comments follow a mass email sent out by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to federal workers. It offered to buy them out their government contracts if they do not wish to return to the office.
“We don’t want them to work from home, because as everyone knows, most of the time they’re not working,” Trump added. “They’re not very productive. And it’s unfair to the millions of people in the United States who are in fact working hard from job sites and not from home.”
“As federal employees, they MUST meet a high standard. They’re representing our government, they’re representing our country.”
Eligible federal employees have until February 6th to decide whether they would like to accept the buyout offer.
Trump also suggested that federal workers may have to prove that they did not hold another job during “their so-called employment with the United States of America, because if they did, that would be unlawful.”
“A lot of people are getting paychecks, but they’re actually working other jobs, so they’ll have to prove to us that they weren’t,” Trump stated.
Meanwhile, Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va.), a vocal Trump critic, recently challenged the president’s buyout plan, declaring “Don’t be fooled.”
“He’s tricked hundreds of people with that offer. If you accept that offer and resign, he’ll stiff you just like he stiffed the contractors. He doesn’t have any authority to do this,” Kaine added.
The Trump administration’s buyout plan is part of the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiatives headed by Elon Musk. They aim to reduce the massive amount of fraud, government overspending, and other waste plaguing the federal government.
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