Also [today], as Michael Sainato of The Guardian reports, the resignations of more than 100,000 federal workers will take effect as part of the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal workforce.

Those leaving say they were forced out through fear and pressure from administration officials, reminding Sainato of the comment from Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought, who wants to destroy the modern government. Last October he said of federal workers: “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work, because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down.… We want to put them in trauma.”

This year’s cuts to the government workforce will mean the loss of at least 275,000 workers, the largest decline in civilian federal employment in a single year since World War II.

——Heather Cox Richardson