Now 100 days in, Donald Trump’s second term as US president has been defined by his determination to upend the established order on nearly all fronts of domestic and foreign policy. In the last of this series, we look at the disarray Trump’s use of executive orders – and the “Department of Government Efficiency” it created – has wrought in Washington.
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Andrew Well-Dang, a Southeast Asia analyst at the United States Institute of Peace, received an email about 10pm on March 28 – a Friday night – informing him that he had been fired.
Well-Dang did not have to take it personally. Nearly all 300 of his colleagues received identical dismissal notices – sent by a newly appointed human resources staff in alphabetical order, he recalled.
“They sent blanket emails cancelling everything,” he said.
The late night lay-offs were, they came to learn, authorised by an executive order US President Donald Trump signed in February that claimed the right, as part of an effort to reduce government waste, to shut down USIP, a conflict-prevention, non-partisan, independent institution founded by Congress in 1984.
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Assuming the Trump administration did not understand who had authority over what in the US government’s vast bureaucracy, USIP leadership first responded by explaining to the White House “what our status was, and that we were going to stay open, and that we were founded by Congress”, Well-Dang said.
Days later, USIP got its answer: George Moose, its president since 2021, was fired along with 12 board members – all presidential appointees confirmed by the Senate.