'If You Can Keep It': The Former Feds Running For Office

0:07Over 210 ,000 federal workers have left their jobs due to actions by the Trump administration this year. That's according to the Partnership for Public Service Harms Tracker. For many, it is meant walking away from or being pushed out of a decades-long commitment to public service in search of something new. And what are at least some of those fired and furloughed federal workers and contractors doing with their newfound free time? They're running for public office. The reason that Congress urgently needs recently departed feds is that Trump is really gutting essential systems in government. You need real career feds who really understand the inside of government to rebuild what Trump has destroyed.

0:49VA employees deserve better. And I am not going to shut up about the impact that they have had in my life and in so many others. That's when I decided to run for Congress. The federal workers who say, you know, my job's apolitical, we're now in a time where you may not think politics is for you, but politics thinks you're for them. If you're not going to be part of the discussion or at the table, decisions will be made for you. Former federal workers can make a positive difference in today's political climate. We worked for many different administrations upholding laws and policies, but we took an oath to the Constitution, not a man or a party.

1:28We served the American people. If any other three million people in this country were treated the way that federal workers have been treated, that group would expect political representation and they'd right to seek it. We are now ready to do this as politicians. Serve the American people and our communities. I want hopefully people who hear this to think, you know, yeah, I think I need to be a part of the solution right now. Messages we received there from former federal workers now running for public office. On today's installment of our weekly series, If You Can Keep It, other former federal workers on why they see politics as the next step after being forced set of jobs that were always meant to stay apolitical.

2:09A record number of fired federal workers are engaged with our government in a new way. What does it mean for the future health of our democracy? I'm Jen White here with Todd Swillick, and you're listening to the 1A Podcast. We talk to some candidates, not about their platforms, but about why they made this leap right after this. Stay with us.

2:32Let's meet our guests. Joining us in studio is Allison Erickson. She's a Democratic candidate in Maryland for the Montgomery County Council seat representing District 3, and she's a former longtime employee of USAID. Allison, welcome to 1A. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. And as part of today's conversation, again, we're talking to former federal workers about their decision to run for public office, not their campaign platforms. Allison, take us to your career at USAID. What did your work entail? So I worked at the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, and I managed humanitarian programs overseas, primarily in Africa and South Asia.

3:11So we were helping to provide services for people who were impacted by conflict or disasters, you know, food, clean water, shelter, all of the necessities that people need. If you've ever seen in the newspaper, a big picture of someone with some boxes that said USAID from the American people going into a disaster zone. Those are the programs I was working on. And how long were you with the agency? I was there for eight years. To what extent did your personal identity become tied to that work? My personal identity was greatly tied to it. You know, we work in the office mostly, but we do deploy to these disaster zones.

3:53And so when you're there, you are with your coworkers all the time. You are staying in the same hotel. You are, you know, socializing together because those are the only people that you know there. So it definitely creates an environment where you are very closely tied to your work. You lost your job along with so many others early this year. You described the firing process as brutal. What happened? And so there was just a lot of confusion as things happened. USAID was one of the first agencies impacted by the administration, and there was no clear understanding of what their goals were and what was going to happen.

4:33We had a week where everyone I knew was just cut off from their email. They couldn't use their phones, couldn't use their computers. We had gotten no notice that we had been terminated or that anything unusual had happened. A lot of us thought that we had been hacked. And it took about a week for decisions to be made that we had to have our access reinstated. And that, I think, is when most of us realized that things were not continuing normally. Um, after that, you know, we started to see the, the rifts and the firings for, you know, people that worked on DEI and people that worked on other, um, topics that the administration does not care for.

5:14And then it started to hit everyone at once. So you had a job in the federal government really working on the world stage, international aid and disaster. You get fired from that job or you leave that job and now you're running for office on the local level. How did that happen? Were you always wanting to run for office on the local level? How did you go from World Aid to Montgomery County where you live? I have never wanted to run for office. If anyone ever suggested I do that, I would say that they were crazy. That's not a thing that I would do. I don't like public speaking. I don't like having attention on me in that way.

5:50I really enjoyed my desk job and working on something that I felt was valuable that was positively impacting people. and you know after after losing my job along with most everyone I knew I was really looking at the things happening in my local community and nationally but and thinking that you know the national level government is not able to do the things to protect people that I would be doing if this was a country I was working on that I was managing programs for. But local government is really close to the people that are being impacted. They are going to be the first ones to see the effects of the closing of these federal programs.

6:39And they're going to be most able to do something about it because they don't have as much red tape and things involved that could prevent them from just opening a program to help people. Still, running for office makes you a politician. It does now, right? All those things you don't see yourself doing, public speaking, getting out in front of people, talking about how great you are. That's politics, and you're a politician now. Unfortunately, yes. But is that a hard new identity to take on? It is. I've really been kind of stretching myself and what I feel that I'm capable of doing. But looking at the skills that I think I have from my humanitarian work and looking around at who is on local government, and some of them do have some of those skills.

7:32But I think that I can bring a unique perspective because I have lived in countries where things are done differently. And a lot of local government people tend to get elected that are like lifetime residents. They haven't lived anywhere else. And because that's what voters really appreciate. But I think that there is something to someone who has lived in other countries where things are done differently and can bring ideas in and say, hey, you know, it doesn't have to be like this here. We can try something new. We can try something different that might even be better. Well, let's turn now to Amanda Litman.

8:06She's the co-founder and president of Run for Something. That's a progressive political action committee dedicated to recruiting and supporting young candidates running for down-ballot offices. She's also the author of When We're in Charge, The Next Generation's Guide to Leadership. Amanda, welcome. Hi, how are you doing? Doing well. Just three days after federal firings began in February, about 1 ,000 people signed up to run for office with the help of your organization. In March, more than 600 people attended a run for something informational call. It was aimed at former federal workers interested in running for public office.

8:38How did those numbers compare to what you've seen in previous years? I would say the initial doge firings in March, you know, really were one of the biggest spikes we've seen this year. More than 75 ,000 people have raised their hands since Trump won last November to run for office. It's been our biggest candidate recruitment year ever. That's more people than signed up in the entirety of Trump's first term. That moment when the Doge firing has really kicked off, I think we've continued to see people raising their hands, saying either I've been fired by the federal government, someone close to me has been fired by the federal government, and I can see how much this matters and why I need to step up and fight back.

9:16Yeah, I mean, Amanda, why did you reach out to federal workers in that way? Was it because you knew they would be upset and disaffected by seeing their careers eviscerated by Doge or because they're federal workers? They have a specific set of skills and experiences that might lend them to running? Both of those things. If you work for the federal government, you do it because you're committed to public service, because you want to give back to your community in some way. You certainly don't do it for the money or the glamour. You do it because you care, and you care about your community. And that's the same kind of thing you need in order to run for office.

9:52I know like most people, like your guests, they don't imagine themselves as politicians. They see themselves as public servants. And if they can't serve in the job that they wanted to have, then this is another way to give back. Well, as we heard from Alison, she didn't consider herself ever being in a position where she'd run for public office. So Amanda, what kinds of conversations and training sessions do you have with former federal workers specifically? You know, we talk a lot about how to tell your story and about how to connect it back to why voters should want you to win. It's not just why you want to win, because winning is great and losing sucks.

10:24Voters want you to win because you're going to do something really specific for them and you can articulate how government can help them and how it can really make their lives meaningfully better. So that's what we really work with candidates to do. Coming up, a former State Department official is running for congressional office in Virginia. He describes why and the obstacles he's facing. We'll be right back.

10:46Let's get back into our conversation and add a new voice. Michael Duffin is a former senior policy advisor for the Office of Countering Violent Extremism within the State Department's Bureau of Counterterrorism. He left the government earlier this year. He's running as a Democrat to represent Virginia's 8th Congressional District. Michael, thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me. So, Michael, what kind of work did you do at the State Department during your time as a federal worker? I was there for 12 years. I worked in the Bureau of Counterterrorism for the last nine years, and I worked on preventing terrorist radicalization recruitment, countering hate and polarization around the world.

11:20And was it your sense that you would spend the rest of your career in the federal government? I come from a family of public servants. My father was a police officer in Chicago. My grandfather was a firefighter. This is where I wanted to be. And I was talking before the show how my dream would have been sitting at my desk today and sending emails to embassies around the world doing that job. And that's what I wanted to do. But I was fired. How were you fired? How did it go down in your case? Was your program zeroed out? Were you given a shoebox and told to leave? What was your – I don't know if it was doge or not, but what was your – It was doge.

11:56So we saw over the transition period before Donald Trump returned the office that our programs were being cut. So the writing was on the wall, but we had assumed that we were going to be reassigned, and we joked that we would all be doing FOIA requests someday. But in April, we were gathered, everyone on my team, for a meeting, and we were told that our office was going away and we were going to be fired. And for us as federal employees, there's this, the bargain is we're not going to get paid more than people in the private sector, but we're going to have job security as long as you perform. And so for the last decade, I had outstanding performances, performed really well even during the first Trump administration.

12:37So it was shocking and disappointing. It felt like betrayal that they said, no, you're getting fired. You're going away. Was politics ever part of your long-term goal? You said if none of that had happened, you'd probably be sitting at your desk right now. But when you think about maybe 10 years down the road, 15, did you think maybe politics one day? I'm 47 years old. I come from a working-class background. I have a one-year-old and a seven-year-old at home. And so the most important thing for me is having a paycheck every other week. And so I thought when I would retire that I might run for office.

13:10But it was really a matter of standing – this is about standing up for my neighbors, my coworkers, people who have lost their health care, we need fighters in Congress. And so that's why I stepped up. And it's not about the personal glory because there really is none in politics. Now, you're running in a crowded Democratic primary, but you actually have some complicated feelings about the state of your party and how they're currently running things. Tell us about that. I believe the House of Representatives do need to be relatable, accessible, and accountable. And I'm running against a 75-year-old incumbent who is worth over$100 million.

13:43And so that's a a big obstacle. And so I've seen people who I knew prior to getting RIFT, I reached out to them, they haven't returned. I've been ghosted. That's my point, that when you're challenging an incumbent, you face so many obstacles. And it's unfortunate because we need competition in our electoral system. And competition is good. It brings out the best in political candidates. You said RIFT. For people who don't know, what is RIFT? Reduction in force. Oh, it's an acronym. It's the way that the government can... Fired is what it... Fired. Fired. It means fired. There was some video when employees were riffed, doged from the State Department of people walking out of the State Department on the day they were fired, I think in July.

14:29And I think that you were one of them. And you had a sign that read, diplomacy matters, feds matter. You had a message even then. Why was that message important to you? I did not want, I cleaned out my desk weeks before. We didn't know the exact date when we were going to get officially fired, kicked out. And I did not want to be one of those people who was walking out of the building with a box of my belongings crying. I wanted to be defiant. And so I wanted to send a message. And I was trying to think of a message that really would resonate with a lot of people. And I didn't know at that point that I was going to run for office.

15:04And so I didn't want to have a partisan message. I wanted to have a message that this work matters. And it still matters, and it's important. And so we need people fighting for that. So that image with all of the media, and that was – I did not anticipate that that would go viral, that my remarks at the protest outside would be played on your show and other shows. But it really said something that this work, it's not going to be replaced by Doge people or anyone else. Michael, I'm curious about how the experience of being a federal worker, being fired by the government, and now your run for political office, especially with these complicated feelings you have about your own party, how it's affecting the way you think about the health of our democracy?

15:52I would compare it to going to a car dealership, buying a car. when you look at the outside, it looks all shiny, and then you open up the hood and you see, wow, there's a lot of work that needs to be done. And so for me, I'm running to win, but I'm also running to fight. It's a message that federal employees, you cannot take us for granted. And that's the disappointment that I had when Democratic leadership caved. We're fighting for the American people. We're fighting for healthcare. And we dug in and we wanted action. And I'm part of this group where we lobby congressmen, congresspeople on the Hill every Tuesday.

16:32And I just recognize that I go as often as I can, but the advocacy that I can do as a member of Congress is going to be way more effective than having a dozen people going every Tuesday for however long they can go. So we need advocates, and it's just I feel that our representatives have forgotten, not abandoned us, but just don't have us on their minds too often. And when you say us, are you talking about federal workers or a group broader than that? I would say both federal workers and the working class, where you look at AI, the people in my community who immigrants and others where they're driving taxis and those jobs are going to be – they're driving for Uber and those jobs are going to be replaced by AI.

17:18by the automated vehicles. And so we need people, we need to understand this moment in time that we need people who are fighting, who can dig in because these are our jobs. We're losing our healthcare and neighbors of mine are selling their homes and they're not selling them at top dollar. And so we're losing everything. And the question I ask Republicans, Donald Trump is like, why are you doing this to patriotic public servants? And so the name bureaucrat, it's a pejorative now. And so I want to put the focus on federal employees, the important work that we do. And I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth.

17:54And so I'm fighting for everyone and fighting for working class people. Well, we got this email from a 1A listener, Jerry, who says, I'm a conservative and a registered Republican voter. And I hope the extreme rhetoric and policies of the Trump hijacked political party continues unabated until voters return a Congress ready to moderate our national disgrace in the the 2026 midterms. Thanks for that point of view, Jerry. We also got this from Mike, who says, as a registered Republican who's grown increasingly disenchanted with my party, the only conceivable way I would consider voting for any Republican candidate moving forward rests on their desire to tell the truth.

18:33So, Amanda, it makes me want to ask you what we know. What do we know about how fired federal worker candidates like Michael and Allison are resonating with people who might normally be Republican voters, Doge, the White House, they've really tried to identify federal workers with bureaucrats and I think with unions and Democrats. It's not the case. Many are Republicans. What have you learned about the way fired federal workers running for office are identifying with people in the GOP or who identify as conservative? Well, it's still pretty early to say whether it will affect election results.

19:08But I will say we have seen anecdotally that the Run for Something candidates who are either former fired federal workers or whom the reduction in the federal government has directly affected their lives can really connect with voters. You know, Run for Something just had a candidate on Clarion County, Pennsylvania, which is a county that Trump won 70-30, for whom the Department of Education cuts and the Medicaid cuts really affected his family. He was a parent of a kid with special needs. And he was able to win his 2025 election, in part arguing that this stuff was really personal and it really mattered.

19:39He flipped his district in that red county. So I think we can see these personal stories really do move the needle and can help get around some of the national discourse that the Republican Party is trying to push around who the federal government is and who it serves. We got this email from Sherry who says the federal workforce, those still employed and those who have been forced out, comprises the largest pool of highly educated, knowledgeable and experienced leaders in the U.S. Given the failure of incumbent leaders at the federal level, The only logical response is to support an ex-Fed who is running for federal office, provided, of course, you agree with their platforms.

20:14Amanda, we're hearing a lot about what federal workers think they can bring to political office, but what are some of the challenges for them? What are perhaps some deficits that come from working within the federal government for so long? Well, it's the same challenge that anyone has the first time they run for office, is you've never done this before. And often you've never really been a public person before. or I think particularly for federal workers who may have had to keep their political opinions a little more quiet or a little more offline, becoming the front man or front woman as it is can be really scary and can really push you out of your comfort zone.

20:49The nice thing is that running for office is like art or music or sports. The way you become a politician or the way you get good at this is by doing it. You become an artist by making art. You become a candidate for office by putting your name on the ballot and running. And that's what Run for Something is here to help you learn. Well, so, I mean, so many federal workers we've talked to over the last year on this show, post-doge, post-firings, we've had a lot of them come through here, as you can imagine. And a lot of them have said that the politicizing of the federal workforce has been a major problem for them.

21:21Federal workers are supposed to do their jobs, you know, the same way, regardless of party and regardless of politics. So why does turning to politics, Amanda, feel like the right move for so many federal employees now to make things better when that wasn't supposed to be their mission? You know, we've got to live in the reality that we're in, which is that if we want a better federal government that actually works, we need people leading it who understand it and understand why it matters. The unfortunate truth of the moment is that there are too many people who are sort of administering the federal budgets or even in Congress who want to tear it down.

22:03They don't want it to work. We need people doing so who actually understand why this matters. Allison, what has that transition been like for you moving from the apolitical to being firmly in politics? It's been really, really different. I, you know, in my job was meant to just do my work as it was passed down to me from, you know, the people in my hierarchy and not inject my opinions into it. That's what every federal worker is there to do is to, you know, support the mission for the office they're working for. And now I have the opportunity to actually be very outspoken about my opinions. And it's been an interesting transition for me and trying to find ways to really express what I want to see and what I think is possible rather than just what we need to do.

22:57Michael, what about for you? So in terms of engaging publicly, that's something that it was part of my role in the State Department, engaging, building this network of mayors called the Strong Cities Network. I engage city leaders. So they really, working with them, I learned a lot about their work on the local level. The fundraising is the challenging thing where you ask someone for, let's say, a dollar yesterday, but you make a statement about the LGBTQIA plus community. And all of a sudden they say, well, we're not going to donate to you based on what you said today. So there's what you say that can gain you votes.

23:32There's what you say that can gain you dollars. And sometimes they're at odds. And when you're a new candidate and you're running upstream or swimming upstream, you need to say – you want to say the right things, but you want to stay true to who you are. And it's also if you say something that gets you a vote, but it's not achievable. And so I think as a government, a former Fed, we're focused on accountability and metrics. And so what we're saying, how does that translate into actual policy? So I don't want to make empty promises. And so I tell people when they ask me, what's your opinion on one topic or another topic?

24:10I tell them if my response can fit on the back of a bumper sticker, it's probably not going to be a solution to the problem. And so having that nuanced message, it's not going to – it's not – you need to make sure that your message resonates. But you want to be honest with people who are going to vote for you or donate to you. But have you had to sort of flip a mental switch after working in the federal government for so long, which, again, you're supposed to be apolitical, and now suddenly you have a platform. You have a political perspective, and it's very public. And especially Jen's question, fundraising, having to ask people for money.

24:48Most people in politics, if they're not monsters, find that to be completely abhorrent, but they have to do it. They got to do it. Yeah, everyone has an opinion, but when you're a federal employee, when you show up to work, you leave those opinions at the door. And the difference is now I can tweet about things or post things on social media about my opinions, and it's important. It reflects my campaign. We have to take another quick break, but coming up, the pipeline for federal workers for government jobs is dwindling. Could federal workers turning to public office encourage civic engagement?