‘What’s Been Lost In The Last Six Weeks?’

In just 100 days, President Donald Trump and his Department of Governmental Efficiency chief Elon Musk have dramatically altered the structure of the federal government, with at least 121,000 federal workers laid off or targeted for layoffs, according to a CNN estimate that does not include the huge number of employees who took voluntary buyouts or were placed on administrative leave.

Musk claims his DOGE cuts–which include firings and cuts to federal contracts–have saved $160 billion, far less than his original projections. But what does cutting all those people out of government mean for people expecting a tax refund, a college loan, or protection from consumer fraud or contaminated chicken?

MSNBC’s 11th Hour host Stephanie Ruhle will explore the impact of Trump and Musk’s cuts in human terms Thursday night, with a live town hall, 100 Days of Trump: Forced Out Federal Workers. “Our audience also serve as our guests. And so the entire audience, about 65 people, are fired federal workers,” Ruhle told me, saying the workers represent federal agencies from across the country.

In a blisteringly fast first 100 days, many Americans know about federal workers being fired, but may not have had time to stop and reflect on what that means–not just for those workers, but the government itself. “I think there’s a big appetite from the American people for the idea of DOGE right?” Ruhle said. “The idea of DOGE is to restructure, right? But when you restructure something, you break it down, and then there’s a new structure, and that’s something we haven’t heard about. And so I think it’s really important to explain to our audience, when you when you fire tens of thousands of federal workers, how is that going to impact us?

The federal job cuts have led to protests across the country, with many protesters focusing their anger directly at the president and Elon Musk. But Ruhle says the town hall isn’t about the partisanship behind the cuts. “This isn’t going after the president. This isn’t partisanship,” she said. “This is, let’s explain what’s happening, who it’s impacting. And I think the important part of who it’s impacting is when you cut it doesn’t necessarily mean, oh, the government’s just going to save money. It could potentially mean there’s holes that need to get filled. Because if you want to get rid of agencies, then the question is, where is that work going?”

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“I want to hear from these people, because whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, I don’t think the government has done a great job selling itself to the American people,” Ruhle told me. “The fact that so many American people are like, yeah, the government’s too fat. Cut it. Well, when you talk about what’s a patriot, I don’t know. I would say people who devoted their lives to working for the National Institutes of Health, making a fraction of what they could make in the outside world. We should hear from them. We should understand what they do, because their work is so important, you know?”

The town hall will feature original reporting from MSNBC’s Jacob Soboroff on the impact of the DOGE cuts on federal agencies as he meets and goes behind the scenes with former federal workers as they lobby before Congress. Ruhle will also interview Sen. Cory Booker on the cuts and how Congress is responding.

Booker has said the DOGE-led federal job cuts aren’t about government efficiency, but are more accurately “government-sanctioned sabotage” for the damage they will do to people who depend on government services or will at some point in their lives, like the $2 billion in federal research grants cut at the National Institutes of Health.

“When you’re talking about medical research, when you’re talking about people’s lives, when you’re talking about clinical trials for Alzheimer’s disease or cancer that may take three or four years, you can’t just go in and decide, ‘I’m going to shut those down and maybe I’ll try something else.’ Those are people’s lives at risk,” said Dr. Francis Collins, who led the NIH for twelve years, in an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes.

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“I want to push Cory Booker on the status quo,” Ruhle said. “People voted against the status quo. So the answer isn’t, ‘we don’t want Trump, let’s go back to the other thing.’ The answer is, potentially, what’s the third lane? Because America is open to this idea of, let’s shake things up. But they’re potentially not into the idea of, let’s just burn it down.”

Ruhle’s town hall airs on MSNBC at 9 p.m. ET.