The cost of being in Trump’s crosshairs: Public humiliation

WASHINGTON — It’s not only that the Trump administration is firing government employees en masse, or trying to swallow up neighboring Canada, or squeezing Ukraine, a democratic nation fighting off Russia’s invasion.

For those in the crosshairs, no small part of the ordeal is the public humiliation they’ve endured. The new administration has been rushing to execute its agenda and along the way has left a roadside trail of unsuspecting and, in some cases, helpless casualties.

In recent weeks, the world has seen images of federal workers leaving their building for the last time, tearfully clutching boxes with small plants and other belongings after abruptly learning they’re out of a job. Some of them were given just 15 minutes to clear out their desks.

Justice Department officials perceived to be not fully on board with the Trump agenda were escorted out of the building by law enforcement or security guards as if they had committed wrongdoing.

Does he feel responsible for those who’ve been put out of work? NBC News asked President Donald Trump in an Oval Office appearance Wednesday.

After saying he felt “very badly” for them, Trump suggested that “many” are freeloaders who “never showed up to work.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was invited into the Oval Office last month for a face-to-face meeting about the status of a peace deal. With cameras rolling, Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated their guest after he laid out how Russian President Vladimir Putin had broken past promises.

“You’ve allowed yourself to be in a very bad position,” Trump said.

Vance scolded him for not saying thank you “once.” (Zelenskyy twice thanked Trump in his opening remarks.)

“As riveting as that press conference was, and jaw-dropping as it was, it was really unfortunate for Ukraine and for diplomacy generally in the way that heads of state behave,” Marc Miller, Canada’s minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship, told NBC News in reference to Trump.

Then there’s Miller’s country, or, in Trump’s vision, America’s 51st state. Oh, Canada. A nation that fought beside the U.S. in wartime and sheltered stranded Americans after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks is a nation in name only, Trump has suggested. Speaking to reporters Thursday, Trump said, “To be honest with you, Canada only works as a state.”

Pressing the point, Trump has taken to labeling Canada’s erstwhile prime minister “Governor Trudeau.”

Trump’s supporters often liken him to a “counterpuncher.” Hit him and he’ll hit back. In this case, Justin Trudeau was already flat on the canvas, knocked out. Amid ebbing popularity, he announced his resignation Jan. 6, two weeks before Trump’s inauguration. He left office for good Friday.

Trudeau wasn’t so much counterpunched as sucker punched, as one Canadian official describes it.

“His [Trump’s] approach is abusive; it’s appalling,” the Canadian official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk freely. “I don’t think the president may be aware, but he is now becoming a despised figure in our country. The way he treated our prime minister is a disgrace. And I think everybody, partisanship aside, recognizes that.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

A decade into Trump’s presidential political career, American voters have surely concluded Trump is no Mr. Rogers. Indeed, that may be part of his appeal.

His pugnacity is a deal-breaker for some, a selling point for others who hope the same feral energy that built Trump’s business and brand would, when harnessed on behalf of the U.S., improve their lives.

Howard Lutnick, Trump’s commerce secretary, described Trump’s methods as the reason Americans in some northern states won’t be paying higher energy prices in the coming months.

In a showdown with Ontario Premier Doug Ford, Trump had threatened to raise tariffs on Canadian aluminum and steel from 25% to 50%, in response to Ford’s announcement that he would raise prices by 25% for electricity sold to Michigan, New York and Minnesota. (Ford, in turn, had imposed that surcharge in retaliation for Trump’s tariffs on Canada.)

The tit for tat ended with Ford dropping the surcharge and Trump scrapping the extra tariffs.

Speaking to CBS News last week, Lutnick said, “I think that is the ‘Thank God we have a president who’s taking care of us.’ Because if you were in one of those states and you thought your energy prices were going to go up 25% and you said, ‘Where’s the president?’ And all of a sudden he came down like thunder to make that end, you’d say, ‘Cool. I’m glad that’s the guy in the White House.’ And that’s what we’ve got.”

Still, the Trump administration’s approach in his second term shows a degree of personal animus that seems more pronounced than in the last, diplomats and foreign policy analysts say.

“You’ve seen a different version of Trump in this administration, with probably less cares to give than in the first term,” Canada’s Miller said.

Consider the escalating trade wars. Last week, Trump threatened to slap a 200% tariff on alcohol coming from the European Union in retaliation for a tariff it had imposed on American whiskey.

It gets tough to follow the ball as it ping-pongs between continents, but the whiskey surcharge was Europe’s response to America’s tariffs on steel and aluminum.

Lutnick left little doubt about Trump’s pique when he learned about the whiskey countermove.

“The president was totally annoyed that the Europeans did this, and so you’re going to hear back from someone who emotionally cares about America,” he said on Bloomberg Television. “He cares about America and he wants to take care of Americans.”

Josh Lipsky, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomic Center, said Trump is taking a punitive approach separate from any strategic effort to boost American jobs and wealth.

“It’s actually about trying to punish another country and it’s different from the first term,” Lipsky said. “We did not see tariffs used really in that way — certainly not against a neighbor, but really against any country. It’s the style of economic diplomacy that’s really veering on economic coercion that’s raising so many questions about the approach and the strategy.”

Foreign governments have the wherewithal to fight back. Laid-off workers have little they can do on their own. They’re largely reliant on public employee unions and the court system to reclaim their jobs and fight arbitrary firings.

As the Trump administration goes about shrinking the federal workforce, fired employees say the methods have been impersonal and dehumanizing.

Workers have been notified of their firings in late-night emails that, in some cases, don’t even include their names. One employee at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau received an email at 9 p.m. saying the person had been dismissed.

The letter was addressed to “[EmployeeFirstName] [EmployeeLastName].”

Anthony Badial-Luna, 28, was fired from his job at the Education Department. An Air Force veteran, he had only been working at the department for a month. The letter notifying him of his dismissal said that “based on your performance … you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the agency would be in the public interest.”

Having just started the job, Badial-Luna said his “performance” hadn’t even been reviewed.

“The performance thing was a lie,” said Badial-Luna, a member of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 252. Two federal judges last week agreed on this point and ordered the Trump administration to reinstate the fired workers.

An added insult was that the letter misidentified his position. A management and program analyst, Badial-Luna was told once in the letter that he was being removed from that position, and later that he was losing his job as an “attorney adviser.”

Shernice Mundell, also an Air Force veteran, was fired from her job at the Office of Personnel Management on Feb. 13.

Joining a 2:30 p.m. conference call, she said that she and other employees were told their jobs had been terminated and if they were working in the building, they had until 3 p.m. to gather their things and leave. Mundell said she didn’t know the man who told her they’d been fired and he didn’t introduce himself on the call.

Now she finds herself in a crowded job market, looking for a regular paycheck that will help cover her $1,200 monthly mortgage.

“You go to LinkedIn and see a job you might be a good for but, it’s like 1,000 other people are all looking for the same job,” said Mundell, 47, a member of AFGE Local 32. “One-hundred people applied for the job in the last day. It’s crazy.”

“It was just heartless,” she said of her firing. “Like we’re not even people. What we do is affecting everyday American citizens, and it didn’t matter.”