Federal employee calls into Sean Hannity's show and pleads for advice on firings
Hannity: “The main focus is going to be on limiting the bureaucracy. How many of these jobs are redundant? … Just make yourself as essential as possible.”
Published
Federal employee calls into Sean Hannity's show and pleads for advice on firings
Citation
From the February 6, 2025, edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Sean Hannity Show
CALLER: The reason I'm calling is so I'm a current federal employee. I became a federal employee shortly after I got off from active duty from the Army. My wife's a federal employee. The federal government, when it comes to civilian employees is less than 1% of the entire U.S. population, right? So, like, 2.4 million based off current OPM information. And we have no idea what's going on.
And it's frustrating all of us because, like, how do you make life decisions, try to figure out what to do, how do you know to send your kids to college, if you could afford to buy a house when there's no information coming from the administration, which I support strongly.
I'm a strong supporter of this administration and what their efforts are, but they're not communicating to us to any way of what their overall goal and plan is other than, you know, you see some politicians like, "Oh, we're going to cut 60 to 70% of the federal government." Well, okay, that's everybody --
SEAN HANNITY (HOST): Well, I haven't heard that number, 60 or 70%. Can you be more specific? What do you do for the federal government?
CALLER: I don't want be too specific because some people I work with listen, and I don't want to have to -- so I work for -- under the Bureau of Land Management.
HANNITY: Well, if they listen, they're probably going recognize your voice, but that's okay. Go ahead. You don't have to tell us.
CALLER: So I work for Bureau of Land Management, doing, so for them -- me personally, I think my position will probably be okay, but I don't think people realize what everything you know, we're not -- "Oh, we want to cut all this stuff." You know? Mr. Musk talks about cutting, you know, $2 trillion. Well, that's beyond what the entire discretionary budget every year is, you know, roughly 1.7, 1.8 for discretionary. You would have to eliminate everything, the entire federal government to hit that.
HANNITY: He's not going to eliminate the entire government. What they're trying to do and this buyout, I think it ends today at 5:00, opportunity, and there's been, you know, 20 or 30,000 people that have accepted it. If they don't get enough people to leave -- now, let me ask you. Are you showing up to work every day? Do you go to the office every day?
CALLER: So my position is an in-office position, but, like, my wife works remotely for the government. But, I mean, honestly, I think she puts in more hours being remote, but she also makes less money because her pay is actually set for where it's supposed to be.
So she makes $14,000 less than her counterparts who work in the office, because if you -- they do it right.
HANNITY: It may be advisable for her to show up in the office because I know that's a big sticking point with the administration. They want people to show up. You may want to revisit that. That would be my advice to you.
CALLER: To return?
HANNITY: Yeah. I mean, number two, they're not going to fire every federal employee. There's too much work that the federal government needs to be done, assuming that what your work and her work are essential. I don't think you're going to have anything to worry about. You're certainly not involved in weaponization or politicizing in any way, so that's not going to be anything to worry about.
But I think working from home is going to be an issue, and maybe your wife should be a little proactive. Check-in with her supervisor or her boss and see if that's going to be acceptable or if they want her to go into the office, she may have to go into the office.
CALLER: If we can get people like you, and you know, to talk about the everyday federal employee, right? We're not all bureaucrats, right? There's a lot of people out there doing a lot.
SEAN: No, listen. There are a ton of great people in the federal government that do amazing work every day. You're not going to get an argument from me on that, and I'm sure you and your wife are two of them.
CALLER: You're one of the few people who support us. There's not a lot of people out there, and hopefully --
HANNITY: No, I would, no. I think people, for example, you know, if people are having, you know, trouble with Social Security or Medicare, they need, we need federal employees to be there to help them. They have to serve those people. So, yeah, I don't think people but, however, the waste, fraud, abuse, and corruption has to go away.
And I think that's where the main focus is going to be on limiting the bureaucracy. How many of these jobs are redundant? How many of these jobs, you know -- it's going to be things like that. But one of the things the government also said is they want us, you know, get away from Washington and detach from Washington and have people more spread out like in your state of Wyoming.
So, I think that actually may work in your favor, especially if you're providing essential services for people. So I would be, you know, I would be very proactive.
You know, check in with your boss, have your wife do the same, you know, see what is needed. You want -- you want to keep your job. You want to keep your career going. I don't blame you. I totally understand it.
And there's definitely room for probably millions of employees that are not going to be losing their jobs, that are just going to be doing great work every day without, you know, the waste, fraud, and abuse, and actually doing work for the American people.
So I would say, you know, just make yourself as essential as possible, but that's advice I'd give to anybody on any job.