Listen: ‘A President is Not King Unless We Bow’
AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler talks with Rev. Dr. William Barber.
By Bob Hennelly
Less than a month into Donald Trump’s second presidential term, his full court press to let billionaire Elon Musk dismantle the federal government is getting major pushback. On this episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, we’re looking at the protests that are cropping up in Washington D.C. and dozens of states.
Mass layoffs of tens of thousands of provisional worker in essential job titles in agencies including the FAA and the Veterans Administration are being challenged in the court. Similarly, Musk’s unilateral shutting down of the US Agency for International and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have raised significant constitutional questions.
"This administration has abused the probationary period to conduct a politically driven mass firing spree, targeting employees not because of performance, but because they were hired before Trump took office,” Dr. Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said this week.
Kelley continued, "These firings are not about poor performance —there is no evidence these employees were anything but dedicated public servants. They are about power. They are about gutting the federal government, silencing workers, and forcing agencies into submission to a radical agenda that prioritizes cronyism over competence.
While Congressional Democrats have had trouble getting footing in their new role as the minority—unions have been leading the charge to counter the Trump/Musk junta overreach. It was the American Federation of Government Employees who first filed the lawsuit challenging Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, rightly observing DOGE was not actually a federal agency.
At a AFGE-sponsored lunchtime rally on Capitol Hill last week, several hundred federal civil servants braved the cold to hear from a long list of members of Congress and national labor leaders including AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler.
“They are afraid of you—Trump and Musk and the oligarchs they work for—they are scared of your power. They are betting you will be afraid of them; so afraid that you will accept a buyout or comply in advance with their assertion of absolute power,” Rev. Dr. William Barber told the crowd. “But we know a president is not a king unless we bow. A dictator is not a dictator unless we bow.”
Barber continued, “Our knees, your knees are not made for bowing to power-drunk neo-fascists. To everybody else we stand—truth to power. We stand tall because whenever wannabe dictators have tried to takeover in our history they always start with government workers who are committed to a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. They know as workers stand together and fight—haters can’t win.”
Last week, the Department of Justice moved to suspend the criminal prosecution of Mayor Eric Adams on federal corruption charges until after the upcoming Mayoral election and a full review of the charges by the incoming U.S. Attorney for the Southern District.
In the DOJ letter, it also asserted that the criminal prosecution of Adams had "unduly restricted" the mayor’s "ability to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime that escalated under the policies of the prior administration."
During City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams’ press briefing, she blasted the DOJ’s interference in Mayor Adams corruption case, which she described as an example of the kind of “lawlessness” she believes President Trump exhibited when he pardoned Jan. 6 rioters who assaulted police and attempted to disrupt the 2020 certification of President Biden.
“Each day, this new administration is actively upending the rule of law. Just as it pardoned those who rioted and assaulted law enforcement officers at the Capitol on January 6,” Speaker Adams said. “This week, we saw the Justice Department issue an unprecedented letter that meddles in the federal criminal case against the mayor. This letter is a political weapon aimed at New York City and corruptly interferes in the legal process. It seems overtly intended to serve as a continued instrument of blackmail against our city’s mayor to serve as an arm of the Trump administration. It blatantly states what it expects of the mayor and leaves the perpetual threat of his criminal case to force his compliance.”
Speaker Adams also called “deplorable” the federal government’s clawing back of $80 million of FEMA funds from the city’s bank account to help house the 200,000-plus migrants that were mostly bussed to New York City by Texas Governor Gregg Abbott. Adams noted the funds were appropriated by the Congress
“Elon Musk, the wealthiest person in the world, who no one voted for, but has been working to take away resources from everyday Americans, directed the administration to unjustly take federal funding that was already allocated away from our city,” Adams told reporters.
Adams continued, “From childcare and public schools to healthcare and public safety, there is so much at stake, with an unhinged presidential administration comfortable with creating chaos. The people of our city count on their city, state, and federal governments, and it is more critical than ever for us to step up with strong local democracy in the face of increasing tyranny.”
Listen to the entire show below: