Georgia’s U.S. Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock are pushing back against the Trump administration after learning that more than 1,000 employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have been terminated.
The 1,300 CDC job cuts are part of a broader effort to reduce the federal workforce, targeting up to 200,000 employees who have been on the job for less than a year. The CDC, headquartered in Atlanta, currently employs approximately 12,664 workers, according to the Office of Personnel Management.
Ossoff sharply criticized the decision, calling it an “indiscriminate firing” that leaves the nation vulnerable to public health threats.
“President Trump’s indefensible, indiscriminate firing of more than 1,000 CDC personnel in a single day leaves Americans exposed to disease and devastates careers and livelihoods for the world’s most talented doctors and scientists, many of them here in Georgia,” Ossoff said.
In a video posted Wednesday, Ossoff warned about the consequences of the cuts, questioning who would handle public health crises such as measles and tuberculosis outbreaks.
“I insist that the Trump administration cease these unprecedented, partisan, political attacks on the CDC and let the scientists, doctors, and epidemiologists at Georgia’s CDC do their jobs to defend the nation,” he stated.
Warnock echoed Ossoff’s concerns, calling the mass layoffs a reckless move that endangers public health.
“Make no mistake – these firings mean Americans are less safe from future pandemics,” Warnock said in a social media post. “I will do everything I can to fight this.”
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents 800,000 federal workers, condemned the cuts and vowed to take action against them.
“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,” AFGE President Everett Kelley said in a statement Friday. “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.”
The layoffs are part of a broader government downsizing effort led by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under Elon Musk. While the administration claims the cuts will improve efficiency and reduce waste, critics argue that eliminating public health positions could have serious long-term consequences.
