Newly hired IRS agent Robert McCabe said he voted for Donald Trump because he believed “there is a lot of stuff in the government that needs fixing.”
It’s why he chose to work for the government.
“To help change. Help change the things that are wrong in the world, you know?” McCabe said. “I thought that someone with his business acumen would have come in with a fine-tooth comb.”
Instead, the Philadelphia resident said Trump has come in with a wrecking ball “destroying people’s lives for no reason.”
On Thursday, McCabe was one of roughly 400 IRS employees to lose their jobs as part of Trump’s efforts, contracted out to Elon Musk, to streamline the government.
Probationary workers like McCabe have been the easiest targets for Musk’s firing squad because they don’t yet have union protections. “It was an Illegal. My performance was good. I was doing everything I was supposed to be doing,” he said.
According to government data obtained by the AP, 220,000 federal employees had less than a year on the job as of March 2024. Most, if not all, are expected to be dismissed.
Many voted for Trump, unaware their jobs were on the chopping block. Last week, first-generation Missouri farmer Skylar Holden said he wishes he’d been more careful with his vote now that he faces the loss of his farm after a freeze instituted by President Donald Trump on funding for key conservation programs.
Holden had signed a $240,000 contract with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) under the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) to improve water lines, fencing, and wells on his farm.
USDA officials recently notified him that his contract was frozen — after Holden had already spent $80,000 on materials and labor. He’s counting on those funds, but it’s unclear if he’ll get the money he was promised.
Even Trump bootlicker Jesse Watters pleaded with Trump and Musk to be a “bit less callous” after a friend of the Fox News host lost his job at the Pentagon.
Trump critics showed little sympathy for Holden or McCabe — probably not the best way to court disaffected voters away from Trump.
“An agent for the Internal Revenue Service is not happy with the man he voted for ya got what u voted for, quit whining .. dumbass,” said one commenter on Raw Story, a left-leaning news aggregator.
“You are behind by a lot Mr. Robert McCabe: You cannot read/hear the news and interpret what’s really taking place,” scolded another.
“You cannot see his lies, especially at his rallies, you cannot understand what will happen when you vote to put a felon with immense power into office. Yes, yes, you are really way, way behind so I am secretly happy for you and your fellow agents who voted for the imbecile because you all are not intelligent enough to be in the agency.”
In the Philadelphia office alone, 250 to 300 probationary IRS employees had lost their jobs as of Thursday, Alex Jay Berman, the executive vice president of the National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 71, told NBC10. He expected that number to reach 400 by the end of the week.
