Figures Condemns Trump’s Mistreatment of Federal Workers, Slams President for Taxpayer-Funded Trips to Mar-a-Lago

WASHINGTON – In a heartfelt floor statement, Rep. Shomari C. Figures (AL-02) condemned President Donald J. Trump and Republicans for treating federal workers as statistics and not as human beings. 

Figures also called out Republicans' hypocrisy in their fiscal priorities, highlighting the absurdity of cuts to essential jobs while taxpayer dollars continue to be spent on Trump’s frequent trips to Mar-a-Lago. 

Watch Rep. Figures’ floor statement on YouTube. 

Below are Rep. Figures’ remarks, as delivered on the House floor today: 

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last night, I had the privilege of sitting in this chamber yet again, and I witnessed a lot of my colleagues cheering as the president rattled off the numbers, the statistics, the data of how many people he has terminated, he has laid off, or fired, or whatever you want to call it—people out of a job.

As I sat here, I sat in a little bit of amazement because these aren’t just statistics we’re talking about. These are people. These are real people; these are real lives. These are not just data points in a spreadsheet. These are real families that we’re talking about. These aren’t just numbers in some speech or in some press release that my colleagues put out expressing joy over the misfortune of hundreds of thousands of people. These are real people—some of whom that I know. Some of whom that I’ve met, some of whom you know. These are people. 

These are people. Yet, last night, many people in here cheered as the president took pride in announcing his terminations of them. You should not gloat over your brother in his time of misfortune— that's what the Bible says. But gloating is what we saw. Gloating is what we've seen. Gloating is what we continue to see. Cheering is what we continue to see. Hand clapping. High fives. Over people losing their jobs. People losing their livelihoods.

Cheering the downfall of people. Cheering as if these people are somehow just invisible numbers, invisible things. Cheering as if these are not people who are paying mortgages. Cheering as if these are not people who are paying student loans. Cheering as if these are people who are not paying car notes or putting their kids through school or taking care of their elderly parents or paying for a wedding or new parents. These are people. These are people.

These are real people. These are real lives that we’re impacting. And yet we sit in here and we cheer. We cheered the downfall. And the sad part about it is that regardless of how you feel about the federal government, regardless of if you feel these jobs were unnecessary or unneeded—even if you feel that way—I think we can all agree that there is a better way to treat somebody than sending a 20-year worker, a 15-year worker, a 10-year worker an email on a Saturday night saying, you are out of a job on Monday morning.

There are better ways to run a country. There are better ways to run a business. It’s not necessary to mistreat people that way. You could incentivize people who are close to retirement to retire early. You could freeze hiring. You could give people a 6-month, a 9-month, a 12-month heads-up that we’re phasing out your job. But to get rid of people in the manner in which this Administration has done it is simply indecent.

It is, as my five-year-old son would say, it is just not nice. It’s not how you treat people. It’s not how we should be treating people in America. We should not be cheering and gloating over the downfall of people who did nothing wrong but show up to work. It’s not right.

Meanwhile, all of this is done, allegedly, to save money. But if we were serious about saving money, the president would lead by example and not by exception. Because we know that practically every other weekend, the president is traveling down to Mar-a-Lago on trips that cost the American taxpayer on average about $3.5 million per trip.

Per trip. And that's not even including the money that members here in this body spend to join him down there for meetings that they could have here in Washington, D.C. for free. But we’re allegedly saving money—that’s the goal—but we’re not, because my colleagues are pushing a budget that’s going to add trillions of dollars to the national deficit, while firing hardworking men and women, while we continue to spend $3.5 million per trip for the president to go gallivanting to Mar-a-Lago.

That’s something that DOGE should look into if we are serious about saving money. They should look into that. That is something they should seriously look at—$3.5 million per trip.

Tell Mr. Musk to go and DOGE that, because that is something that is real. That is something that is within the president’s power to be able to stop. But yet, we want to come in this chamber and take pride in firing and announcing the terminations of hardworking men and women.