Karoline Leavitt Redefines What Counts as a Judge’s Order

These cuts include at least 27 engineers, 12 program or project managers, 13 program or project analysts, five scientists or physicists, six budget analysts or accountants, as well as multiple attorneys, safety experts, and compliance officers. The job losses are coming despite the NNSA being in its busiest period since the Cold War, according to the Times.

The agency is modernizing the country’s nuclear stockpile, comprising 3,748 bombs and warheads, an effort costing $20 billion a year to arm new land-based missiles, bomber jets, and nuclear submarines. The agency had built itself up to 2,000 workers in January, still short of what it said it needed, but the new cuts undo those gains and undermine the agency’s attempt to build up its staff to handle the workload.

The NNSA is part of the Department of Energy and usually stays out of the news. But it goes to show that even those most critical agencies have been subject to the wanton, haphazard budget cuts championed by Musk and the GOP in the supposed quest to find waste, fraud, and abuse. Many people who left the agency held top-secret security clearances, and it will be tough to train replacements.