Nessel blasts Trump, Musk, RFK Jr. for gutting health agencies: ‘a flagrant violation of the law’

Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump, with the help of billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk, has sought to vastly reduce the number of government workers through mass firings, drawing concern, criticism and several legal challenges. 

According to a report from Reuters, Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, an advisory body created through an executive order, has prompted the firing, severance and early retirement of more than 260,000 government employees. However, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston has issued a temporary restraining order, blocking efforts to restructure the federal government. 

In March, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced his own DOGE-related cuts, aiming to terminate 20,000 full time employees and reorganize the department’s 28 divisions to 15. The department has also closed its regional offices in Boston, Chicago, New York City, San Francisco and Seattle, halving its total regional facilities.

However, a coalition of 20 attorneys general, including Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, have taken legal action against Kennedy and several department officials, arguing these cuts would functionally dismantle the DHHS. 

If the court doesn’t provide immediate relief, and the case is allowed to play out, Nessel warned that these cuts could cause “immeasurable harm” to the nation and its health system. 

“You’re essentially leaving the agency, as a whole, completely dysfunctional by eliminating so many departments or regions, you know entire offices just wiped off the map and, of course, getting rid of some people with some incredible expertise,” Nessel told the Michigan Advance

The DHHS is eliminating roughly 3,500 employees at the Food and Drug Administration, 2,400 at the Centers for Disease Control, 1,200 at the National Institutes of Health and 300 at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

It will also work to consolidate the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, Health Resources and Services Administration, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health under the new Administration for a Healthy America. 

Public health and infectious diseases know no borders, Nessel said, warning that the decision to shutter regional health programs, close CDC labs and close all 10 of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services’ regional offices jeopardizes public health in every community. 

“Also it’s just a flagrant violation of the law. Disregards the separation of powers, and it places this new burden now, of course, on the states, because there are certain things that you rely upon the federal government to do, especially in terms of coordinating efforts between the states,” Nessel said.

“Let’s say you have an outbreak of a new variant in bird flu that could impact the entire country. Maybe that happens in Vermont. Is Vermont supposed to coordinate that response with Michigan? You know, it’s the CDC that does that. How are we supposed to make up for that?” Nessel questioned. 

While the state has its own lab testing capabilities, the federal government and its labs act as a conduit for sharing data with the states and across the nation, as well as monitoring other countries. 

“They fill this incredibly important role in terms of preventing the next global pandemic and mitigating it here in Michigan. And it’s a burden that, frankly, the state simply can’t sustain. It’s the reason why we have a federal government,” Nessel said. 

Additionally, it’s the federal government’s job to ensure its laws are enforced, Nessel said, and Congress delegates money to ensure those laws are complied with. Deciding to withhold those funds and cut staffing without regard for which workers are essential, and shutting down offices without regard for whether the department can continue to comply with federal law not only violates the law and the Constitution in a myriad of ways, Nessel contends, but it compromises the safety and health of people in Michigan. 

While Kennedy said the intent of the cuts was to address waste and inefficiency within the department, Nessel said the argument doesn’t hold water due to the way the DHHS approached its firings. 

“It’s not as if it took any significant period of time to evaluate, you know, is this really a necessary function of the government, and do we really need this to fulfill the mission of this agency? There were no determinations of any kind made like that” Nessel said, pointing to comments Kennedy made to the media where he admitted 20% of cuts at the agency were a mistake, and would need to be reinstated. 

He also admitted he had forgone a line-by-line review of each employee’s jobs because “it takes too long, and you lose political momentum.”

Among those cuts were doctors and the administrator of the World Trade Center Health program, which certify illnesses in first responders and survivors of the 9/11 terrorist attacks as part of the requirements of the Zadroga Act, with the New York Daily News reporting nearly all 16 employees cut from the program had been rehired as of May 7, including the program’s director, James Howard. 

“If you were more careful and cautious before you fired them in the first place, maybe we wouldn’t have this issue,” Nessel said. 

The case filed by the attorneys general points to several other examples of offices impacted by the cuts, including the Food and Drug Administration missing a vaccine application deadline and canceling a critical test for the bird flu virus, suspending the testing program for a year. 

The case also points to Kennedy’s anti-vaccine views and history of promoting misinformation about vaccination. 

According to the filing, some FDA employees were told to go home following the March 27 downsizing announcement and prepare for the possibility that they would not be back. If they received a termination email, they would lose access to the building.

“Beginning in the early morning of April 1, 2025, HHS employees in all offices, administrations, agencies and sub-agencies began to receive termination notices. Some employees had not seen their early morning termination email before leaving for the office, and were surprised when they arrived at work to find their access cards had been deactivated,” the case reads. 

“Many notices contained errors. For example, some listed incorrect information about workers’ recent performance ratings. At FDA, the listed point of contact for the Equal Employment Opportunity office had departed a month earlier,” it says. 

While this case doesn’t directly address that lack of support and protection for employees, several unions and groups of federal employees have taken legal action on these concerns. 

“It’s embarrassing and disturbing to see any workers treated like this, but especially, you know, ones that have worked so hard to protect the American people,” Nessel said.

She also pointed to the ways these firings would impact the economy, calling them “penny wise but pound foolish.”

In the announcement, Kennedy promised to lower costs for taxpayers, with the 10,000 person layoff expected to cut down on $1.8 billion a year. However, Nessel said these costs would crop up in other ways.

“What has a bigger impact on the economy than people’s health, you know? If people are too sick to be able to work, that’s a problem,” Nessel said, noting that widespread infectious disease can have a devastating impact on the economy. 

“It’s not just that we’re not really saving money. We’re going to lose an unknown amount of money, an untold amount of money, if people who could otherwise have been healthy are not healthy,” Nessel said. 

While Michigan is still assembling its state-specific declarations, these firings will also impact the state’s efforts on issues like mental health and create issues in how they distribute resources within their budgets, Nessel said. 

“If we’re trying to prioritize and say, ‘Well, how much money are we going to spend on substance abuse, or how much money are we going to spend on mental health treatment?’ It’s kind of important to know how much of it you’re going to get from the federal government. And because this is done in such a chaotic manner, it’s really hard to know,” Nessel said.

In addition to their case on the mass firings, Nessel and 23 other attorneys general filed suit against Kennedy and the DHHS for terminating almost $11 billion in critical public health grants across the country. 

That includes $379.3 million in grant funding awarded and owed to the State of Michigan for certain mental health and substance abuse grants and grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention meant to support infectious disease control and vaccinations for children and vulnerable adults, among other programs.