The mood in Washington over Biden: Fear, sadness and looking for an escape hatch

Alarmed group texts that buzz with the latest news. Rank-and-file staff dusting off resumes. A desperate rush to finish top initiatives before the clock runs out.

As President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign buckles under mounting pressure for him to step aside, federal workers throughout Washington are feeling anxious and scared. They have been nervously looking on as Biden’s abrupt evaporation of support has embroiled the Democratic Party in an unprecedented crisis, prompting thousands of employees to game out whether they should be preparing for a change at the White House — and mourning the possible end of the Biden administration that brought relative peace after the volatility of the Trump era.

Interviews with dozens of federal employees revealed a grim mood within the sprawling apparatus of the U.S. government, including the White House, after weeks of uncertainty. Some of these employees are overwhelmed and dejected by Biden’s conundrum — and gripped by worries about the lack of clarity over who will be leading the federal government after November. Many were granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

One White House official described feelings of “sadness” from the question swirling around whether Biden should continue his candidacy.

“We have to make some tough choices. … We’re in battle,” the official said. “We need someone who can represent us. I am incredibly loyal to our president, but it’s hard when you’re putting your life on the line like many of us working every night, every day, when you don’t know who is going to be on the top of the ticket.”

Large group text chains of alarmed USDA staff started to light up the night of Biden’s disastrous debate, as administration officials shared their panic over the president and the future of his administration, according to two current USDA officials and one former Biden USDA official.

Some USDA staff are now openly talking with colleagues about making plans to leave their posts early, according to the three current and former USDA officials.

“One set of folks that seem to be the most concerned and bewildered would be the civil servants within USDA, who have endured so much and that really went out of their way to carry out the Biden rural agenda,” said one of the USDA officials. “Those are the folks that really seemed to be like, do they stay or do they go? Because they just cannot endure another phase of uncertainty.”

Several USDA branches, including the team that oversees the country’s largest anti-hunger program, have already had significant turnover of senior career staff this year and are currently operating with a number of vacancies.

Yet much of the anxieties among federal employees are not centered on Biden, but rather his rival — and what a second Trump administration would entail. When he first came to Washington, former President Donald Trump’s “drain the swamp” mentality left many federal workers feeling despondent, even paranoid, about their standing, fostering a widespread sense of dread that permeated throughout his administration.

Trump proceeded to slash department and agency budgets, paralyzing research and productivity, and his officials even buried the work of employees viewed as contradictory to the administration’s priorities, like at the Agriculture Department. In some cases, Trump named political appointees who critics said were hostile to the missions of the departments they oversaw, such as former Education Secretary Betsy Devos, who had wanted to limit the federal government’s role in education.

“The first rendition of the Trump administration was really, really difficult, and we saw a mass exodus of employees retiring,” said a U.S. Park Service employee. “If we do have an administration shift, other employees will also reconsider their positions and move to the private sector. I don’t know what I’ll end up doing.”

When there’s a change in administration, the president hand-picks a new team of officials to lead departments, positions referred to on the inside as “politicals.” But many of the rank-and-file staff, known as career employees, have been employed by the federal government for decades, transcending multiple administrations from both parties.

The demographics of federal employees reflect the demographics of the country at large, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management.

One current Health and Human Services employee said there isn’t a consensus among their peers about whether Biden should stay or step aside — but many do fear Democrats losing the White House in November.

Worries that major health policies could be gutted in a future Trump administration have eclipsed discussions about whether Biden should stay in the race, especially as officials have sprinted to finish their long list of priorities before the end of the year, the health agency staffer said.

A former Biden administration official who recently left a financial regulator told POLITICO they’ve been hit with a flood of text messages in recent weeks from former colleagues still in government freaking out about the looming possibility of unemployment should Trump win, while asking for help.

“The temperature has gotten a lot hotter over the last few weeks,” said the official. “It feels a lot more likely now than it did prior to the debate that they’re going to be out of work.”