(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) The leftist Washington Post claimed Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency’s spending cuts drove dozens of bureaucrats to “panic attacks,” “depression” and even “suicidal thoughts.” However, their own reporting undercuts that narrative.
In its puff piece, The Post highlighted 30 current and former federal workers who purportedly spiraled after losing, or fearing the loss of, their taxpayer-funded jobs. Some described feeling “devalued, demoralized and scared for themselves.”
Yet The Post conveniently buried signs that these employees were already battling with mental health and medical issues.
One example cited by The Post was Monique Lockett, a Social Security Administration employee who died earlier this year of heart disease.
According to the medical examiner, Lockett’s cause of death was “hypertensive, atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.”
Still, The Post tried to blame her death on the Trump administration’s effort to reform the Social Security Administration, even while admitting that Lockett had “risk factors for heart disease, including obesity, high blood sugar and high cholesterol.”
Some of her co-workers had retired or taken buyouts, while she opted to stay behind and voluntarily worked longer hours.
Another case involved an anonymous NIH researcher who had already been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a condition The Post admits she inherited from her family. Despite this, the leftist paper claimed her symptoms worsened under Trump.
“But in recent weeks, suicidal thoughts have come back so strongly that she’s depended on a safety plan with her husband — limited medication in their house, no guns, and emergency contacts on speed dial,” The Post added.
The paper also highlighted the case of Caitlin Cross-Barnet, a mother of three who committed suicide after her job at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation was cut.
According to The Post, Cross-Barnet had battled depression for years. Her job, described by the paper as “wonky, even by government standards,” consisted of testing “tiny changes” in Medicaid.
In response to The Post’s implication that Trump’s campaign promises to downsize the federal bureaucracy were to blame, the White House said: “What about the January 6 defendants and political prisoners who suffered real trauma and committed suicide over the harassment, bullying and imprisonment by bureaucrats who weaponized the government against them?”
