Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-8th) was one of several members of Congress who addressed a crowd of hundreds outside NOAA’s Silver Spring headquarters Monday, just days after the Trump administration cut hundreds of jobs from the agency nationwide. (Photo by Jack Bowman/Maryland Matters)
Hundreds gathered at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Silver Spring headquarters Monday morning in enthusiastic defiance of the Trump administration’s layoff of an estimated 650 agency workers nationwide Thursday.
Despite occasional vitriol directed at the administration, the hourlong rally was mostly peaceful, with those in attendance expressing support for the agency and its workers. The crowd, complete with a “rapid response choir,” grew as the protest went on – by the end, some attendees had to stand on the sidewalk on the other side of the street.
The event was headlined by a procession of speakers, including Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-8th), Rep. April McClain Delaney (D-6th), Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-4th) and several NOAA scientists and officials.
“If you believe in facts, if you believe in science, if you believe in the truth, you need NOAA,” Raskin said, to cheers from the crowd.
NOAA, whose portfolio includes everything from weather forecasts to fisheries management, is just the latest federal agency to be hit by cuts as President Donald Trump’s administration attempts to dramatically reduce the size of the federal workforce.
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Tom Di Liberto fell victim to Thurday’s cuts just two weeks before graduating from probationary employee status that allowed the administration to fire him. He said that “the reason people work at NOAA is because they want to help people,” and that it had been a dream since his childhood to work for the agency.
According to Di Liberto, the cuts leave the agency in a precarious position.
“That’s what makes these illegal firings so dangerous,” Di Liberto told the crowd. “We are less safe today than we were last Thursday. Some of the best were fired, and now we’re asking the incredible folks still working here to do more with less.”
Ivey echoed that sentiment in his own remarks, saying that while the stated goal of cuts is efficiency, the results put people in peril.
“By tearing down the government like this,” Ivey said, “he’s making things dangerous and less safe for the country.”
As in the case of several other protests against federal layoffs, Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency that he directs were targets of both the speakers and the audience. Many in the crowd hoisted signs with slogans such as “leash that DOGE” and “save NOAA, stop DOGE.”
“That Elon Musk-Donald Trump administration needs a little constitutional refresher,” Raskin said.
“Elon Musk, you didn’t create NOAA, Congress created NOAA,” Raskin continued, saying that only Congress could dismantle it.
As he has throughout the first few weeks of Trump’s presidency, Raskin told the crowd that continuing to protest is a critical element of Democratic resistance.
“A rally a day keeps the fascists away,” Raskin said, a message he has delivered at other demonstrations.
Richard Spinrad, a former Biden-appointed administrator at NOAA, called Musk and DOGE a “bull in a china shop.”
“You know what happens when you have a bull in a china shop? You get a lot of broken china, and a lot of bullsh-t,” Spinrad said to a huge round of cheers from the crowd.
The only tense moment came when a Department of Homeland Security officer interrupted, saying that someone had left a suspicious bag and directing the crowd to disperse.
When people protested, attempting instead to find the owner of the bag, the officer told the crowd to let him do his job – to which one member of the crowd responded by yelling, “While you still have it!”
The bag was claimed, and the rally continued without incident.
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