In late April, air traffic controllers at Newark Liberty International Airport experienced every pilot’s and passenger’s nightmare: total technological blackout. As many as 20 flights were in motion—some approaching at hundreds of miles per hour—when radar and communications systems failed. “We don’t have a radar,” one controller said, his voice tense in a now widely circulated audio clip. “I don’t know where you are.” For 90 agonizing seconds, lives hung in the balance.
What caused this near-tragedy wasn’t a foreign cyberattack or natural disaster. It was the predictable consequence of President Donald Trump’s quiet war on federal data systems—the invisible framework that keeps this country safe, informed, and functioning.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), responsible for that radar system, has been hollowed out under Trump’s second term. In February, hundreds of FAA employees were fired under the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an agency spearheading mass layoffs of probationary federal workers. Since then, staffing shortages have plagued air traffic control, pushing the system to a breaking point. Following the Newark incident, multiple traumatized controllers went on medical leave—further compounding an already dire staffing crisis.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has promised to hire replacements and upgrade technology. But promises can’t paper over the damage already done. DOGE’s cost-cutting crusade is undermining not just aviation, but the entire infrastructure of government data collection—vital work that underpins everything from job reports to hurricane preparedness.
This isn’t hypothetical. This is already happening.
Over at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), critical soil testing in wildfire-ravaged areas of Los Angeles County was skipped earlier this year. Historically, FEMA tests for toxic residues after major fires—chemicals that can seep into drinking water and harm local communities. Not this time. FEMA, like many other agencies, is bleeding staff and budget under Trump’s mandate to shrink the so-called “administrative state” at any cost. Even FEMA’s very existence is now under review, with Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem floating the idea of dissolving it altogether.
This scorched-earth approach to federal governance is dangerously shortsighted. FEMA, NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), the National Weather Service, and countless lesser-known agencies form the data backbone of American life. They predict storms. They track wildfires. They warn about rising tides, infectious diseases, and environmental hazards before they spiral out of control.
Take NOAA, for example. It provides crucial oceanic and atmospheric data used by the Coast Guard, commercial fishermen, and rescue operations. But hundreds of NOAA employees have been dismissed. One leaked memo shows the Trump administration plans to cut NOAA’s budget by 27 percent—decimating ocean research and satellite systems. The office responsible for long-term climate and weather research faces a 74 percent budget slash.
“If we don’t understand what’s happening and why it’s happening, you can’t be adapting, you can’t be resilient,” said Don Wuebbles, an atmospheric scientist and NOAA advisor. “You’re just going to suffer.”
The data crisis doesn’t end with the environment. The Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis—essential sources of unbiased economic data—have seen key advisors dismissed. The administration’s push to make it easier to fire civil servants raises fears that political appointees could pressure economists to manipulate statistics like inflation, unemployment, and job growth for partisan gain.
Even the Energy Information Administration, an independent agency closely monitored by investors, has suffered a brain drain. Staff have reportedly self-censored or withheld data, fearing White House retaliation. In one suppressed report, analysts projected renewable energy would overtake fossil fuels by 2050. The Trump administration allegedly buried it.
And now, with Trump’s firing of all 400 authors working on the upcoming National Climate Assessment, a congressionally mandated report used to guide U.S. climate policy, America is hurtling into the future blindfolded.
This is not about bureaucracy. It’s about survival.
From radar towers to wildfire zones, from labor reports to hurricane warnings, the invisible scaffolding of American life depends on public servants gathering accurate, timely data. But under Trump’s renewed war on the federal workforce, that scaffolding is collapsing.
The result? A government that can no longer see what’s coming—until it’s already to
