Jennifer Piggott proudly hung a red-and-blue Trump campaign flag outside her one-story home during the November election race. Now, after she was abruptly fired from her civil service job, her days of supporting the president are over. - REUTERS
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00:00Jennifer Piggott voted for Trump in the November election, then in February, she was fired
00:07from her civil service job.
00:08Absolutely.
00:09I feel a little bit betrayed.
00:11She was among more than 125 people dismissed last month from the Treasury Department's
00:16Bureau of Fiscal Service in Parkersburg, West Virginia.
00:20There's always that back and forth conversation now.
00:22It's like, you knew this was coming, but we didn't.
00:26Everybody that I've talked to understood the devastation that having this administration
00:30in office would do to our lives.
00:38The cuts have shaken up a community that overwhelmingly voted for Trump.
00:42He won West Virginia with 70 percent of the vote, one of his biggest victories.
00:48But the betrayal felt by Piggott, a church-going conservative and three-time Trump voter, comes
00:54as political analysts are examining early signs of a possible backlash in Republican
00:59strongholds like Parkersburg, where the government-slashing efforts of Trump and Doge are beginning to
01:05hit home.
01:06Elon Musk has basically taken over our government and has called the shots, unfortunately, it
01:14seems to be.
01:15A handful of Republican voters who lost their federal jobs joined Democrats at a recent
01:20anti-Doge protest near the Bureau of Fiscal Service offices in Parkersburg.
01:25But the federal job losses in the state could soon extend beyond the BFS building, says
01:30West Virginia University economics professor John Deskins.
01:35West Virginia is at the very top of the states in terms of the federal workforce as a share
01:40of total workforce in the state.
01:42So if the federal layoffs happen, if they hit West Virginia, we stand to suffer a disproportionate
01:47share when those jobs disappear, when that income disappears, when that spending leaves
01:53the state economy.
01:55But in Reuters' interviews with three dozen workers, business owners, and politicians
01:59in Parkersburg, nearly all said that Trump's focus on cutting government spending was a
02:04worthy goal.
02:06And Reuters' Ipsos polling shows Americans' attitude toward Trump are so far essentially
02:11unchanged, since he began firing federal workers in February.
02:16As of this week, his approval rating was holding steady at 44 percent.
02:21Cutting costs and waste and fraud and, and, and.
02:24We love that big picture.
02:25I love that big picture.
02:26My friends, you know, we were excited about that because it is true.
02:30But again, I can't go, I can't help but go back to the fact that what is the decisions
02:36that you're making right now solving in the big picture?
02:40So, so the concept of voting for that again, voting for Elon Musk essentially to wreck
02:46people's lives, I can't do it.
02:49The economic impact of the mass dismissals across America may not be immediately felt.
02:55So far, 100,000 government workers have been fired or taken a buyout.
03:01Parkersburg is bracing for another round of layoffs, with all government agencies ordered
03:05to make plans to cut career staff by March 13th.