GOP Senator Insults Fired Federal Employee, Refuses To Apologize | EUROtoday

Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) stated he “won’t apologize” for telling a former federal employee who was fired that he “probably deserved it” as a result of he’s a “clown.”

On Tuesday, a video went viral of Mack Schroeder, who labored for the Department of Health and Human Services, confronting Banks in a Senate hallway, asking him if he’s going to cease the so-called Department of Government Efficiency from illegally slicing extra authorities jobs that assist Americans get social providers.

In the video, Banks tells Schroeder, “You probably deserved it.” Schroeder responds in disbelief: “I deserved it? Wow. Yeah, that’s great to hear. Why did I deserve it?”

“Because you seem like a clown,” Banks responds because the elevator doorways shut.

After the video drew criticism, Banks doubled down on Wednesday, saying in a video posted on social media that Democrats and the “left-wing media have lost their minds.”

“A clown is a clown who’s chasing senators through the halls with a cellphone complaining about losing a left-wing woke job in the federal government that should have never been a job to begin with,” Banks stated. “I won’t back down. I won’t apologize for it. I support President [Donald] Trump and the DOGE effort 100% to cut wasteful spending and woke jobs out of the federal government, and we’re just getting started.”

Schroeder, who labored as a price range analyst for HHS, stated in an interview with FOX59/CBS4 that he was stunned by Banks’s response.

“It just really surprised me and took me aback because I know there are going to be a lot of people in the state of Indiana who are losing services as of today with these huge cuts to HHS,” Schroeder stated. “I would hope that he would care more about his constituents to have concerns about a lot of these programs changing.”

Led by billionaire Elon Musk, the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has been inflicting chaos within the federal authorities by firing staff — then generally rehiring them after courtroom orders or after the administration realized how essential their roles had been.

In Schroeder’s video, he stated he was fired on Feb. 14, which was when officers with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had been informed about 1,300 probationary workers had been dropping their jobs, based on The Associated Press.

Other HHS workers obtained discover Tuesday that their jobs had been being eradicated, based on the AP. The job cuts are anticipated to avoid wasting the division $1.8 billion yearly, which is about 0.1% of the division’s $1.7 trillion price range. The cuts are wide-ranging, with impacts on medical analysis, packages aimed toward stopping smoking and gun violence, and the workplace handing Freedom of Information Act requests.