Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, quickly condemned the Trump administration’s offer to roughly 2 million federal employees to resign in exchange for pay, saying in a Senate floor speech that the deal was a trick, that the president didn’t have the authority to make the offer and employees who resign may not be paid.

A judge in Massachusetts paused a deadline to decide on whether to take the buyout, leaving some workers unsure of where their acceptance of the deal leaves them.

But Poole, an Air Force veteran who now works as a civilian trainer, says he's lost all trust in the government as President Donald Trump pushes a now-or-never buyout on federal workers and Democrats seem powerless to stop him.

Undergirding a fight formed in group texts and between cubicles is a conviction that nonpartisan civil servants provide a necessary check on Trump’s power.