The Trump administration notified eight employees of their termination on Friday following their decision to sign a letter dissenting from current policies at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Associated Press reports.

“The Environmental Protection Agency has a zero-tolerance policy for career officials using their agency position and title to unlawfully undermine, sabotage, and undercut the will of the American public that was clearly expressed at the ballot box last November,” the EPA said in a statement after the administrative leave notices were sent, according to The Washington Post, who first reported the firings.

The letter had hundreds of named and anonymous signers.

“Since the Agency’s founding in 1970, EPA has accomplished (its) mission by leveraging science, funding, and expert staff in service to the American people. Today, we stand together in dissent against the current administration’s focus on harmful deregulation, mischaracterization of previous EPA actions, and disregard for scientific expertise,” the letter read.

Agency spokesperson Carolyn Holran told the Post the letter contains misleading information and represents a “small fraction of the thousands of hard-working, dedicated EPA employees.” 

The Hill reached out to the EPA for comment.

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), a labor union for federal workers, said the EPA firings were illegal.

“The Trump administration and EPA’s retaliatory actions against these workers was clearly an assault on labor and free speech rights,” Justin Chen, president of AFGE Council 238, said in a statement to the Post. 

“It is clear that the actions taken by management were baseless and meant to punish any modicum of dissent identifying potential harm to the American Public and violation of the Agency’s mission.”

Another AFGE president said the move was meant to intimidate fellow employees from speaking out against the current administration and agency heads.

“They are trying to intimidate employees into doing the agency’s bidding and making sure that they don’t go public when there is a time that the agency is not looking after human health and the environment,” Nicole Cantello, president of AFGE Local 704, which represents 1,000 EPA workers in Chicago, told the Post.

Six of the dismissed employees were on probationary status and two others were career employees, according to the AP.

Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, the former head of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), on Thursday said Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has not been briefed by agency experts on measles, COVID-19 and the flu.

“No one from my center has ever briefed him on any of those topics,” Daskalakis told Kaitlan Collins during a Thursday evening appearance on CNN’s “The Source.”

“Perhaps he has alternate experts that he may trust more than the experts at CDC that the rest of the world regards as the best scientists in the areas,” he added.

The Hill has contacted HHS for comment.

Daskalakis resigned from his post on Wednesday following the Trump administration’s dismissal of CDC Director Susan Monarez, whom the White House said did not “align” with the president’s agenda.

He, alongside several other officials, decried new agency policies citing decision making based on a lack of scientific evidence, but rather a political agenda.

The former CDC official said Kennedy is receiving information from “somewhere,” but he has not come to CDC experts for advice on various infectious diseases, despite a recent measles outbreak that infected hundreds in states across the country.

“He’s getting information from somewhere, but that information is not coming from CDC experts who really are the world’s experts in this area […] and he’s not taking us up on several offers to brief him on these very important topics,” Daskalakis said.

His claims echo those included in his resignation letter, in which he wrote: “We are seven months into the new administration, and no CDC subject matter expert from my Center has ever briefed the Secretary. I am not sure who the Secretary is listening to, but it is quite certainly not to us.”

Kennedy was widely known as a vaccine critic prior to his Senate confirmation hearing, stirring controversy surrounding his fitness to serve at the helm of a department dedicated to ensuring public health. 

In recent months, the secretary has fired members of a committee dedicated to providing CDC officials with recommendations to improve standing immunizations and replaced them with individuals who promote anti-vaccine rhetoric.

Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe (R) has called for a special session for the state Legislature to address redistricting, queuing it up to potentially be the next state to redraw its congressional district lines. 

Kehoe announced his decision Friday in a release, saying the Legislature will convene Wednesday and unveil his map proposal. As expected, the proposal targets Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) in the state’s 5th Congressional District, adding more area from outside Kansas City to make it more conservative-leaning. 

Cleaver slammed the proposal as unconstitutional and said it ignores the 40 percent of Missourians who voted for Democrats last year. He vowed to continue to fight even if the map is approved.

“I will not surrender the voices of the people who entrusted me to fight for them,” he said in a statement. “The people of the Fifth District and I will fight relentlessly to ensure Missouri never becomes an antidemocratic state, where politicians choose their voters instead of voters choosing their representatives. In the courts and at the ballot box, we will demand that the rule of law is upheld, our voices are heard, and democracy prevails.”

Cleaver is one of two Democrats, along with Rep. Wesley Bell, who represent Missouri in the House. The remaining six are Republicans. 

“Missourians are more alike than we are different, and our Missouri values, across both sides of the aisle, are closer to each other than those of the extreme Left representation of New York, California, and Illinois,” Kehoe said. “Missouri’s conservative, common-sense values should be truly represented at all levels of government, and the Missouri First Map delivers just that.” 

The change may only net Republicans one additional seat in the Show Me State, but it could be critical to the House majority in 2026. Democrats are hoping to pick up as many as five additional seats in California if voters approve the ballot measure allowing state officials to redraw its congressional map ahead of the midterms. 

That is to counterbalance Texas’s new map, which Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed into law earlier Friday, to pick up as many as five additional seats. 

If Missouri and a few other Republican-leaning states also redraw their lines, the GOP could have the edge in the redistricting battle. 

Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Ken Martin condemned Kehoe’s call, saying the governor “caved” to President Trump’s wishes “at the expense of Missouri families and American democracy.” 

“Make no mistake: This all started because Trump and Republicans passed a historically unpopular budget bill that wrecks the working class to reward billionaires,” Martin said. “Now, instead of facing the consequences of their votes, Republicans think they can just choose their voters — that’s not how this works.” 

“As California has shown, Democrats are rising up to protect voters’ sacred rights, and we’re not pulling our punches,” he continued. “The DNC will stand with Democrats protecting the rights of all Americans as Donald Trump and spineless Republicans try to rig the game against the will of the people.” 

Kehoe also called for the Legislature to take up legislation related to ballot measures in the special session to require a period for public comment before measures are certified for signatures to be gathered and that a measure receive majority support statewide and in each congressional district to be approved.