Trump zeroes in on election security. His team has cut thousands of election-focused federal workers.

Source: CBS News

July 16, 2026 / 8:30 PM EDT


Election security has been one of President Trump's primary preoccupations for years — lately, he's been pressing Republicans in Congress to pass a voting regulation bill and he delivered a live primetime speech on the topic Thursday night. And yet, since the beginning of his second administration, the government has cut thousands of workers who were tasked with ensuring secure elections in the U.S.

At the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the government's top cyber defense body protecting U.S. election systems, nearly 1,000 CISA personnel — or nearly one-third of the agency's workforce — had left or been removed from active service by mid-2025.

Some were terminated, while others resigned or took administrative leave. Others had contracts that were not renewed or their programs were shut down. Altogether, staffing lingered at around 2,500, down from approximately 3,400 a year earlier. Those numbers were reflected in the Trump administration's budget proposals. The request for the 2025 fiscal year sent by the Biden administration sought about $3 billion for CISA. The fiscal-year 2026 budget proposal sought approximately $2.4 billion and estimated a staff of 2,649 positions.

CISA was established in 2018, during the first Trump administration and received broad bipartisan support, investment and praise. But after President Trump lost the 2020 election, and the director of the agency, Chris Krebs, described the election as "the most secure in American history," the president criticized what he called Krebs' "highly inaccurate" comment and fired him.

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-election-security-cisa-justice-department-fbi-federal-worker-cuts/