There are a lot of metaphors floating around the Trump administration trying to capture its approach to reshaping the federal government.

Here's one from Elon Musk.

This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy.

Mersehersaw!

Musk wielded, said chainsaw, on stage at the conservative political action conference.

Through the Doge initiative, Musk has overseen many of the massive cuts to federal agencies so far.

President Trump himself has been using different metaphors.

We say the scalpel rather than the hatchet, he said, on social media, or, as he put it, in the Oval

office last month.

I don't want to see a big cut where a lot of good people are cut.

I want the cabinet members to keep the good people and the people that aren't doing a good

job that are unreliable, don't show up to work, etc.

Those people can be cut.

So far, the federal job cuts have affected a lot of people who were doing important work.

People like Scott Laney, who worked on the Coal Workers Health Surveillance Program, run by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in Morgantown, West Virginia.

We are the nation's doctors for coal miners when it comes to their lung health.

By law, the program gave every minor in the country access to care for free.

It conducted mobile x-ray screenings for black lung disease,

but staff for the operation was slashed and the program was shuttered.

It's going to have impacts on my neighbors.

It's going to be killing young men.

And that story will go untold.

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