Trump's 'young, very smart type of person' remark used against administration in lawsuit as dozens of canned USAID workers claim 'direct' violations of law

Dozens of fired USAID employees person sued successful national court, alleging the Trump administration's determination to "eject older legacy" overseas assistance bureau workers and regenerate them with DOGE-approved "new, younger employees" was unlawful property discrimination.

Nearly 80 pages of the 124-page complaint filed successful Washington, D.C., were dedicated to the naming the ousted overseas work plaintiffs, ranging successful property from their 40s to 60s.

The suit was brought against the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the State Department, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was the acting head of USAID from February to August 2025, erstwhile Elon Musk took his chainsaw to an bureau helium called "criminal," declaring it was clip "for it to die." Amy Gleason, the acting DOGE head now, was besides sued.

According to the complaint, the Trump administration's teardown of USAID and discarding of "decades of organization cognition and expertise the Plaintiffs had amassed" was ever framed by the defendants arsenic a effect of a request to bash distant with the "dinosaurs" and bring successful "younger, much energetic, much tech-savvy" employees.

That was the constituent of having an worker dubbed "Big Balls," 19, nonstop them packing, the suit alleged.

"Defendants openly referred to national workers arsenic 'dinosaurs,' a word that inherently refers to obsolescence and extinction, owed to biology change. No morganatic uncertainty tin beryllium arsenic to the motivations of the discriminatory actors who were arrogant and abusive successful their disdain for older workers," the ailment said. "Indeed, older workers were subjected to the spectacle of a 19-year-old Musk DOGE placed worker known arsenic 'Big Balls' taking connected important roles successful their terminations, with the juvenile statement being publically lauded and promoted by the Defendants."

But the code was acceptable from the top, with President Donald Trump praising DOGE and Musk due to the fact that helium "attracts a young, precise astute benignant of person," the ailment further alleged.

"As the Defendants' derogatory connection towards older workers reverberated, different high-ranking officials adopted and endorsed the aforesaid age-based messaging to warrant the terminations astatine USAID," the filing said. "Sources adjacent to the medication boldly stated that: '[t]his is simply a Gen Z, millennial takeover of the national government,' adding that DOGE, by conducting wide firings, was addressing 'the geriatric, the benignant of nursing location authorities that has been pushing the state into oblivion. Now the young guns are taking implicit the state for the better.'"

The occupation with the administration's "messaging run to person the nationalist to enactment [a] premium connected the younker and vigor of the officials down the terminations, arsenic juxtaposed to the claimed age-related lethargy of the employees they were terminating" is that it revealed the "unlawful attack" for what it was, "evidence of nonstop and intentional property discrimination" under the guise of reducing the deficit, the plaintiffs claimed.

"As portion of this age-related truncation of workers, the persons liable routinely peddled successful codification words indicative of property discrimination, including modulation towards a much tech-savvy national workforce, intimately associated with youth. In fact, immoderate of the determination making successful terminating these employees look to person been carried retired by neophytes to national work successful their twenties," the suit continued. "The messaging and behaviour employed was intended to, and did, make intolerable moving conditions for older workers, replete with circumstantial efforts to unit them into resignation oregon aboriginal retirement."

Worse yet, the plaintiffs alleged, they were lied to erstwhile they were told their "positions were not being retained." Rather, they were oregon are being replaced by "younger cheaper counterparts."

"[T]he Defendants person sought, and proceed to seek, new, younger employees to behaviour the aforesaid oregon akin functions arsenic Plaintiffs," the ailment stated. "This has been done astatine the Department of State done a discriminatory occupation screening signifier and practice, that disproportionately disqualifies older employees and is intended to exclude Plaintiffs from returning to enactment for the national government. The Department of State's ongoing recruitment for the aforesaid and akin positions from which Plaintiffs were terminated solidifies the pretextual quality of the [reductions successful force, oregon RIF] that upended Plaintiffs' lives and unlawfully destroyed their status plans and benefits. It is simply a ruse to regenerate older established workers with greater wage and benefits with younger cheaper counterparts."

As a result, the civilian suit brought 7 counts against the administration, respective of them alleging violations of the Age Discrimination successful Employment Act. The past number claimed the authorities violated the Administrative Procedure Act due to the fact that it knew astir of the workers it fired were 40 oregon older and yet "failed to measure the adverse interaction of an abrupt, arbitrary, and pretextual RIF connected this older workforce and failed to instrumentality immoderate meaningful steps to mitigate the harmful interaction of the RIF connected older workers."