Morale has plummeted as staff charged with protecting US workers feel their core mission is being undermined

A giant banner featuring a serious-looking Donald Trump now hangs down the front of the Department of Labor’s Washington DC office. Covering the windows of nearly three floors, the poster reads: “American Workers FIRST.”

“Mr President, I invite you see your big beautiful face on a banner in front of the Department of Labor because you are really the transformational president of the American worker,” the labor secretary, Lori Chavez-DeReme, said last month at a cabinet meeting with the president.