GSA Ordered to Terminate All Property Leases
A brilliant plan with absolutely no conceivable downsides.
AP (“Trump and Musk demand termination of federal office leases through General Services Administration“):
One of the next moves in President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s sweeping effort to fire government employees and curtail operations is using the agency that manages thousands of federal employee worksites around the country to cut down on office space.
Last week, regional managers for the General Services Administration, or GSA, received a message from the agency’s Washington headquarters to begin terminating leases on all of the roughly 7,500 federal offices nationwide, according to an email shared with The Associated Press by a GSA employee.
The order seems to contradict Trump’s own return-to-office mandate for federal employees, adding confusion to what was already a scramble by the GSA to find workspace, internet connections and office building security credentials for employees who had been working remotely for years.
But it may reflect the Trump administration’s belief that it won’t need as many offices due to its efforts to fire employees or encourage them to resign.
[…]
As of last fall, the GSA owned and leased more than 363 million square feet of space in 8,397 buildings in more than 2,200 communities nationwide, according to the agency’s website. Those properties include courthouses, post offices and data processing centers.
[…]
“Lease terminations are the clear priority at this time,” according to a Jan. 29 email from a senior GSA manager, a copy of which was provided to the AP by a GSA employee.
In a follow-up meeting, GSA regional managers were told the goal is to terminate as many as 300 leases per day, according to the employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
[…]
According to the employee who spoke to the AP, the initiative is being led by Nicole Hollander, who has been embedded in the GSA’s headquarters in recent days.
On her LinkedIn profile, Hollander describes herself as an X employee with a background in real estate, in the Washington area. Hollander’s X account — which shows that she joined in March 2015 but where posts date only to September 2023 — is full of posts related to X’s real estate acquisitions, as well as information about auctions of items from Twitter’s former offices after Musk purchased the platform.
Trump has ordered the GSA to make sure it promotes “beautiful federal civic architecture” as the president dislikes styles that are less traditional.
So, let’s just assume for the sake of argument that it’s a good idea to have a 25-year-old X employee running GSA and that terminating 7500 leases–which presumably come with 7500 contracts—is perfectly legal. Because, why not.
What I want to know is: What does President Trump get out of this?
I mean, yes, this will make getting all of the Federal employees currently teleworking back into the office more challenging. But I’m sure they’ve done a detailed analysis of space requirements and calculated that they can all work efficiently in government-owned spaces. So, let’s dismiss that objection.
But this would be 7500 landlords suddenly getting stiffed on rent payments that they were expecting, what with their being contractually obligated and all. And there will surely be a spillover onto local business owners who will suddenly lose a whole lot of customers for breakfast, coffee, lunch, dry cleaning, and the like. That would seemingly make a lot of Congressmen and Senators—some of them even Republicans!—unhappy.
Also, the thing about the courthouses would seemingly be of concern. Presumably, we’re going to have to have some sort of trials for all the criminals Trump’s team is rounding up. Not to mention jail cells, which are often co-located.
Presumably, though, this will bring down the price of eggs.
As I mentioned in my comment in the Forum thread, many of these landlords will be in small to medium sized towns in Red States and could easily have been (note the tense here) Trump supporters.
Nothing Trump ever said comes close to anticipating this action.
And James, with regard to this paragraph you forgot to include the /sarcasm:
“I mean, yes, this will make getting all of the Federal employees currently teleworking back into the office more challenging. But I’m sure they’ve done a detailed analysis of space requirements and calculated that they an all work efficiently in government-owned spaces. So, let’s dismiss that objection.”
I see 7,500 lawsuits on the horizon…
But it all makes sense when one convinces oneself (and one’s adoring fan base) that one is not only a stable genuis, but one heck of a businessman, who has all the best words to go with his s̶c̶h̶e̶m̶e̶s̶ ideas.
And to his credit, Trump did add a postscript recently, cautioning that there would be “some pain.” But after that, things will be grand!
@Rob1: Our pain but they won’t feel it
This looks a lot like the whole TechBro “move fast and break things” theory of the world that isn’t stupid at all.
@Steven L. Taylor: Nope, not in the least. You have to break some eggs to make an omelet. And eggs are expensive!
What’s really strange about this is that in smaller cities like mine, those offices are often in Federal Courts buildings, which are also facilitated by the GSA. I’m assuming then they they are terminating the lease on certain floors but not others. It’s just another great example of an example of someone coming up with policies that don’t fit the reality of the implementation.
@Steven L. Taylor:
In Civic Tech we talking about “moving with intention and fix things.” We also remind people that when you “move fast and break things” in government, what you are going to almost always to break are laws and vulnerable people.
My sarc meter went off the scale when I read that! I laughed out loud!
It’s the extortion threat. Trump demonstrates that he has his finger on the button that turns off the flow of money to them. He will use this as a threat, as bargaining leverage. It’s how he operates. I am pretty sure he describes something like this in The Art of the Deal. (I think I read an excerpt about this, not the whole thing, but it’s a bit embarrassing nonetheless).
So it’s just more people that he can threaten and get to shut up and play along.
Except for the fact that he’s ordering back to A Office Somewhere Randomly a bunch of federal workers, this was probably the plan:
Dump all fed leases to crash CRE
Have other cronies buy that CRE at rock-bottom prices
Have GSA sign new leases — at whatever price the cronies want
Because of course all people teleworking must match 1:1 with An Empty Desk already in an office somewhere, right? Right? [Announcer voice: No, it doesn’t work like that.]
You know, I thought we’d be dealing with the latest bad thing from Trump, and instead we’re mostly seeing monumental stupidity. Trump is just so fukkin stoopid.
This is a senile old fool, grabbing onto any ludicrous suggestion put before him. Canada, Greenland, Panama, Gaza for fuck’s sake, CIA to focus on El Salvador, buyout plans no one understands, tariffs up, tariffs down, mail from China blocked, and 10 minutes later no it’s not, firing FBI, and now cancelling all leases. Christ we’d better hope no one suggests nuking California.
We are the laughingstock of the world. Hah hah hah, look at the baboon the Americans elected.
@Jay L Gischer:
Dude, this is not n-dimensional chess, or the art of the deal, this is a pathetic old man decompensating and spiraling into madness.
@Michael Reynolds:
Gibbering lunacy.
Why ever would you assume this, Matt?
On a related question, if someone started a federal job in small town USA, went remote, was ordered to return and then their small town office was closed, where are they?
@Matt Bernius:
If only Donald Trump or Elon Musk cared about either of those things…
Here’s hoping that Civic Tech continues its current mission vision.
@Joe:
I would think that the Executive Branch unilaterally selling the buildings or terminating the rental contracts for the Federal Courts would create some form of constitutional issue.
Or am I wrong about that?
@Michael Reynolds: I mean, that’s a reasonable line to take politically, and I wish you well with it.
Meanwhile, this is the exact thing Trump has done all his life with his real estate businesses. It’s not n-dimensional chess, it’s business as usual for him.
Yeah, he probably will mess something or things up because he’s old.
@Jay L Gischer:
No, because he’s incompetent and impaired.
@Michael Reynolds:
Right? Same nincompoop fabulism. But someone is feeding him the specifics for the “plan” to dismantle our government, our checks and balances, our financial system, and our national security.
Who is it? Trump supplies the spectacle and distraction, they supply the specifics. Our security apparatus should have been all over this.
Government acquisitions for good and services in Mexico always include a clause in the contract that allows the agency to end the contract if the the goods or services are no longer needed. And the government then owes nothing but what it has already received. I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case for leases and rentals.
We had this happen once. Back in 2017, one hospital we provided food for closed due to damage by the quake. So, there was a damned good reason. We’ve never had a contract ended midstream for no reason at all.
But we also don’t have oligarchs and nazis running our government.
@Matt Bernius: It would cause mayhem for the federal courts and presumably mayhem would spill over into Constitutional issues, but what part of this probability suggests to you this administration wouldn’t do that?
@Kathy: Many government contracts allow for termination if the underlying appropriation is not renewed, but that would not be the case here.
@Matt Bernius:
I think it’s obvious at this point that these are the two things Musk and Trump care about the least.
@Joe:
The contracts we sign are for one year. Now and then we get a longer term one, but that’s rare.
@Joe:
Fair point. I also feel like that would be an issue the USSC would actually care about.
If only it were possible to divine the foreign adversary that benefits the most from the dismantlement of the US federal government.
@Matt Bernius: So, like, somebody’s gonna impeach Trump over this or something? Color me skeptical.
@Jay L Gischer:
Trump didn’t write that book. He didn’t even come up with the title.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tony-schwartz-trumps-ghostwriter-says-writing-the-art-of-the-deal-is-the-greatest-regret-of-his-life/
@just nutha:
This is when one would wistfully begin an answer with “in normal times…” But in normal times, the rapist felon wouldn’t have won the primaries or the election or even come close.
Downside is great if every lease holder files a lawsuit against the White House.