State of Play

Once upon a time, State Department officials would register dissent by writing a memo, or even resigning in protest. But what good would that do under Trump, where debate is squashed, and 20 percent of the agency is about to be laid off?

Not only is the Trump administration uninterested in opposing viewpoints, it largely views the State Department as an enemy stronghold that needs to be broken and purged. Photo: John McDonnell/Getty Images

Julia Ioffe

June 5, 2025

Around this time last year, Stacy Gilbert, a 20-year veteran of the State Department, resigned in protest over a report concluding that Israel was not blocking aid from reaching Gaza. A few weeks later, Andrew Miller, the deputy assistant secretary for Israeli-Palestinian affairs, also quit over what colleagues said was frustration regarding how little sway he had over policy in his job. The following month, another State Department officer, Michael Casey, walked out, saying he was “tired of writing about dead kids” in Gaza. Between October 7, 2023, and January 20, 2025, some half-dozen State Department staffers resigned in protest over Joe Biden’s “bear hug” policy toward Israel, while others leaked multiple dissent cables, capturing the internal frustration over Benjamin Netanyahu’s conduct of the war.