AMNA NAWAZ: The Supreme Court this week gave the Trump administration the green light to reorganize government agencies and begin the process of mass firings of federal workers.

Tens of thousands of employees at nearly 20 federal agencies could be out of work, with layoffs expected at the State Department as soon as tomorrow morning.

As Lisa Desjardins explains, that's happening even as court challenges will likely continue.

LISA DESJARDINS: The reductions in force, known as RIFs, led by the DOGE team had been on hold for months.

A lower court judge ordered a pause because the Trump administration did not consult Congress first.

But the majority of the Supreme Court ruled that the planning for mass firings can move forward.

The justices wrote that the court is not ruling on the future firings, but only on the president's order that agencies start planning them.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, writing sharply that the court is "green-lighting the president's legally dubious actions in an emergency posture."

To discuss where things stand and how federal workers are responding, I'm joined by Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 800,000 people.

Everett, a lot of people want to know what this means for federal workers.

What are you hearing from them?

EVERETT KELLEY, National President, American Federation of Government Employees: Well, thank you for having me, first of all, Lisa.

Federal employees are just at a disarray, if you will.

They are so confused.

In one minute, they have been told, you're going to get RIFed.

The next minute, it's put on hold, and then you're going to be RIFed again.

So people are confused.

But, at the same time, they are more determined now than ever to fight these unjust actions.

LISA DESJARDINS: We are trying to get a hold of what's happening in this exact moment.

Our Nick Schifrin and others are reporting that the State Department may announce RIFs, those reductions in force, tomorrow, even though we didn't expect them to start until next week.

Are you hearing of firings starting now?

EVERETT KELLEY: You know, I have, in the last few moments, heard of such an action, but this is the thing.

There should not be a rush to implement these extreme layoff plans that was created by Elon Musk before there's been time to review and evaluate the consequences.

Now, we saw what happened when the VA did just that.

The secretary drastically scaled back Musk's plan.

Secretary Rubio should engage in the same kind of careful analysis so that they can analyze every aspect of these actions.

LISA DESJARDINS: This is a court victory for President Trump at this point, and the White House did send us a statement saying, in their view, this court decision "clearly rebukes leftist judges trying to prevent the president from achieving government efficiency."

You obviously represent federal workers, but I wonder how you see that argument about efficiency.

Do you think there is any bloat in the federal government?

Should there be any jobs cut?

EVERETT KELLEY: You know, I'm going to say this.

I don't think that this -- these actions is about efficiency.

I clearly think that it's about retaliation for the members of AFGE and for the work force standing up and calling out these unjust actions.

Now, if they want -- if the administration want to really talk about efficiency, want to talk about should there be RIFs, you know, talk to the people that do these jobs every single day.

And let's look at that.

Let's analyze and see if it's necessary, because the services that the American people deserve, they should get it.

And it's the American work force that's providing these services.

I mean, just imagine, if you just go in and blanketly start RIFing people, who's going to be affected by that?

It's the American people.

It's the American people that are depending on the Veterans Administration to provide care for the veterans.

It's going to be the people that provide food safety, air safety, air travel safety, all of these types of things that the American people are going to be affected by.

So there should be careful analysis of these things before we just blanketly start doing reductions in forces.

LISA DESJARDINS: I know you mentioned this is confusing for federal workers.

I think it's confusing for most Americans as well, all of the back-and-forth here.

So I want to do a quick reset on a little bit of where we are with the actions in the past 5.5 months.

We know that somewhere around 75,000 federal workers took that fork offer for those early retirements or deferred resignations.

There's a lawsuit that estimates that some 24,000 probationary -- that's newer workers mostly -- have been fired.

But, overall, we still don't really know how many federal workers have been RIFed or fired, how many may have been reinstated after they were fired.

But to -- getting to your point, through all of this, what services do you think have been affected?

What has affected American lives so far and what specifically do you think could be affected next?

EVERETT KELLEY: Well, it's -- when you look at what's happening across this country.

I mean, just when you look at Texas, for instance, and the rainstorms and the flooding there, those FEMA employees are not readily available as they could be.

You know, they were warned, if you lay off these employees, you're going to suffer loss.

And in many instances, it could be people's lives as a state.

And you're seeing that happen across the board.

And it's going to be more and more of it if we are not careful and think about how we are addressing these issues and how we're tackling these issues, especially without good analysis.

LISA DESJARDINS: I know Secretary Noem has said that she thinks localities on the ground are getting everything they need, but it -- there is reporting that we will follow up on, on what happened with FEMA exactly in Texas.

But I want to ask you as we wrap up, you mentioned that the Veterans Administration, for example, did announce that they have cut back on their plans for firings.

As these workers may get firing notices, do you think they should take that as an absolute firing?

Or is it possible that courts will reverse this or the administration will?

What happens next?

EVERETT KELLEY: Well, to be honest with you, I think that AFGE has a very strong case against the legality of these actions.

So I encourage people to hang in there.

These people want to do that job.

They just want the opportunity to do it.

LISA DESJARDINS: Everett Kelley, thank you so much for talking with us.

EVERETT KELLEY: Thank you.