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... Less than two weeks into his term, President Donald Trump is waging war against his own government, creating a deep sense of fear in the federal workforce -- and recipients of federal aid -- as he tests the limits of his power to alter the scope, function and nonpartisan nature of government without Congress.

Primarily using two little-known agencies -- the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management -- Trump has tried to choke off funding for a wide array of domestic and foreign assistance programs, made it easier to fire tens of thousands of federal workers, and launched a campaign to pressure more to resign from their posts.

Two federal judges have blocked the domestic spending freeze, and, in the face of public outcry, Trump rescinded an OMB memo implementing it this week -- but the underlying executive order remains in place, with the federal workers responsible for enacting it left to choose between mandates from the courts and from the president.

In conversations with NBC News, nearly two dozen federal workers described a climate of fear, confusion, skepticism and anger at federal agencies over the past two weeks. A number of civil servants described a sense that they were being actively tracked and monitored in a way that was foreign prior to Trump's return to power.

At a time when Americans' trust in government has been eroding for decades -- the vast majority say they do not trust that Washington will do the right thing always or most of the time in Gallup polling -- Trump is putting into action long-standing Republican views on how to shrink and restructure the federal footprint. But critics say that taking an ideological sledgehammer to the government will make it less effective, less efficient and less protected from partisan influence. ...