Trump Declares War on Federal Employees
Multiple executive orders aim at rooting out the Deep State.

As promised, President Trump signed several Executive Orders on his first day in office aimed at, depending on who you believe, eroding the power of The Deep State, making government employment sufficiently miserable that hordes quit, or some combination of those things. Most notable among these are orders seeking to curtail Civil Service protections for those deemed to be in “policy-connected” positions; ending telework; and a hiring freeze.
WaPo (“Trump reinstates plan to strip protections from federal workers“):
President Donald Trump on Monday reinstated a policy to strip employment protections from tens of thousands of federal workers, potentially allowing his administration to reshape agencies by stocking them with political loyalists.
The executive order was one of multiple first-day Trump directives aimed at overhauling the federal workforce of 2.3 million — including a hiring freeze, a strict return-to-office mandate, an update of hiring rules and changes designed to bring more accountability to career senior executives, in part by making them easier to dismiss.
The White House described the order stripping employment protections from agency employees as necessary to rein in what Trump and his allies have called a “deep state” of bureaucrats who resisted his plans during his first term.
“There have been numerous and well-documented cases of career Federal employees resisting and undermining the policies and directives of their executive leadership,” reads the order, signed by Trump around 9 p.m. on Monday. “Principles of good administration, therefore, necessitate action to restore accountability to the career civil service.”
Critics, though, have said the policy will upend the foundation of the modern civil service, where staffers are supposed to be hired based on merit and cannot be arbitrarily fired. Those in the new job category will have limited due process rights to appeal dismissals by the Trump administration.
“President Trump’s order is a blatant attempt to corrupt the federal government by eliminating employees’ due process rights so they can be fired for political reasons,” Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 750,000 civil servants, said in a statement. “This unprecedented assertion of executive power will create an army of sycophants beholden only to Donald Trump, not the Constitution or the American people.”
Which, of course, is a feature, not a bug, from Trump’s standpoint.
NPR (“Trump seeks to end telework for federal workers“):
President Trump has signed an executive action directing federal agencies to order their workers back to the office full time.
“Heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch of Government shall, as soon as practicable, take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis, provided that the department and agency heads shall make exemptions they deem necessary,” the executive memo states.
Having more federal employees work from the office has long been a focus of Republicans.
“Service backlogs and delays, unanswered phone calls and emails, and no-show appointments are harming the health, lives, and aspirations of Americans,” Iowa Senator Joni Ernst wrote in a report released late last year.
[…]
Many flexible work arrangements predate the pandemic, though the federal government, like many offices, greatly expanded telework during COVID.
A number of agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Social Security Administration, agreed to long-term telework arrangements in their collective bargaining agreements.
The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 800,000 federal and D.C. government employees, says it expects those agreements to be honored, given the Trump memo states that the directive “shall be implemented consistent with applicable law.”
Still, in a statement, AFGE president Everett Kelley called the directive a “backward action” and asked the Trump administration to rethink its approach.
“Providing eligible employees with the opportunity to work hybrid schedules is a key tool for recruiting and retaining workers in both the public and private sectors. Restricting the use of hybrid work arrangements will make it harder for federal agencies to compete for top talent,” he wrote in a statement.
He also warned that given the success federal agencies have had consolidating unused office space and selling off properties that were costly to maintain, there may no longer be enough office space to accommodate an influx of on-site workers.
In an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal last fall, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, whom Trump appointed to lead his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, suggested that requiring federal employees to return to the office five days a week “would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome.”
“If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home,” they wrote.
Government Executive (“Trump will require agency plans to slash workforce as he lays out hiring freeze details“):
Federal agencies must develop plans to reduce the size of their workforces through efficiencies and attrition, President Trump announced on Monday, spelling out in a memorandum that they must roll out those proposals before lifting the hiring freeze he has put into place.
Trump froze federal hiring on Monday in a presidential memorandum, following the practice he established when he took office in 2017. The federal workforce reduction plans also mirror those he required in order to lift the hiring moratorium he instituted in his first term. Most agencies in that instance never wound up producing definitive plans to slash their workforces and the White House later denied it ever asked for the blueprints for cuts.
Trump’s latest hiring freeze is set to last 90 days, with the exception of the Internal Revenue Service where it will remain in effect until the Treasury Department and other officials agree it is “in the national interest” to lift it. Trump made clear that contracting out to circumvent the freeze was prohibited.
“In carrying out this memorandum, the heads of executive departments and agencies shall seek efficient use of existing personnel and funds to improve public services and the delivery of these services,” Trump wrote.
As expected, the freeze will not apply to the military or positions related to immigration enforcement, national security or public safety. The freeze will otherwise take effect regardless of the source of an agency’s funding stream. Political appointments under Schedule C the non-career Senior Executive Service will continue. The Office of Personnel Management on Monday issued new guidance allowing for an unlimited number of appointees that Trump can temporarily deploy into agencies as his administration gets up and running, overriding more limited guidance the Biden administration had put forward.
These orders were all foreshadowed in the campaign and will doubtless make a lot of people happy. Government employees are widely perceived to be lazy and overpaid.
There is already a suit filed to stop Schedule F and I expect others to follow. But, even if they’re rolled back substantially by the courts, they’ll achieve some of their desired effects. First and foremost, Trump gets the performance impact of having carried out his promises here. Second, they will almost certainly cause some of the most marketable career employees to leave government service for a more hospitable environment. The telework prohibition alone will be devastating, as many people took their jobs precisely because it offered that flexibility, which enables juggling two-earner households with children whose school schedules don’t align with a standard workday. Third, and perhaps most problematic of all, those who stay will be fearful of getting crossways with the new administration.
University of Michigan professor of public policy Don Moynihan observes,
This was better organized than before. Trump had his orders ready. Acting officials (usually career employees) were in key positions, and some of those officials had pre-drafted memos on hand. The reflects the fingerprints of the secret 180 Day Playbook aspect of Project 2025, led by Russ Vought.
Which is odd, in that we were constantly told that Trump had no connection to Project 2025 and, indeed, had never heard of it.
As to the hiring freeze, it’s worse than the media reports. Moynihan:
A new OPM memo also requires the creation of lists of federal employees still on their probationary period (usually 1 year) to be reported to OPM by January 24. This is because those officials do not have full civil service protections. The implication is that agencies will have to justify retaining those employees, or they will be fired. This is bad HR policy. The federal government has a bigger hiring than firing problem, and targeting the newest and youngest hires in an aging workforce is a terrible idea, unless the goal is simply to cut people. Which it is.
The hiring freeze may indicate a policy of cost-cutting for civil servants, but in other ways efficiency is clearly not a concern. The same OPM memo encourages agencies to use paid leave to remove employees they want to get out of the way or fire in the future.
There’s also this:
For political appointees, there is no limit on hiring. Another new OPM memo removes the traditional cap on Schedule C appointees for 240 days. As a reminder, the US government has about 4,000 political appointee positions, about 1,300 of whom are Senate-confirmed. This change could see the number of non-Senate confirmed appointees increase significantly. It fits with the broader pattern of politicization.
The same memo also created a back-door path for Senate-confirmed appointees to join the agency in an “advisory or consultative capacity.”
[…]
This effectively diminishes advise and consent power of the Senate. It puts nominees in de facto acting capacity from Day 1 of the administration, even if they cannot formally occupy the position they are nominated for. It is also a response to the Senate doing a woeful job in confirming less visible appointees in a timely fashion, or simply putting holds on appointees for reasons completely unrelated to the candidate. While this is an executive branch aggrandizement, the Senate asked for it by its incompetence and pettiness when it comes to the conformation process.
As to the telework order:
As I’ve noted before, I think this is a dumb, politics-of-resentment type of policy that Musk and Ramaswamy implied was there mainly to encourage people to quit. The federal government does not use telework at a different rate from the private sector, but it is now being told to give up on a tool that can help it hire and retain employees.
The process does allow for exemptions, and contracts with employees may make it difficult to extend this immediately or quickly, but the intent is clear. Trump also seeks to undermine collective bargaining rights, in a sprawling executive order that undid many Biden initiatives, including on DEI.
Moynihan has quite a bit more, including an analysis of the backdoor method by which Trump has created “DOGE” by placing it inside the little-known US Digital Service.
I will also point out that those of us who said this was bullshit from the start were reliably told by Trump’s anti-anti-Trump not-supporter-supporters that we were being unreasonable.
(Reminder that those are also the same people who said that in no way would Trump attempt such autocratic policies…)
Crap. While USDS isn’t well known to the public, it is well regarded within Civic Tech circles. In fact, as mentioned yesterday, I had been considering seeking a job there as a next career step.
It’s disappointing, but not surprising to hear it’s being weaponized against the federal government. I’m going to have to do a deep dive on that one to learn more (and eventually share what I learn).
I’ve had lots of dealings with government workers at several levels, both for private matters and on business. The ones who tend to be lazy and incompetent (don’t know about overpaid) are those who were appointed politically, or though connections with the secretary, delegate, section chief, etc.
BTW, we were expecting this AND it’s still really disappointing as it rules people like me out of doing service at the Federal Level. The irony about this, btw, is that returning to forced residency requirements actually makes the candidate pool less diverse and more prone towards the only hiring the sort of “deep state” folks who are willing to live in DC.
This also means cutting off the sources of expert talent (like me) who are willing to take a haircut on salary to engage in Federal Service–especially since government tech wages don’t go as far in DC as they do in small cities like Rochester.
Or, alternatively, this is going to just mean that people who leave the federal government will quickly transition into contracting and end up doing the same work and just charging the government more.
A note for context: I am commenting on this from a personal perspective because I have personal experience on this. Happy to answer any direct questions about USDS and civic tech in general and the potential regressive and chilling impact these steps may have on the overall state of the delivery of government services.
Great defense of the Ted Stevens’ prosecutorial team, FBI Larry Nassar investigators, DEA agents who almost killed Daniel Chong, Lois Lerner and any other Federal officials you commit misconduct or abuse their authority and are protected by civil service protection.
And the heroes who keep us safe that try to steal using asset forfeiture the safe-deposit boxes seized at U.S. Private Vaults in Beverly Hills or U.S., Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents who confront flyers as they are boarding flights and demand to search their carry-on items.
DOJ suspends DEA’s controversial asset forfeiture program in airports
And it feels more like an asshole move than serious public policy (because, of course, it is).
And as Matt Bernius points out, it works against the notion of getting more federal work outside of DC.
@Paul L.:
If I remember you’re a Navy vet…. Looking forward to hearing your opinions on this when these types of cuts trickle down into the various forms of veterans service delivery. I can’t speak for FBI or prosecutors, but most of the folks I know who were working remotely for US Digital Services were involved in projects like improving the VA benefits portal and other important issues related to service delivery to Veterans and other high needs communities.
Plus, given what little you have shared about your personal life, it seems like you might know some people who are on government assistance. Remote teams at US Digital Services have been doing amazing work helping people be automatically (ex parte) enrolled in key social safety net services. Those same folks may be out of work.
All of this will ultimately hurt Americans (including Trump) supporters living at the edges.
OH, and I hope you are celebrating the decision to have the Federal Government help with getting executions rolling at the State level. I mean, given your utter loudly proclaimed distrust of police, prosecutors, and juries (at least ones involved in prosecuting Trump), I have to think you’d be concerned about those same corrupt institutions putting people to death.
And man, it’s going to be great once we have Kash Patal and Pam Bondi in office–I’m sure they’re going to totally not continue the types of abuses you seem to care so much about. I mean it will be just like when you pretended during the entire Trump 2017-2021 period that somehow he had nothing to do with either Jeff Sessions or Bill Barr’s excesses at justice.
@Paul L.:
Remind me, who is in charge of the DEA and other Federal Law Enforcement agencies now and for the next four years?
And at least for the moment continuing these policies you hate?
BTW, did you know that program has been running since the early 2000’s? In fact, it had gotten a critical government report in… checks notes, 2017. Remind me, who was President then? I think you spent a lot of time defending him:
Of course, I completely understand you don’t trust any type of government report–I mean who watches the watchmen. But the fact remains that this was a program supported by Trump in the past. I expect it will be back in a revised form under Trump in the near future too.
Or is it going to be like the last Trump administration where you pretended he had nothing to do with Federal Law Enforcement for four years? Because, if that’s the case, it’s going to be a long 4 years for you as I will completely remind you of the repeated and willful hypocrisy of your black and white thinking on these issues given how much you defend someone whose entire law and order promise to greatly extend the power of the police state at the Federal and State levels. And YES that was what you were voting for if you voted for Trump (along with the things you like about his policies in other areas).
Yes, as expected, the people that Trump has surrounded himself with (and who have gravitated to him) have laid the groundwork to institute their terrible policies immediately. (Trump himself is, of course, too stupid and lazy to do much of anything.) Now we find out if the institutions and courts will hold up in the face of this onslaught. Even if it just means delaying until sanity can return to the White House. The Supreme Court will be a big question mark.
Such stupid times, such self-inflicted wounds….
A friend of mine is a federal worker who has received the return-to-office nastygram. She is amused, because as a cost-cutting move, her particular office reduced office space. She doesn’t HAVE an office to return to, and wonders how much work she’ll be able to get done if she just shows up and wanders the halls.
Part of my practice is obtaining trademark registrations, each of which is assigned to a Trademark Examiner for substantive evaluation. From a quick review of their phone numbers, it is my expectation that almost none of them are in DC (northern Virginia) and, as long as they are cranking out decisions (an objectively measurable output), there seems to be not one thing gained from forcing them to move to DC to continue their generally solitary work. But, hey, if we can significantly cut down the size of a workforce that is already back-logged by more than a year, it’s all win-win, right?
It’s also now legal for federal employees harrass their queer coworkers for being queer
Let’s remember, they won’t have to go back to the office in DC, as part of the plan is to move departments out of DC to . . . who knows where, I’m guessing red states where they can rent space in buildings owned by Trump or something equally farcically corrupt. So people can either move or leave, or something. I’m guessing there’s stuff about this in the collective bargaining agreements; hopefully those hold.
Tme to start bringing back phrases from Trump’s first term, like “The cruelty is the point.”
Oh, they’ll fire now, install their cronies and then reinstate job protections before their side inevitably leaves office in the future. It’s just part of rigging the game that they’ve not hesitated to use whenever they get their hands on the wheel.
They are going to replace 4000 people who know what they are doing with 4000 sycophants who will largely not know what they are doing. They claimed that those first 4000 were slow walking Trump’s demands. Now they will be slow walked because the sycophants wont know what they are doing and one can expect the people working for those 4000 wont be thrilled about someone being in charge of them just because they wear a MAGA hat.
Steve
@steve:
Here and there you’ll have the guy who used to have a job in a different government department 15-20 years ago, and who thinks the software he used hasn’t changed. Then it turns out this department uses a newer version of a different software, and maybe never even had the one he remembers. So he might want to change to the older version, which probably isn’t even compatible with the current operating system.
Given the rapist wants to engage in armed conflict with Denmark (and NATO?) and Panama, perhaps having a thoroughly unqualified stooge running the defense department won’t be such a bad thing.
@steve: Yes but at least no dresses over penises. Praise Jesus hallelujah amen
@Stormy Dragon: Technically, the President, alone, cannot contravene Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 USC 2000e-16, or Supreme Court decisions concerning discrimination based on, inter alia, sexual orientation or gender identity. But I suspect it’s only a matter of time before: (i) the votes exist to rescind the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 in their entirety; and (ii) Republicans or the Supreme Court actually does that. And yes, I fervently hope I am proven wrong in both respects.
@steve:
That and/or leave jobs undone, half done, or half-assed done.
In this, Trump is sowing the seeds of the GOP’s future undoing (and our undoing as well). To surmount the backlash, the GOP will have to turn up the screws on voting access and disinformation. More mainstream media outlets and social media platforms are already bring bent in that direction.
A GOP run government buying 50% of Tik Tok makes total sense in that light.
One of the hallmarks of the first Trump administration was the degradation of service from federal agencies. (The delays on getting a passport stretched into several months – today the turnaround time is a couple of weeks.) This scale of employee turnover activity is just putting sand in their own gears – it’s going to delay lots of things, particularly routine economic activity.
@Heisenberg: That’s probably the point.
These people hate government because they don’t like taxes. Screwing up basic services won’t lead them to say “gee, maybe we shouldn’t have cut x, y, and z”, it will instead lead them to more “government is the problem” nonsense, which will lead to more “private sector should do this” screeching.
They WANT things to get screwed up so they can hand core services and functions over to private companies.
@Heisenberg: “One of the hallmarks of the first Trump administration was the degradation of service from federal agencies”
This is why I made sure to apply for SS benefits before the end of the year, even though it would have been advantageous to wait at least another nine months. I figured once my name was on the list, the payments would be automatic, but if they fire all the people in charge getting on that list was going to be a chore.
@Jen: It reminds me of the way a lot of people talk about government in Alabama: “I’ll only pay more taxes when they learn to do a better job with what they already get!” This, of course, ignores the fact that the main reason state services in Alabama often stink is because they are woefully underfunded.
And I mean things like basic law enforcement, emergency services, road maintenance, and K-12.