Trump targets federal worker protections with new executive order

President Donald Trump wasted no time in signing an executive order intended to increase his control over the federal workforce, which he has often referred to as the "deep state", an alleged secret power that governs the United States and the world.

The order seeks to overturn a rule introduced by former President Joe Biden last year and is expected to face significant legal challenges.

The new order revisits a directive Trump signed just before the 2020 election, creating a category known as "Schedule F," which makes it easier to dismiss federal employees involved in politics. Biden quickly reversed this order and finalized a new rule that strengthened protections for career federal employees.

However, Trump's latest order instructs the Office of Personnel Management to undo any changes that might hinder or affect the implementation of Trump's 2020 directive.

Trump also nullified his predecessor's 2021 executive order that repealed the original Schedule F order, a more conventional move.

Like the 2020 executive order, Trump's new directive is likely to end up in court quickly. According to experts, reversing or changing a rule typically requires introducing new regulations, a process that can take months and cannot be accomplished by executive order.

Trump's 2020 order left many federal employees concerned about their job security. It would give him and appointed agency officials more freedom to hire and fire federal employees deemed disloyal, which critics argue politicizes the civil service and could lead to the replacement of career officials for political reasons with individuals loyal to the president.

Initial estimates indicate that it would affect about 50,000 employees, although experts believe the order could impact many more people.

“President Trump's order is a blatant attempt to corrupt the federal government by removing workers' rights to due process so that they can be fired for political reasons,” said Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 750,000 workers, in an interview with CNN. “This will remove hundreds of thousands of federal jobs from an impartial, professional civil service and make them accountable to the whims of one man,” he added.

Trump's renewed efforts to reshape the federal government and its workforce aim to ensure loyalty to him and his policies to avoid what he believed were obstacles that impeded his ability to implement key initiatives during his first term.

Source: CNN