President Donald Trump has tightened his grip on federal staffing even further in a Friday move that makes it easier for him to fire 50,000 civil servants.
Trump’s Office of Personnel Management is trying to reclassify tens of thousands of federal workers as “at will” employees, stripping their roles of key protections against removal, according to a White House statement.
The new category, called “Schedule Policy/Career,” includes workers in “important policy-determining, policy-making, policy-advocating, or confidential duties,” the statement says, adding that the OPM estimates that the new rule affects 2 percent of the federal workforce.
The White House said that the exact positions altered by the change will be announced once the rule is finalized.
In a post on Truth Social about the new regulation, Trump wrote, “If these government workers refuse to advance the policy interests of the President, or are engaging in corrupt behavior, they should no longer have a job. This is common sense, and will allow the federal government to finally be ‘run like a business.’”
The announcement is the latest development in the president’s push to seize greater power and cut the federal workforce. With the help of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, Trump has already ousted tens of thousands of federal workers—though not without legal pushback.
The new category follows from a day-one executive order titled “Restoring Accountability to Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce.” Trump had issued a similar order during his first term, which called the new classification “Schedule F.” It was rescinded by former President Joe Biden.
The White House argued that the change will further Trump’s ambition to “promise to dismantle the deep state and reclaim our government from Washington corruption.”
“The proposed rule tackles systemic issues in federal workforce accountability, addressing unaccountable, policy-determining federal employees who put their own interests ahead of the American people’s,” the statement said.
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