Trump's DOGE purge strikes back: EIGHT THOUSAND federal workers face the chop under sweeping order

By CHASE HOPE, POLITICAL REPORTER FOR THE DAILY MAIL

Donald Trump‘s purge of the federal bureaucracy escalated Wednesday with an executive order making it easier to fire 8,000 federal workers.

The order reclassified the workers as at-will employees, meaning the government can now terminate them without offering a reason.

A rule finalized by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) earlier this year established a new category of these workers, known as ‘schedule policy/career.’

Trump’s order Wednesday put those 8,000 workers, generally senior policymakers, into the new category.

‘It’s been a long-standing problem that it’s almost impossible to fire a federal employee, even in cases of serious misconduct,’ said James Sherk of the Domestic Policy Council at the public signing of the order. ‘And that’s a particular problem if you’re in a senior policy-influencing role.’

The President lauded Sherk as a key architect of the order.

‘What this [order] does is basically treat those employees like private sector workers,’ Sherk added.

Previously, only around 4,000 federal employees could be hired and fired using the at-will procedures. Under the terms of Trump’s order, that number triples to 12,000.

President Trump signed two executive orders in an Oval Office ceremony on Wednesday

Though tech billionaire Elon Musk only considers his DOGE efforts to be partially successful, many have criticized the Trump administration’s attempts to shrink the federal government

The Trump administration has loudly been seeking cuts to the federal workforce since Trump’s inauguration last January, employing tech billionaire Elon Musk’s DOGE and engaging in mass firings.

Not all of these job cuts have stuck - Musk later described his government-shrinking project as only ‘a little bit successful,’ and courts have frequently ordered the rehiring of fired employees - but Trump’s job cuts have provoked sharp criticism.

A White House fact sheet on Wednesday’s order maintained that any firings of federal workers would take place ‘without respect to political affiliation.’

But outraged critics say the order enables Trump to further prioritize partisan, and even personal, allegiance in the federal workforce.

The Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization, issued a statement from its CEO, Max Stier, denigrating the order as a return to the ‘spoils system.’

The spoils system was an 1800s political practice in which each new president overhauled the federal bureaucracy and replaced previous appointees with loyalists.

‘This administration is hiding the ball in claiming that this new schedule will address the challenge of poor performers in our government,’ Stier continued. ‘Loyalty to the president rather than effective service to the public will be the new coin of the realm.’

Miles Taylor, a Trump opponent who served as chief of staff for DHS during the President’s first term, wrote on X on Thursday that the order violated civil service law and warned that ‘Trump has tripled the size of his personal political army inside the government.’

Trump and First Lady Melania Trump attend the congressional picnic on the South Lawn of the White House on May 19

The Trump administration has loudly been seeking cuts to the federal workforce since last January, employing Elon Musk’s DOGE and engaging in mass firings. Above, the tech billionaire (left) with Argentinian President Javier Milei at a conservative conference last year

These criticisms come even as the number of workers reclassified is much smaller than initially expected.

The OPM had predicted in February that as many as 50,000 would be affected by the Trump administration’s efforts.

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