Trump moves to reclassify federal workers, making it easier to fire them

William Brangham:

President Trump today advanced his plans to make it easier to fire tens of thousands of federal workers. On social media, he said he would move forward with a rule previously known as Schedule F, which the administration said — quote — "will allow agencies to quickly remove employees from critical positions who engage in misconduct, perform poorly, or undermine the democratic process by intentionally subverting presidential directives."

Our White House correspondent, Laura Barron-Lopez, joins us now with the latest.

Laura, President Trump promised that he would do this. So what does this do and how many workers would this affect?

Laura Barron-Lopez:

So, Schedule F changes the job classification of nonpartisan federal workers, designating them as political appointees.

And so, bottom line, it makes it easier for the president to fire anyone that he considers disloyal and replace them with complete loyalists to his cause and to his agenda. Now, Schedule F was a part of the Project 2025 blueprint from The Heritage Foundation. And OMB Director Russ Vought was key in drafting this during the first administration, but they were not able to implement it during the first administration.

And Russ Vought said throughout the campaign that they wanted to traumatize federal workers. And the White House estimates that this will impact some 50,000 federal workers that could be laid off, but government experts say that that's probably a minimum.

William Brangham:

So what happens next? And has there been, I imagine, pushback to this?

Laura Barron-Lopez:

There has been pushback.

But so first what happens is a White House official said that agencies have until April 20 to hand them the list of who they think should be reclassified in their agencies.

But Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said that: "This is another in a series of deliberate moves by this administration to corrupt the federal government and replace qualified public servants with political cronies."

AFG says that they are going to sue the administration, and they're the largest union representing federal workers.

William Brangham:

So this is part of a much bigger picture of Trump's war with the federal government.

Laura Barron-Lopez:

It is.

And so this all comes as President Trump and Elon Musk's team have instituted firings across the board. Yesterday, the Trump administration moved to fire some 1,500 employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. That's most of the agency, William.

And, today, a federal judge pause those firings, calling it deeply concerning and that the firings violated an earlier injunction. Now, when you — based on our reporting, as well as a New York Times analysis, when you zoom out, essentially, there are more than 132,000 workers that have either been fired or pressured to take buyouts since Trump has taken office.

We spoke to Don Moynihan, a public policy professor at University of Michigan, who said that this essentially just defeats the purpose, this Schedule F, of a nonpartisan civil service. He said that in the end goal this is about impose imposing loyalty tests and that targeting bureaucracy in this way is a hallmark trait of authoritarian regimes.

Practically, it could also mean that there's some favoritism that is instituted when it comes to who gets government contracts.

William Brangham:

Laura Barron-Lopez, as always, thank you so much.

Laura Barron-Lopez:

Thank you.