King Trump wants total control of everything and the MAGA cult says, sound good.
Trump accelerates push to reward loyalty in federal workforce
President Donald Trump is accelerating efforts to transform the federal workforce from a nonpartisan, merit-based civil service to a system that values loyalty to the president and to push policies that allow the administration to more easily dismiss career employees, according to federal workers, public service experts and employment attorneys.
The ongoing shift would erase decades of precedent in which federal hiring, retention and promotion are designed to be based largely on skills and experience, the workers, experts and attorneys say.
The House-passed budget proposal under consideration in the Senate would give new federal workers an ultimatum to accept “at-will” status — meaning they could be more easily fired — or pay a higher retirement contribution. The administration also unveiled a plan to require job applicants to write short essays describing how they plan to advance Trump’s priorities. And Trump has revived his previous efforts to reclassify thousands of federal employees and blur the line between political appointees and career professionals.
“These employees could be replaced with partisan loyalists — people who will obey any order, regardless of the Constitution,” said Joe Spielberger, senior policy counsel at the Project on Government Oversight. “This elevates loyalty to an individual president over the oath of office and the best interests of the public.”
Many civil servants now fear the changes will further upend a workforce that has historically prized competence and neutrality. In interviews with 13 federal employees across seven agencies — almost all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern for retaliation — workers described the transformation as a direct assault on the foundational principles of public service. They said the administration’s moves appear designed to hollow out a government staffed by experts and replace it with one filled by political allies.
The Trump administration argues that the government had stopped hiring based on merit, pointing to agencies that released demographic recruitment and workforce data and carried out diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, policies.
The Office of Personnel Management issued a federal hiring overhaul May 29, telling agencies to end DEI programs and to limit “disseminating information regarding the composition of the agency’s workforce based on race, sex, color, religion, or national origin.” The plan also would require the government to recruit people early in their careers, those with expertise in STEM and veterans.
One of four questions asked of applicants for GS-5 jobs and above, Office of Personnel Management’s May 29 “Merit Hiring Plan” memo
“Before this new plan, federal hiring was not merit-focused and relied on subjective self-assessments, academic pedigree, overlong federal resumes, and DEI criteria,” OPM spokeswoman McLaurine Pinover said in a statement to The Washington Post. “With the Merit Hiring Plan, the Trump Administration is prioritizing the most capable and patriotic candidates through objective, skills-based assessments in order to deliver results for the American people.”
Conservatives have celebrated the shift in hiring and firing practices. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Florida), who had proposed legislation to label federal workers as “at-will,” told The Post that he thought the government should operate like a business.
“In business, you are expected to have a better product, better services, better prices,” Scott said. “You should have the exact same expectation for your federal government.”
But Aisha Coffey, a communications specialist at the Food and Drug Administration who is now on administrative leave after being fired, said she felt ill when she read through the OPM memo outlining how Trump aims to overhaul federal hiring.
“That memo details this administration’s sordid strategy to turn a nonpartisan federal workforce into a merry band of MAGA loyalists,” Coffey said. “The directive is clear: The civil service is to serve the president, first and foremost, and the American population last.”
Staff at other agencies echoed those concerns and fear that no one with other options will want to work for the government.
Computer developers, who can pick and choose from a plethora of possibilities anywhere, will turn up their noses at a government job once attractive for its stability, said one Social Security Administration worker. Same for scientists, said someone formerly with the Environmental Protection Agency. Ditto for lawyers, said a Labor Department attorney.
“What is the draw anymore if the mission is rooted in who the president is and your job can be taken without warning or process?” the Labor attorney asked. “Who in their right mind will ever take a gamble on a government job again?”
For decades, the civil service has been protected by laws such as the 1883 Pendleton Act and the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act, which sought to ensure government workers were hired for their skills, not their politics. The Pendleton Act made it illegal to fire or demote government officials for political reasons and required examinations for federal workers based on merit.
The Civil Service Reform Act established the Merit Systems Protection Board, a quasi-judicial body that hears workers’ complaints about workplace practices. That board is without a quorum after Trump fired its Democratic chair.
The Trump administration plan includes new essay questions that require job applicants for any GS-5 position or higher to explain how they would implement Trump’s policy priorities, which federal workers fear will lead to further politicization of hiring.
“How would you help advance the President’s Executive Orders and policy priorities in this role?” asks one prompt. “Identify one or two relevant Executive Orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired.”
An OPM official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the hiring process said that applicants will not be screened out or scored on their answers to the essay questions, and no applicant is required to agree or disagree with the policies.
“They’re just a way for job seekers to introduce themselves to hiring managers and agency leadership and people will not be screened out based on them, or ranked or scored,” the official said.
Many of Trump’s policies to remake the workforce were crafted during his years out of office by former aides now returned to power, including Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and James Sherk, who serves on the White House Domestic Policy Council.
One of Trump’s most significant moves is the attempt to reinstate Schedule F, an order originally issued in his first term to reclassify tens of thousands of policy-related civil servants, effectively removing their protections. Former president Joe Biden rescinded the order in 2021 and replaced it with an administrative rule intended to block its return — but Trump’s order and subsequent rulemaking aim to override that safeguard.
Labor unions and other groups representing federal employees have sued the administration, arguing the moves strip workers of statutory and contractual rights.
Supporters of Trump’s plan argue that a president should have more direct control over the workforce to ensure that policies are carried out. Trump himself has claimed that career civil servants obstructed his first-term agenda and investigated him unfairly.
Others have said that protections for federal workers have stymied innovation and led to complacency within government.
Vinnie Vernuccio, president of the Institute for the American Worker and member of the transition team for the labor department in Trump’s first term, said that it is costly and time-consuming to try to fire workers, and a new rule to reclassify policy-related positions would make it easier for the administration to ensure their reforms aren’t hindered.
“These career employees could throw sand in the gears for policies they don’t like,” Vernuccio said.
Vernuccio added that the rule change would affect only career federal employees in policymaking roles, which OPM has estimated is about 50,000 positions, or about two percent of the Federal civilian workforce.
“The sky is not going to fall,” Vernuccio said.
However, other experts said that efforts to make firing practices conform with the norms in private industry — where employers can more freely hire and fire — could lead to less interest in public jobs when companies can pay more and would have the same protections.
Donald Kettl, professor emeritus and former public policy dean at the University of Maryland, said that while a private company’s line of business might change on a dime, that sort of environment doesn’t exist in the federal workplace, where government employees with in-depth knowledge of their agency’s policies and history are highly valuable.
“It’s a bogus argument that doesn’t hold water,” Kettl said.
Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, warned that the shift — as well as the essay questions that new hires would be required to answer — will inject unprecedented partisanship into the federal bureaucracy. “They’re clearing the shelves and restocking with a different flavor of civil servant,” he said.
Employment attorneys also warned that the essay questions could lead to claims from workers, especially those who do not work on policy, that they were discriminated against in hiring based on their political beliefs. Courtney Mickman, an employment law attorney and former Equal Employment Opportunity Commission administrative judge, said such questions are typically avoided for that reason.
“It is very atypical to have these types of questions included as part of the hiring process, particularly outside of any policy type of position,” Mickman said. “Depending on how individuals respond, there’s the potential for political affiliation discrimination to occur.”
One staffer at the EPA said the new hiring process immediately recalled the years he spent as a federal hiring manager. Before Trump, the staffer said, hiring questions were all based around skills and experiences, and were designed to be “deliberately nonpolitical.” For example, managers were not allowed to ask applicants whether they agreed with climate science, or how they felt about state sovereignty under the Clean Air Act.
When the staffer read through the details of Trump’s new vision for hiring, he came away convinced the program is designed to pick out only applicants who believe the same things Trump does.
“These questions would only yield candidates who actively seek to undermine or thwart the laws and regulations we have to operate under,” the staffer said.
Trump accelerates push to reward loyalty in federal workforce
President Donald Trump is accelerating efforts to transform the federal workforce from a nonpartisan, merit-based civil service to a system that values loyalty to the president and to push policies that allow the administration to more easily dismiss career employees, according to federal workers, public service experts and employment attorneys.
The ongoing shift would erase decades of precedent in which federal hiring, retention and promotion are designed to be based largely on skills and experience, the workers, experts and attorneys say.
The House-passed budget proposal under consideration in the Senate would give new federal workers an ultimatum to accept “at-will” status — meaning they could be more easily fired — or pay a higher retirement contribution. The administration also unveiled a plan to require job applicants to write short essays describing how they plan to advance Trump’s priorities. And Trump has revived his previous efforts to reclassify thousands of federal employees and blur the line between political appointees and career professionals.
“These employees could be replaced with partisan loyalists — people who will obey any order, regardless of the Constitution,” said Joe Spielberger, senior policy counsel at the Project on Government Oversight. “This elevates loyalty to an individual president over the oath of office and the best interests of the public.”
Many civil servants now fear the changes will further upend a workforce that has historically prized competence and neutrality. In interviews with 13 federal employees across seven agencies — almost all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern for retaliation — workers described the transformation as a direct assault on the foundational principles of public service. They said the administration’s moves appear designed to hollow out a government staffed by experts and replace it with one filled by political allies.
The Trump administration argues that the government had stopped hiring based on merit, pointing to agencies that released demographic recruitment and workforce data and carried out diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, policies.
The Office of Personnel Management issued a federal hiring overhaul May 29, telling agencies to end DEI programs and to limit “disseminating information regarding the composition of the agency’s workforce based on race, sex, color, religion, or national origin.” The plan also would require the government to recruit people early in their careers, those with expertise in STEM and veterans.
One of four questions asked of applicants for GS-5 jobs and above, Office of Personnel Management’s May 29 “Merit Hiring Plan” memo
“Before this new plan, federal hiring was not merit-focused and relied on subjective self-assessments, academic pedigree, overlong federal resumes, and DEI criteria,” OPM spokeswoman McLaurine Pinover said in a statement to The Washington Post. “With the Merit Hiring Plan, the Trump Administration is prioritizing the most capable and patriotic candidates through objective, skills-based assessments in order to deliver results for the American people.”
Conservatives have celebrated the shift in hiring and firing practices. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Florida), who had proposed legislation to label federal workers as “at-will,” told The Post that he thought the government should operate like a business.
“In business, you are expected to have a better product, better services, better prices,” Scott said. “You should have the exact same expectation for your federal government.”
But Aisha Coffey, a communications specialist at the Food and Drug Administration who is now on administrative leave after being fired, said she felt ill when she read through the OPM memo outlining how Trump aims to overhaul federal hiring.
“That memo details this administration’s sordid strategy to turn a nonpartisan federal workforce into a merry band of MAGA loyalists,” Coffey said. “The directive is clear: The civil service is to serve the president, first and foremost, and the American population last.”
Staff at other agencies echoed those concerns and fear that no one with other options will want to work for the government.
Computer developers, who can pick and choose from a plethora of possibilities anywhere, will turn up their noses at a government job once attractive for its stability, said one Social Security Administration worker. Same for scientists, said someone formerly with the Environmental Protection Agency. Ditto for lawyers, said a Labor Department attorney.
“What is the draw anymore if the mission is rooted in who the president is and your job can be taken without warning or process?” the Labor attorney asked. “Who in their right mind will ever take a gamble on a government job again?”
For decades, the civil service has been protected by laws such as the 1883 Pendleton Act and the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act, which sought to ensure government workers were hired for their skills, not their politics. The Pendleton Act made it illegal to fire or demote government officials for political reasons and required examinations for federal workers based on merit.
The Civil Service Reform Act established the Merit Systems Protection Board, a quasi-judicial body that hears workers’ complaints about workplace practices. That board is without a quorum after Trump fired its Democratic chair.
The Trump administration plan includes new essay questions that require job applicants for any GS-5 position or higher to explain how they would implement Trump’s policy priorities, which federal workers fear will lead to further politicization of hiring.
“How would you help advance the President’s Executive Orders and policy priorities in this role?” asks one prompt. “Identify one or two relevant Executive Orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired.”
An OPM official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the hiring process said that applicants will not be screened out or scored on their answers to the essay questions, and no applicant is required to agree or disagree with the policies.
“They’re just a way for job seekers to introduce themselves to hiring managers and agency leadership and people will not be screened out based on them, or ranked or scored,” the official said.
Many of Trump’s policies to remake the workforce were crafted during his years out of office by former aides now returned to power, including Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and James Sherk, who serves on the White House Domestic Policy Council.
One of Trump’s most significant moves is the attempt to reinstate Schedule F, an order originally issued in his first term to reclassify tens of thousands of policy-related civil servants, effectively removing their protections. Former president Joe Biden rescinded the order in 2021 and replaced it with an administrative rule intended to block its return — but Trump’s order and subsequent rulemaking aim to override that safeguard.
Labor unions and other groups representing federal employees have sued the administration, arguing the moves strip workers of statutory and contractual rights.
Supporters of Trump’s plan argue that a president should have more direct control over the workforce to ensure that policies are carried out. Trump himself has claimed that career civil servants obstructed his first-term agenda and investigated him unfairly.
Others have said that protections for federal workers have stymied innovation and led to complacency within government.
Vinnie Vernuccio, president of the Institute for the American Worker and member of the transition team for the labor department in Trump’s first term, said that it is costly and time-consuming to try to fire workers, and a new rule to reclassify policy-related positions would make it easier for the administration to ensure their reforms aren’t hindered.
“These career employees could throw sand in the gears for policies they don’t like,” Vernuccio said.
Vernuccio added that the rule change would affect only career federal employees in policymaking roles, which OPM has estimated is about 50,000 positions, or about two percent of the Federal civilian workforce.
“The sky is not going to fall,” Vernuccio said.
However, other experts said that efforts to make firing practices conform with the norms in private industry — where employers can more freely hire and fire — could lead to less interest in public jobs when companies can pay more and would have the same protections.
Donald Kettl, professor emeritus and former public policy dean at the University of Maryland, said that while a private company’s line of business might change on a dime, that sort of environment doesn’t exist in the federal workplace, where government employees with in-depth knowledge of their agency’s policies and history are highly valuable.
“It’s a bogus argument that doesn’t hold water,” Kettl said.
Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, warned that the shift — as well as the essay questions that new hires would be required to answer — will inject unprecedented partisanship into the federal bureaucracy. “They’re clearing the shelves and restocking with a different flavor of civil servant,” he said.
Employment attorneys also warned that the essay questions could lead to claims from workers, especially those who do not work on policy, that they were discriminated against in hiring based on their political beliefs. Courtney Mickman, an employment law attorney and former Equal Employment Opportunity Commission administrative judge, said such questions are typically avoided for that reason.
“It is very atypical to have these types of questions included as part of the hiring process, particularly outside of any policy type of position,” Mickman said. “Depending on how individuals respond, there’s the potential for political affiliation discrimination to occur.”
One staffer at the EPA said the new hiring process immediately recalled the years he spent as a federal hiring manager. Before Trump, the staffer said, hiring questions were all based around skills and experiences, and were designed to be “deliberately nonpolitical.” For example, managers were not allowed to ask applicants whether they agreed with climate science, or how they felt about state sovereignty under the Clean Air Act.
When the staffer read through the details of Trump’s new vision for hiring, he came away convinced the program is designed to pick out only applicants who believe the same things Trump does.
“These questions would only yield candidates who actively seek to undermine or thwart the laws and regulations we have to operate under,” the staffer said.
