The Trump administration finalized a policy Thursday that creates a new category of federal workers that would make it easier to fire high-ranking career civil servants for their perceived unwillingness to implement the president’s agenda.
The new rule, set to be published in the Federal Register on Friday, will affect approximately 55,000 workers. The president will decide which roles fall within the new category via an executive order, Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor told reporters on a call Thursday.
Agencies have already submitted their proposals of positions covered under the new rule, which the White House is actively reviewing.
“The goal overall of what the scheduled policy career is intended to do is to ensure that the president has the ability to affect his policy priorities in cooperation with senior managers in the agencies,” Kupor said.
The OPM director added that the policy targets employees whose “disagreement leads them to then try to actively thwart or undermine the execution of [the president’s] priorities.”
The Wall Street Journal was first to report that the new rule was being issued this week.
While the administration says the move is about restoring “democratic principle” rather than targeting “people’s views or ideas,” designating and hiring workers loyal to the administration is a core tenet of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation blueprint that Trump initially publicly distanced himself from during the 2024 campaign then came to embrace during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history last year.
“You can’t run an organization if people are refusing to actually carry out the lawful objectives and orders of the administration,” Kupor said on Thursday, stressing that these positions will be separate from political appointments.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was more direct during Thursday’s briefing.
“I think if people aren’t doing their jobs — if they aren’t showing up for work, if they’re not working hard on behalf of this president — they’re not welcome to work for him at all,” Leavitt said.
Trump signed a similar executive order on Oct. 21, 2020, near the end of his first term, aimed at removing federal employees who “cannot or will not” carry out their duties. Before that order could take effect, President Joe Biden rescinded it just two days after taking office.
In a statement on the new rule published for public inspection, the Office of Personnel Management said the new rule will “give agencies the practical ability to separate employees who insert partisanship into their official duties, engage in corruption, or otherwise fail to uphold merit principles.”
Federal workers expressed concern over the policy.
Jonathan Mengel, who retired in December after 18 years as a communications specialist at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, called the rule a “politicization” of the federal workforce.
“I absolutely do think it is part of a plan to intimidate or pressure federal employees to either comply without question or force them to leave,” Mengel said. “It could be used as a method of attrition.”
An employee with the Department of Housing and Urban Development who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution told MS NOW she knew of several workers who opted into the deferred resignation programs “because of the Schedule F threat.”
“It’s terrible, but we have known it was coming since last spring,” the HUD employee said.
A 23-year State Department veteran, also speaking on the condition of anonymity for the same reason, said that the rule undermines the impartial workforce that has been the “backbone of this country offering stability and long-term expertise.”
“This severely undermines the ability of federal employees to give their candid thoughts on any subject, which in turn undermines the safety and security of the American people,” the State Department employee told MS NOW.
Emily Hung is an associate White House producer for MS NOW.
Soorin Kim is a White House producer with MS NOW.