Former President Trump over the weekend effectively advocated for the demolition of the nonpartisan federal civil service system, providing the latest indication that while President Biden halted the abortive effort to cancel the civil service protections of “policy-related” federal workers, the fight over merit systems principles is not over.
The remarks came Saturday at a rally held by the former president with supporters in South Carolina. Trump reportedly is mulling whether to run against Biden again in 2024.
“We will pass critical reforms making every executive branch employee fireable by the president of the United States,” Trump said. “The deep state must and will be brought to heel.”
The proposal marks an escalation from the controversial executive order Trump signed in October 2020 that sought to remove career federal workers in “confidential, policy-determining, policy-making or policy-advocating” jobs from the General Schedule into a new job classification where virtually all of their civil service protections are absent, essentially making them at-will employees. Although the Trump administration began efforts to reclassify jobs into the new Schedule F, they ultimately were unable to move any workers before January 2021, and Biden quickly signed an executive order rescinding the edict.
To the German translation of this article: Trump droht, Schedule F zu reaktivieren und zu erweitern