President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he plans to remove over 1,000 appointees from the administration of former President Joe Biden, announcing four dismissals on social media, including celebrity chef Jose Andres and former top general Mark Milley.
“My Presidential Personnel Office is actively in the process of identifying and removing over a thousand Presidential Appointees from the previous Administration, who are not aligned with our vision to Make America Great Again,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social just after midnight.
The step is likely to reignite concerns that the president aims to replace Biden appointees with individuals faithful to his agenda.
Trump said he was dismissing Milley, who was given a preemptive pardon by Biden on Monday, from the National Infrastructure Advisory Council.
Andres, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Biden, was removed from the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition, Trump said in the post.
The portrait of Milley, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who Trump has suggested should be executed for holding back-channel talks with China, was removed from the Pentagon shortly after Trump’s inauguration on Monday.
President Trump wasted no time signing a slew of executive orders on Day 1, including those that:
- Direct DOJ not to enforce TikTok “divest-or-ban” law for 75 days
- Halt 78 Biden-era executive actions
- Withdraw from the Paris climate accord
- End all federal cases and investigations of any Trump supporters
- Revoke protections for transgender troops
- Pardon about 1,500 people criminally charged in the Jan. 6 attack, while commuting the sentences for six
- Overhaul the refugee admission program to better align with American principles and interests
- Declare a national emergency at the US-Mexico border
- Designate drug cartels and Tren de Aragua as foreign terrorist organizations
- Reverse several immigration orders from the Biden administration, including one that narrows deportation priorities to people who commit serious crimes, are deemed national security threats or were stopped at the border
- Rescind a policy created by the Biden administration that sought to guide the development of AI to prevent misuse
- Rescind a Biden-era policy that allowed federal agencies to take certain initiatives to boost voter registration
- Rescind the 2021 Title IX order, which bans discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation in education programs that get federal funding
- Revoke Biden’s recent removal of Cuba from US state sponsors of terrorism list
- Order federal employees back to work in office five days a week
- Order a federal hiring freeze, including exceptions for posts related to national security and public safety and the military
- Direct every governmental department and agency to address the cost-of-living crisis
- Restore freedom of speech and prevent censorship of free speech
- End the “weaponization of government against the political adversaries of the previous administration”
- Impose 25% tariffs on products from Mexico and Canada as of Feb. 1
- Reverse Biden sanctions on Israeli settlers in the West Bank
- Reverse Biden order requiring 50% of new cars sold in 2030 be EVs
- Proclaim that there are two biological sexes: male and female
- End diversity, equity and inclusion programs within federal agencies
- Establish Department of Government Efficiency
- Institute enhanced screening for visa applicants from certain high-risk nations
- Reopen Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration
- Order attorney general, secretary of state and secretary of homeland security to “take all appropriate action to prioritize” prosecution of illegal aliens who commit crimes
- Withdraw US from Global Minimum Tax agreement
- Institute a 90-day pause in the issuance of US foreign aid
- Order the attorney general to pursue the death penalty for killing of a law enforcement officer or any capital crime committed by an illegal immigrant
- Order the secretaries of commerce and the interior to restart efforts to route water from California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to other parts of the state
- Withdraw the US from the World Health Organization
- Order Treasury Department to explore creation of External Revenue Service
- Revoke security clearances for ex-national security adviser John Bolton and 51 intelligence officials who said Hunter Biden laptop bore “classic earmarks” of Russian disinformation.
- Declare the border crisis an “invasion” and order the attorney general and secretaries of state and homeland security to “take all appropriate action to repel, repatriate, or remove any alien engaged” in such
- Formally rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” and Alaska’s Mt. Denali to “Mt. McKinley”
Trump also said he was removing former diplomat Brian Hook from the Wilson Center for Scholars and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms from the President’s Export Council.
“Let this serve as Official Notice of Dismissal for these 4 individuals, with many more, coming soon,” Trump wrote, adding: “YOU’RE FIRED!”
Trump also ordered federal workers to return to the office five days a week and weakened job protections for civil servants on Monday, the first salvoes in his campaign to gut the federal bureaucracy.
Trump’s allies have said the return-to-work mandate and the stripping of civil service protections – widely known as “Schedule F” – is intended to help the president replace long-serving government workers with loyalists.
