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The Only Demand Trump Needs to Hear: ‘You’re Fired!’
Given his wreckage of lives, livelihoods, health, safety, and freedom of speech here and abroad in just 100 days, Trump invites daily the unifying command arising out of his declaration of war against the American people.
May 03, 2025
Of all the epithets seething from the foul mouth of King Donald I (his preferred title)—“deranged,” “wacko,” “lunatic,” “crazy,” “crooked,” “loser,” “criminal,” “corrupt,” the most timely, functional one is his favorite: “YOU’RE FIRED.”
Launched from his TV program, The Apprentice, while a failed businessman, Trump, using the poisonous tusks of Elon Musk, has conveyed that exit phrase to hundreds of thousands of innocent public servants, performing crucial tasks, and their contractors since January 20, 2025.
Given his wreckage of lives, livelihoods, health, safety, and freedom of speech here and abroad in just 100 days, Trump invites daily the unifying command arising out of his declaration of war against the American people—red state and blue state—“YOU’RE FIRED!”
Trump, a corporation masquerading as a Human, must be unmasked by the following bill of particulars:
Because you’re first “presentation of self” on January 20 was to declare that you are the law and that no constitution, statute, or regulation was going to stop your issuance of scores of illegal Executive Order Dictates, “YOU’RE FIRED!” The Constitution does NOT provide for either a Monarch or a Dictator!
Because on and after January 20, 2025, you launched a major PURGE of lawfully acting civil servants, including 17 inspectors general mandated to root out criminal and fraudulent activities, and top officials in the Pentagon, Intelligence, and Regulatory agencies without reason and notice, replacing them with sycophants, “YOU’RE FIRED!”
Because you are daily CENSORING and IMPERILING people, protected by our First Amendment, with police state kidnappings, illegal imprisonment in foreign and domestic jails, threats, harassment, bigotry, and outright criminal extortions for unlawful demands, “YOU’RE FIRED!”
Because you have repeatedly violated congressional mandates, including the power of the purse and health and safety standards, and because you have illegally seized basic congressional authority under the Constitution, having defied over 125 congressional subpoenas in your first term, destroying our federal checks and balances, “YOU’RE FIRED!” (See, Wrecking America: How Trump’s Lawbreaking and Lies Betray All by Mark Green and me, published in 2020).
Because you are rampantly and unlawfully dismantling or closing down virtually all the long-established regulatory and scientific research, protections of the health, safety, and economic well-being of the American people, families, and children, within the areas of consumer, worker, environmental, and community necessities—many life-saving, “YOU’RE FIRED!”
Because you favor even greater power of large corporations to receive bloated contracts, subsidies, and giveaways; with impunity defraud the government, as with Medicare and Medicaid and military contracts; take over more of the public lands; and see scores of existing federal enforcement cases against them halted or dismissed, “YOU’RE FIRED!”
Because you have destroyed more of the working civil service than all previous presidents combined, you have left the American people more defenseless against pandemics, climate violence, air and water pollution, hunger, infectious diseases, and corporate crimes, “YOU’RE FIRED!”
Because you are demanding Congress pass more tax cuts and tax escapes for the very under-taxed super-wealthy, like you and your family members, and giant corporations, and because you have turned the White House into a self-enrichment business for you and your cronies, “YOU’RE FIRED!”
Because you have extended your cruel and vicious destructions against innocents abroad receiving life-saving medicine, food, and medical supplies from the U.S. Agency for International Development that you unlawfully have closed down, millions of poor people are in jeopardy and many thousands already dying and starving. You are told about these tragedies you have caused but could care less. Your zigzagging on massive tariffs destabilizing U.S. businesses and their workers is leading more of your supporters to question your competence and wrongheaded policies. Because regarding the Israeli genocide and slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza and casualties mounting in the West Bank, you have backed your master Netanyahu even more than Bibi-Biden, greenlighting breaking the truce, resuming mass murder and starvation, pushing for expulsion of the entire surviving population, and approving annexation of the West Bank, “YOU’RE FIRED!”
Because every day you lie, and make false statements as a routine deceptive practice (over 35,000 lies and false statements listed by The Washington Post during your first term), you are creating harmful, false scenarios. Together with Musk enriching his corporate positions in Washington, you lie about each day’s realities such as the price of eggs being down 85%, our country now having a trade surplus, and your approval rating in polls “in the 60s and 70s,” “YOU’RE FIRED!”
Because your erratic, wild, and no-holds-barred fascist dictatorial corporate state “first” behavior proceeds from a dangerously unstable personality, driven by your insatiable vengeance as a megalomaniacal power freak, ignorant of or oblivious to circumstances and consequences, your continued wreckage in all directions is certain to worsen and shatter our Republic and its constitutional processes, “YOU’RE FIRED!”
Expanding numbers of Americans from all backgrounds who see the deadly months ahead of Dangerous Donald need to sum up their demands in the siren call “YOU’RE FIRED!” Just as was done to President Richard Nixon for far less serious transgressions in 1974.
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Dear Dem Leaders: We Need Strategies, Not Speeches
I understand that you, like so many of us, are overwhelmed. But with respect, that is not an excuse. You are a leader in the Democratic Party, and leadership in this moment demands more.
Apr 17, 2025
I’ve worked on Democratic campaigns at every level—from city council to Congress—knocking doors in the rain, training volunteers in living rooms, and flipping districts no one thought we could win. But today, I’m not writing from the field. I’m writing from a place of deep urgency. As someone who has helped build Democratic power from the ground up, I can’t stay quiet about what I see at the top: too much caution, too much delay, and not nearly enough fight.
During a bout of insomnia, I found myself thinking not just about what’s wrong—but about what we can do. The tools Democratic leadership still has, even in the minority. Like many others awake at 5:00 am, somewhere between dread and determination, I sat down to write a letter to my representatives—two of whom also happen to be party leaders.
In it, I shared the frustration that so many Democrats are feeling: that our elected officials are not rising to meet the urgency of this moment. But I didn’t stop at critique. I laid out real, tangible strategies—actions I believe we can take, and must, before it’s too late.
Here Are Just a Few of the Strategies Democratic Leadership Could and Should Be Using Right Now
Use Every Procedural Tool to Obstruct Authoritarian Legislation
Even in the minority, Democrats still have tools—filibusters, discharge petitions, amendments, withholding unanimous consent. These tactics should be used not sparingly, but relentlessly, to stall extremist overreach and force accountability.
With Republicans holding only a slim majority in both chambers, many votes require every GOP member to be present. That means well-timed delay tactics—whether procedural roadblocks or quorum pressure—can significantly disrupt daily proceedings and deny legitimacy to the Trump administration’s agenda.
Amplify Activist Voices and Resistance Movements
Read Project 2025 and Trump’s authoritarian policies into the Congressional Record. Bring activists and experts to testify. Turn committee hearings into moments of truth and visibility—not just for legislation, but for resistance.
Public hearings and press conferences should feature not just elected officials, but activists, whistleblowers, and legal experts. Let them speak on the record about what’s at stake. Turn the machinery of Congress into a spotlight—not just for legislation, but for truth-telling, narrative building, and grassroots solidarity.
Encourage Legal action at the State Level Against Corrupt Actors
While federal oversight may stall under a hostile administration, state attorneys general can still investigate, subpoena, and prosecute. Democratic leaders should coordinate and publicly support legal action at the state level—especially in cases of insider trading, abuse of power, and the politicization of federal agencies during the Trump years.
Importantly, state-level prosecutions cannot be pardoned by the president. That independence makes them one of the most effective tools we have for securing real consequences. These legal efforts can also serve as a deterrent, a signal that public service does not grant impunity—and that even in a divided government, justice is not off the table.
Support Civil Servants Who Were Endangered or Silenced
President Donald Trump’s prior administration targeted career civil servants with ideological purges, abrupt terminations, and politically motivated firings. USAID employees, diplomats, scientists, and inspectors general were removed or undermined—often without cause or recourse.
Democratic leaders should stand with these workers by supporting their lawsuits, amplifying their stories, and publicly defending civil service protections. The dismantling of a nonpartisan public workforce is a hallmark of authoritarianism. Defending that workforce is a line we cannot allow to be crossed again.
Challenge ICE and Private Detention Centers Through Local Governance
State and local governments don’t have to wait for federal reform to challenge ICE and the private prison industry. Democratic governors, mayors, and legislatures can cancel contracts, deny facility permits, and even pursue legal tools like eminent domain to reclaim control of detention sites.
These actions send a powerful signal: Cities and states will not be complicit in dehumanization. But there’s also a tactical layer—legal pushback forces major law firms to spend their pledged pro bono hours fighting complex eminent domain cases, rather than quietly defending Trump administration allies in high-profile federal court battles. Local resistance doesn’t just disrupt ICE—it redistributes institutional resources and applies pressure to power from multiple angles.
These are just a few of the actions we can take. I put them—along with a call to act—into a letter to my representatives. What follows is that letter, shared publicly in the hope that it inspires others to raise their voices, too.
Dear Senator Schumer and Congressman Jeffries,
My name is Laura Hughes. I’ve worked as a Democratic campaign organizer for over eight years, and I’m currently pursuing a Master’s in Public Administration at Columbia University. I share this because I want to be clear: I’m writing not just to voice frustration, but to urge action—with both urgency and strategy.
Let me begin by acknowledging what I know to be true: You, like so many of us, are overwhelmed. But with respect, that is not an excuse. You are a leader in the Democratic Party, and leadership in this moment demands more.
We are watching institutions unravel: People are being disappeared, federal departments are dismantled, the economy is unstable, rule of law is violated, and corruption is normalized. This is not a time for business as usual. We cannot afford to stand on ceremony when the floor is collapsing beneath us.
People are in the streets. They are looking to you—not just for speeches, but for strategy.
In both chambers of Congress, Democrats should be leveraging every procedural and political tool available. If Mitch McConnell taught us anything, it’s that a slim majority is no excuse for inaction. Senator Cory Booker had the right idea: We should filibuster more. We should obstruct more. We should use amendments, discharge petitions, and parliamentary procedure to grind every harmful effort to a halt. Invite activists to testify and disrupt proceedings. Read Project 2025 and every authoritarian overreach into the Congressional Record.
Make it harder for them—every single day.
Here are additional actions I urge you and your colleagues to consider:
1. Support legal accountability by encouraging state attorneys general to investigate and, where appropriate, indict former Trump administration officials for clear acts of corruption—such as insider trading or abuse of power.
2. Back civil service lawsuits—stand with civil servants whose careers and safety were jeopardized by abrupt terminations and dangerous policy shifts, such as those at USAID.
3. Empower local governments to resist ICE by encouraging Democratic governors, mayors, and state legislatures to end contracts with private detention centers, shutter ICE offices, and pursue creative legal mechanisms—like eminent domain—to challenge federal overreach and private prison profiteering.
I share these not as an outsider, but as someone who has dedicated her career to building Democratic power from the ground up. I believe in what we’re capable of—but I also believe we are failing to meet this moment.
I hope this letter reaches you not just as a call to act, but as a reminder: History will remember who resisted and who stood back.
With urgency and resolve,
Laura Anne Hughes
Constituent
Organizer
Policy Student
I wrote this letter out of urgency, but I’m sharing it out of hope. Because we still have time to turn the tide—if we’re willing to use every tool at our disposal. I’m asking our leaders to rise to the moment. And I’m asking all of us continue to demand that they do.
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Refusing to Help DOGE 'Dismantle Critical Public Services,' 21 Tech Experts Resign
"We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations," they wrote. "However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments."
Feb 25, 2025
Over 20 U.S. federal tech workers who were forced into President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency resigned in protest on Tuesday, according to a joint letter obtained by The Associated Press.
The 21 data scientists, engineers, and product managers were initially part of the United States Digital Service, established during the Obama administration. However, one of Trump's first executive orders states that it "is hereby publicly renamed as the United States DOGE Service (USDS) and shall be established in the Executive Office of the President."
As the AP detailed, "earlier this month, about 40 staffers in the office were laid off," leaving about 65 employees who "were integrated into DOGE's government-slashing effort." About a third of the spared workers—who previously worked for companies such as Amazon and Google—joined the mass resignation.
"We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations," wrote the 21 staffers, according to the news agency. "However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments."
"We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans' sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services," they explained. "We will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize DOGE's actions."
Their resignation letter sounds the alarm about recent interviews conducted by Musk loyalists that "created significant security risks," noting that "several of these interviewers refused to identify themselves, asked questions about political loyalty, attempted to pit colleagues against each other, and demonstrated limited technical ability."
The letter also criticizes the recent USDS layoffs that "focused on people in roles like designers, product managers, human resources, and contracting staff," according to the AP, which cited interviews with current and former staff.
"These highly skilled civil servants were working to modernize Social Security, veterans' services, tax filing, healthcare, disaster relief, student aid, and other critical services," the letter states. "Their removal endangers millions of Americans who rely on these services every day. The sudden loss of their technology expertise makes critical systems and American's data less safe."
The firings at USDS are just part of Musk and Trump's sweeping effort to slash government spending and the federal workforce.
"Musk clearly loves to depict DOGE as a lean, mean efficiency machine," Intelligencer columnist Ed Kilgore wrote last week. "But it seems increasingly obvious that its efforts to reduce personnel levels and spending mostly reflect an ideology that treats whole areas of government as illegitimate and completely arbitrary reductions in force as a valuable end in themselves."
Fueling such arguments, the AP revealed Tuesday that nearly 40% of the federal contracts the Trump administration has canceled won't save any money. The Musk-led effort "published an updated list Monday of nearly 2,300 contracts that agencies terminated in recent weeks across the federal government," the news agency reported. "Data published on DOGE's 'Wall of Receipts' shows that more than one-third of the contract cancellations, 794 in all, are expected to yield no savings."
Reporting on DOGE's failures and the mass resignation came amid mixed messaging about a Saturday email from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the government's human resources agency, ordering federal workers to respond by the end of Monday with five bullet points listing what they did last week. Musk said on his social media platform X that "failure to respond will be taken as a resignation."
Then, Politico and The Washington Post reported Monday that the Trump administration had told federal department heads that they could direct staff to ignore the list requirement and Musk's threat, and emails from agency leaders informing workers they should not respond began circulating on social media.
Further adding to the confusion, the president told reporters Monday afternoon that anyone who doesn't reply would be "sort of semi-fired—or you're fired," and Musk later wrote on X: "Subject to the discretion of the president, they will be given another chance. Failure to respond a second time will result in termination."
Meanwhile, a Monday guidance from OPM states in part that responses to the initial Saturday email "should be directed to agency leadership," who "may exclude personnel from this expectation at their discretion and should inform OPM of the categories of the employees excluded and reasons for exclusion."
Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, a union that has pushed back on DOGE initiatives, said in a Monday statement that "Elon Musk's latest email fiasco is yet another example of the chaotic and callous treatment of federal employees that has been the hallmark of Trump's second term."
"It was nothing but a cynical attempt to demean federal workers and terrorize them into quitting," Kelley continued. "To be clear, federal employees report to the agencies who employ them through established chains of command. They do not report to OPM, 'DOGE,' and definitely not to Elon Musk."
"I'm glad reality is teaching them the lessons they refuse to teach themselves on how to run a functional civil service," the union leader added. "Make no mistake we will continue to hold Elon Musk and the entire Trump administration accountable for their illegal actions."
While DOGE has
hit some legal snags thanks to challenges from unions and other critics, the Trump administration has demonstrated a willingness to defy court orders and congressional Republicans are already targeting some federal judges with articles of impeachment for impeding the president's agenda.
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Trump-Musk Attack on Consumer Bureau Blasted as 'Unprecedented Corporate Coup'
"The same billionaires trying to kill the CFPB are the ones who profit off predatory loans, sky-high fees, and financial scams that target young people," said the head of one advocacy group.
Feb 18, 2025
A national nonprofit that aims to "empower young changemakers" on Monday called out U.S. President Donald Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk for attacking a federal consumer financial watchdog as "part of a broader, dangerous effort to privatize and dismantle the civil service, eroding the government's ability to protect working people from corporate exploitation."
"Musk, an unelected billionaire with no constitutional authority to restructure federal agencies, is wielding his influence in the Trump administration to gut consumer protections—just as he moves to expand his own financial empire through X Money," the nonprofit, Future Coalition, said in a statement about the assault on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
"Musk, through his leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has taken it upon himself to reshape federal agencies to suit his personal financial interests," the group continued. "The move to eliminate the CFPB is a glaring example of this corrupt power grab, where billionaires rewrite the rules to benefit themselves at the expense of everyday Americans."
"If Musk and his allies succeed in gutting this agency, it will be open season on young consumers with no one left to protect them."
Although the White House created confusion on Monday evening by stating in a declaration to a federal judge overseeing another case that Musk "is a senior adviser to the president" and "is not the U.S. DOGE service administrator," the world's richest billionaire is widely understood to be overseeing the Trump administration's attempts to gut the federal government.
At the CFPB specifically, that effort is currently at a standstill due to a legal challenge. A fight in federal court on Friday halted mass firings there and under the agreement, the agency and its temporary leader, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, must retain "vast troves" of data and refrain from defunding the bureau while the case proceeds.
Still, there are signs that Trump and his allies will keep working to shutter the CFPB, including a "404: Page not found" message displayed on the homepage of the agency's website as of Tuesday afternoon. The message has been there for more than 10 days.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's hompage displayed a "404: Page not found" message on February 18, 2025. (Photo: CFPB/screen grab)
Critics of Trump, Musk, and DOGE continue to warn about how the "unprecedented corporate coup" targeting the CFPB would help the billionaire and various fraudsters while harming Americans. As Future Coalition highlighted Monday, anticipated consequences of ending the agency include the weakening of protections for student loan borrowers, the removal of protections against junk fees, and increases in predatory lending and financial fraud—from cryptocurrency schemes to mobile payment scams.
"Young people today are drowning in student debt, struggling to afford housing, and navigating a financial system rigged against them—yet conservative forces and big business have spent over a decade trying to dismantle the one agency designed to protect them," said Corryn G. Freeman, executive director of Future Coalition. "The CFPB is not the problem—corporate greed is."
"The same billionaires trying to kill the CFPB are the ones who profit off predatory loans, sky-high fees, and financial scams that target young people," Freeman added. "The CFPB should be strengthened, not eliminated. If Musk and his allies succeed in gutting this agency, it will be open season on young consumers with no one left to protect them."
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a former Harvard Law School professor who proposed and helped craft the CFPB before joining Congress, has delivered a similar message in recent days.
As The New Yorker's John Cassidy reported Monday:
A week ago, Elon Musk tweeted, "CFPB RIP." In short order, the Trump administration has shuttered the headquarters of the agency, halted most of its operations, and laid off some of its staff. Since Musk’s démarche, Warren—who was elected to the Senate as a Democrat from Massachusetts in 2013, and is now in her third term—has led the effort to save the CFPB, speaking at a rally outside its offices, tearing into the Tesla CEO in television interviews, and, in a Senate hearing, pressing Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, to confirm that without the CFPB there is no government agency to insure that financial companies obey consumer-protection laws.
When I caught up with Warren on the phone, late last week, she recalled that prior to the creation of the CFPB, responsibility for enforcing these laws was split between six regulatory agencies. "It was nobody's first job, and nothing got done," she remarked. The founding of the CFPB brought consumer protection—regulation, supervision, and enforcement—under one roof. "For a dozen years, the CFPB has been the financial cop on the beat," Warren went on. "It has found more than $21 billion in fraud and scams, and scooped up that money and returned it directly to the people who were cheated. Now Elon Musk comes in and says, 'Let's fire the cops.' What could possibly go wrong?"
If the Trump administration succeeds in dismantling the agency, "it's open season on everyone who has a credit card, a mortgage, a car loan, a payday loan, a student loan, or uses an online financial app," Warren warned. The senator also offered a reason why the agency has faced attacks from Republicans since long before Musk decided to help Trump return to the White House.
"The CFPB is living, breathing proof, every day, that we can make government work for regular people," she said. "That we can use government to level the playing field, so that students don't get cheated on their education loans, or a family can take out a mortgage to buy a house without worrying there's a trick back on page 36 that means they are going to lose the house in two years. That's government working the way it should, and it really gets under the skins of the most extremist Republicans."
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'A Complete Takeover': New Trump Order Entrenches Musk-Led 'Shadow Government'
President Donald Trump's latest executive order "gives Elon Musk, an unelected, hyper-partisan billionaire, unfettered authority over this country's civil service," warned one advocacy group.
Feb 12, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order handing an Elon Musk-led commission sweeping power to oversee federal hiring across non-military departments, entrenching what's been described as a "shadow government" spearheaded by an unelected billionaire.
The new order states that the leader of each non-military federal agency "shall develop a data-driven plan" in coordination with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an advisory body that has infiltrated departments across the U.S. government—and accessed highly sensitive data—as part of an unprecedented effort to gut spending and the federal workforce.
"This hiring plan shall include that new career appointment hiring decisions shall be made in consultation with the agency's DOGE Team Lead, consistent with applicable law," the order continues. "The agency shall not fill any vacancies for career appointments that the DOGE Team Lead assesses should not be filled, unless the Agency Head determines the positions should be filled."
The order also instructs agency directors to prepare for "large-scale" cuts to the federal workforce.
"It's a complete takeover of the federal government by Musk," investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr wrote in response to the executive action.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office with Musk at his side, Trump on Tuesday called the order "very important" and attacked federal judges who "want to try and stop us," alluding to court orders against DOGE's attempt to access vital government systems.
Musk, who is leading DOGE while simultaneously heading companies that are benefiting directly from his work inside the Trump administration, insisted he's not orchestrating a "hostile takeover" of the federal government, declaring that the public voted for "major government reform" and "they are going to get what they voted for."
The mega-billionaire also falsely claimed DOGE has been transparent as it rampages through the federal government.
"In reality," The Guardian noted, "Musk has taken great pains to conceal how DOGE has operated, starting with his own involvement in the project. Musk himself is a 'special government employee,' which the White House has said means his financial disclosure filing will not be made public. The DOGE team involves about 40 staffers, but the actual number is not known. Staffers have tried to keep their identities private and refused to give their last names to career officials at the agencies they were detailed to."
Trump's latest executive order (EO) is poised to supercharge the Musk-led assault on and total dismantling of federal agencies, from the U.S. Agency for International Development to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
"This new EO signed today appears to create DOGE as a shadow government across the entire federal government," Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo wrote late Wednesday, adding that the order "seems to make Elon as head of DOGE functionally the president or perhaps something more like a prime minister."
Skye Perryman, president and CEO of the advocacy group Democracy Forward, warned in a statement that "this latest attack on public service gives Elon Musk, an unelected, hyper-partisan billionaire, unfettered authority over this country's civil service."
"People and communities across the nation depend on a non-partisan, committed civil service," said Perryman. "Democracy Forward will pursue all legal options available to protect our civil service and the American people from harms that would stem from this executive order."
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Major Public Sector Unions Sue Over Trump's 'Politicization' of Civil Service
The head of a legal group representing the plaintiffs called the Trump administration's effort to "politicize" nonpartisan federal employees "simply and clearly illegal."
Jan 30, 2025
Two unions representing federal employees filed a complaint in federal court on Wednesday arguing that U.S. President Donald Trump "illegally exceeded his authority" by attempting to roll back Biden-era worker protections when he implemented his "Schedule F" executive order, a measure aimed at removing job protections for many career federal employees.
The plaintiffs are the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents some 800,000 federal civilian employees, and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which represents some 1.4 million public employees, including federal workers.
The unions argue that Schedule F, which creates a new category of federal employees and makes it easier for a president to remove career civil servants not normally impacted by a presidential transition, is a scheme that put politics over professionalism.
"Despite this long-standing recognition of the importance of our professional civil service and protections against its politicization, the recently issued Schedule F order announces President Trump's intent to reclassify many career civil servants into a new category of federal employees and strip away their civil service protections so that they can be more easily fired," the plaintiffs argued.
Another union representing federal employees, National Treasury Employees Union, also filed a lawsuit challenging Schedule F last week.
The order, signed on Trump's first day in office, is a redux of an executive order that he implemented at the tail end of his first term, which was later reversed by former President Joe Biden.
In a statement Wednesday, AFSCME president Lee Saunders said that Schedule F "is a shameless attempt to politicize the federal workforce by replacing thousands of dedicated, qualified civil servants with political cronies."
"Our union was born in the fight for a professional, nonpartisan civil service, and our communities will pay the price if these anti-union extremists are allowed to undo decades of progress by stripping these workers of their freedoms. Together, we are fighting back," he said.
On Monday, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued guidance for the heads of departments and agencies to determine which workers are subject to Trump's Schedule F order.
The memo from OPM is "broadly worded; just about anyone in the civil service could be swept up into this category," Alan Lescht, a Washington, D.C.-based employment lawyer who represents federal workers, told the outlet Axios.
OPM, acting OPM Director Charles Ezell, and Trump are all listed as defendants in the lawsuit, which alleges that Trump overstepped his legal authority when he issued Schedule F and rendered parts of a preexisting OPM rule that reinforced civil service protections and merit system principles "inoperative and without effect."
The suit argues that OPM failed to adhere to the "notice-and-comment process" under Administrative Procedure Act when it rendered those regulatory provisions inoperative.
"In just the nine days since Trump took office, his administration has repeatedly demonstrated a blatant disregard for the law in service of its political objectives," said Democracy Forward president and CEO Skye Perryman, whose firm is serving as co-counsel for the plaintiffs, in a Wednesday statement.
The Trump administration's effort "to politicize the nonpartisan, independent federal employees who protect our national and domestic security, ensure our food and medications are safe, deliver essential services to people and communities everywhere, and much more is simply and clearly illegal," Perryman said.
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'Musk Lackeys' Have Reportedly Seized Control of Key Federal Office
"I've been an OPM employee for nearly a decade and a federal employee for almost 20 years," reads a since-deleted Reddit post. "I've never witnessed anything even remotely close to what's happening right now."
Jan 29, 2025
The unglamorous but key federal office that sent out a mass "deferred resignation" offer to federal employees on Tuesday has reportedly been taken over by people with ties to Elon Musk, the world's richest man and a close confidant of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Citing unnamed sources, Wired reported Tuesday that "the highest ranks of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM)—essentially the human resources function for the entire federal government—are now controlled by people with connections to Musk and to the tech industry." Musk reportedly visited OPM headquarters late last week.
Wired, which described the individuals as "Musk lackeys," declined to name some of the newly installed OPM officials because of their ages. One of the officials "was set to start college last fall," and another "is a 21-year-old whose online résumé touts his work for Palantir, the government contractor and analytics firm co-founded by billionaire Peter Thiel."
Among the officials the outlet names are Riccardo Biasini, a former Tesla engineer who is now a senior adviser to the OPM director, and Amanda Scales, who previously worked at xAI, Musk's artificial intelligence company. Scales is now chief of staff at OPM, which is currently led by Acting Director Charles Ezell.
A since-deleted Reddit post purportedly authored by an OPM employee describes Ezell as "the friendliest 'yes man' you'll ever meet."
"I've been an OPM employee for nearly a decade and a federal employee for almost 20 years. I've never witnessed anything even remotely close to what's happening right now. In short, there's a hostile takeover of the federal civil service," the post stated. "It's clear they pushed aside all the high-level nonpolitical civil servants who refused to do Donald Trump's bidding, until they found Chuck [Ezell]."
"The 'Fork in the Road' email had the same title as one that Elon Musk sent to Twitter when he took over there, informing workers to be 'extremely hardcore' or take the resignation offer."
The heavy presence of Musk allies and associates at OPM further entrenches the influence of the mega-billionaire inside the Trump administration, which has moved swiftly—and unlawfully—to purge the federal workforce and exert control over funding approved by Congress.
The American Prospect's David Dayen noted Wednesday that the email OPM sent to federal employees earlier this week offering full pay and benefits through September for all workers who opt to resign was "an Elon Musk operation, through and through."
"In fact, the 'Fork in the Road' email had the same title as one that Elon Musk sent to Twitter when he took over there, informing workers to be 'extremely hardcore' or take the resignation offer," Dayen wrote. "The Twitter emails even included the same ask of workers to reply with their decision."
"This is alternately questionably legal, potentially a bait and switch, dubiously effective as a budget-reducer, maybe even a budget-buster, and definitively harrowing for two million workers being subjected to a misery-inducing campaign for the sport of the world's richest man," Dayen added.
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Unscrubbed PDFs Reveal Authors of Trump Memos Are Project 2025 Heavy Hitters
"Trump has denied or downplayed links to Project 2025," said the researcher who exposed the memos' authors. "These documents show that implementation is well underway."
Jan 28, 2025
A U.S. tech researcher on Tuesday revealed that the authors of policies published by Republican President Donald Trump's Office of Personnel Management have links to the far-right Heritage Foundation and its most infamous initiative, Project 2025.
On her [citation needed] website, Molly White exposed Noah Peters as the true author of Office of Personnel Management (OPM) acting Director Charles Ezell's Tuesday memo providing guidance on policy strikingly similar to Schedule F—which White described as "an effort to enable Trump to purge civil servants and replace them with loyalists."
White also revealed that James Sherk wrote a pair of joint OMP/Office of Management and Budget memos forcing federal workers to return to in-person work and implementing a government-wide hiring freeze.
According to White:
As far back as 2023, the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 was recommending Peters for a position in Trump's second administration. Peters had previously been appointed in 2019 as the solicitor at the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), where he "aided and defended Trump appointees' anti-union FLRA policies that went against decades of the agency's own precedents," according to Court Accountability Action and State Democracy Defenders Action. Peters returned to private practice in 2022, but recently quietly updated his LinkedIn profile to reflect a new title of "senior adviser" to the Office of Personnel Management. This appointment does not appear to have been announced anywhere else...
James Sherk was announced as assistant to the president for domestic policy on January 18. A White House official during Trump's first term, Sherk was a key figure in Trump's Schedule F endeavors. After [former Democratic President Joe] Biden was elected and he quickly repealed Schedule F, Sherk slunk off to the America First Policy Institute to continue efforts to advance Trump's policies. Prior to these positions, he was a staff member at the Heritage Foundation.
White pointed to an unverified Reddit post by someone claiming to be an OPM employee and federal worker for nearly 20 years as cause for alarm.
"I've never witnessed anything even remotely close to what's happening right now," the poster wrote. "In short, there's a hostile takeover of the civil service."
"Let me say this in no uncertain terms—OPM has been compromised and taken over... by outside politicals," the Reddit user continued. "In just five days, they managed to push aside dozens of nonpolitical, career civil servants who were there specifically to prevent the civil service from becoming the president's henchmen."
"The nonpolitical civil servants here at OPM are watching helplessly as our government is being systematically dismantled bit by bit," the poster warned. Even the [inspector generals] are being fired to prevent them from investigating the numerous whistleblower complaints we've filed."
Returning to the memos written by Peters and Sherk, White noted: "While Project 2025 and similar initiatives have been public about their plans to reshape the federal workforce, Trump and other figures in his administration have denied or downplayed links with the initiative. These documents provide further evidence that the implementation is already well underway, with designated personnel quietly drafting policies that were intended only to be publicly attributed to those in charge of the federal agencies."
At least 140 people who worked in Trump's first administration—including six former Cabinet secretaries—have been involved with Project 2025.
On Monday, the National Treasury Employees Union—which represents approximately 150,000 workers across 35 federal agencies—sued the Trump administration over its moves to politicize the civil service and disempower employees.
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