NPR84%
Trump strips job protections from 8,000 federal workers 52%
By Andrea Hsu0%
6/3/2026, 7:53:21 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 30 faulty reasoning types, including Framing Effect, Confirmation Bias, and Appeal to Authority, with Hasty Generalization as the most egregious example at 21.6% saturation with 215 hits. Analysis detected 2,484 faulty-reasoning hits from 996 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 51% and a BS Rank of 52% (10,692 of 21,886 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 51.10% of the article peer group.
President Trump has issued an executive order turning an estimated 8,000 federal workers into at-will employees, which means the government could fire them without providing any reason.
The move culminates an effort Trump launched during his first term to strip vast numbers of federal employees of civil service protections designed to insulate their work from political interference.
Nearly all of the 8,000 people affected are at the highest level of the civil service, known as GS-15.
The Trump administration characterizes the roles as senior positions with significant influence over policy.
They include leaders of policy offices and their chiefs of staff, heads of regional offices, program managers, senior public affairs officers and those overseeing spending and grants.
The number of positions affected by Wednesday's executive order is smaller than many anticipated.
Originally, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) estimated some 50,000 positions could be reclassified.
The administration has not ruled out expanding the pool at a later time.
Tripling the number of at-will employees
The federal government currently has about 4,000 political appointees who serve at the pleasure of the president.
Until now, the rest of the workforce of approximately 2 million people could only be fired for certain reasons, such as inadequate performance or misconduct.
In those situations, agencies must follow formal processes, including giving the employee an opportunity to appeal.
But in February, the administration finalized a rule creating a new category of at-will employees called Schedule Policy/Career.
(During Trump's first term, it was known as Schedule F.)
It was facing multiple lawsuits even before Wednesday's order which spells out which jobs are now at-will.
"The people responsible for protecting our public health, safeguarding our environment, delivering our mail, managing our airports, protecting our public lands, and enforcing our laws should be allowed to do their jobs, not targeted by the same government they serve," said Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, one of the organizations suing the Trump administration over the rule.
"When government experts can be fired without cause, it's not just federal workers who are harmed — it's the people across the country who rely on these essential services every day."
"It creates bubbles around policymakers"
The extreme politicization that Trump has already brought to government will grow worse if the president is legally able to fire tens of thousands more people for any reason, says Don Moynihan, professor at the University of Michigan's Ford School of Public Policy.
"It creates bubbles around policymakers," he says.
"If you were a career civil servant and there is bad news that you want to share with the president, you're less likely to do so if you think, 'The minute I share that bad news, I'm going to get fired.'"
"This is very much about accountability"
The president's disregard for the laws governing the employment of federal workers has been clear in his second term.
He has shown a willingness — and at times an eagerness — to fire employees he perceives as political opponents, such as Justice Department attorneys involved in Jan. 6 prosecutions, as well as those doing work he doesn't support, such as those at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
A case likely headed for the Supreme Court
Moynihan believes ongoing litigation is one reason the Trump administration has started by reclassifying only a relatively small number of positions.
"By starting with more defensible policy-making roles, they are more likely to win in court," he wrote on his blog back in February.
"Once they do, and the rule is cemented as law, they can always broaden its reach, deeper and deeper into the administration."
He predicts the issue will ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court.
"This is a swing-for-the-fences moment on the part of the administration, where they look at this Supreme Court and think this is the most friendly court that we are going to get on this topic," he says, pointing to a number of emergency orders issued by the Supreme Court last year that have allowed controversial firings to stand while litigation continues.
The theory that the administration has pushed at the Supreme Court, which the court has been willing to entertain, is that Article II of the Constitution gives the president full control of the executive branch, including over positions that Congress designed to be insulated from White House control.
A private sector comparison
Kupor, the OPM director, contends that giving the president more control over the workforce will lead to a more efficient government, pointing to how things work in the private sector, where he spent his career as a tech executive and investor.
"Outside of the federal government, all other organizations — whether for-profit or non-profit — are led by a CEO, who sets the priorities for the organization and ultimately effects those priorities through the hiring of employees who are accountable to the CEO's mission," Kupor wrote on his blog.
"Everyone knows what is expected of them and is accountable to the goals of the organization."
Michael Martinez, who formerly served as OPM deputy general counsel and is now part of the legal team at Democracy Forward, says the comparison is flawed.
"It's mission-driven work in government," he says.
"That's really for the American people, so that they can rely on the information they're getting" — whether it be the latest jobs numbers or the weather report.
Moynihan points to numerous studies that have found that as systems become more politicized, performance of public institutions drops.
"That's partly because people who have expertise decide, 'I'm not going to stick around if the input that I provide to policymakers is going to be ignored,'" he says.
He notes that one of the great recruiting advantages the government has historically had is the ability to tell candidates that their work will make a difference.
"But if your input and work are just being ignored, that's a much harder sales pitch to make to potential employees," he says.
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