Trump Orders Federal Agencies To Submit Plans For ‘Large-Scale’ Firings, Per Memo

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Wednesday ordered all federal agencies to submit plans by mid-March for “large-scale” reductions in employees ― a dramatic escalation in President Donald Trump’s ongoing mass firings across the government.

“The federal government is costly, inefficient, and deeply in debt,” reads a new memo from Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Charles Ezell, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management.

They give federal agencies until March 13 to produce plans for imposing a “significant reduction” in the number of full-time employees. The memo suggests different options for hollowing out their teams: by upholding Trump’s federal hiring freeze, removing “underperforming employees,” reducing head counts through attrition, and renegotiating collective bargaining agreements that “inhibit” government efficiency.

Federal taxpayer dollars are currently being used to “fund unproductive and unnecessary programs that benefit radical interest groups,” claim Vought and Ezell. They also say the majority of Americans agree.

“The American people registered their verdict on the bloated, corrupt federal bureaucracy on November 5, 2024 by voting for President Trump and his promises to sweepingly reform the federal government,” they state.

The memo comes after Trump and Elon Musk’s team at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency have forced out thousands of federal employees, some of whom they scrambled to rehire after strong backlash from lawmakers and outside groups.

Here’s a copy of the memo, obtained by HuffPost:

Democratic lawmakers slammed the Trump administration for its latest assault on federal agencies, with some saying it was plainly illegal.

“This unlawful plan to engineer a massive government reorganization, ripped straight from the Project 2025 playbook, cannot be ordered by executive fiat. Donald Trump is not a king, and we are not his subjects,” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), who has lots of federal workers in his district, said in a statement.

“Congress is a coequal branch of government, despite the Republican majority’s pathetic abdication of their constitutional authority,” Connolly said. “This kind of wholesale remaking of the federal government requires congressional input and authorization.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a constitutional law expert who also has lots of federal employees in his district, called Trump’s executive actions “as illegal as they are irrational.”

“The richest man in the world and the most powerful men in American politics are co-opting cynicism and confusion to remake our government in their own corrupt image: decimating public service, killing key public programs, jeopardizing Social Security and Medicare, and eliminating regulatory agencies that hold them accountable,” he said in a statement. “All while queueing up massive tax breaks for their billionaire friends.”

“To every federal worker and contractor whose livelihood is under attack, and to every American who counts on the federal government: I stand with you and will fight for you and your families every step of the way,” Raskin said.