President Donald Trump’s administration is in the process of purging more than 1,000 Biden appointees from their government roles, including several high-profile terminations already announced, though some said they resigned before Trump could dismiss them.
US President Donald Trump delivers his inaugural address after being sworn in as the 47th president ... [+]
Trump’s personnel office is in the process of “identifying and removing over a thousand presidential Appointees from the previous Administration,” he wrote Tuesday on Truth Social, naming four appointees and telling them “YOU’RE FIRED!” using his “Apprentice” catchphrase.
Trump said he dismissed celebrity chef José Andrés from the President’s Council on Sports, retired Gen. Mark Milley from the National Infrastructure Advisory Council, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms from the President’s Export Council, and his former Iran envoy, Brian Hook, from the Wilson Center for Scholars think tank.
Coast Guard Commandant Linda Fagan, who was two years into her four-year term and was not among the terminations Trump identified on Truth Social, was also terminated Monday by Acting Homeland Security Secretary Benjamin Huffman for performance reasons, according to multiple reports.
Andrés and Bottoms said they had already resigned before Trump’s announcement, and while Trump didn’t state his reasons for the terminations, Andrés, Bottoms and Milley have openly feuded with Trump, though it’s unclear why Hook was fired.
Andrés backed out of a restaurant deal with Trump after he disparaged Mexicans, sparking a two-year legal battle, and Bottoms criticized Trump’s incendiary rhetoric toward protesters in the wake of George Floyd’s death in 2020.
Milley—who was pre-emptively pardoned by former President Joe Biden Monday and whose portrait was removed from the Pentagon—called Trump “the most dangerous person to this country” and a “fascist to the core” in Bob Woodward’s “War.”
Federal advisory council roles are typically unpaid positions with limited authority. Biden also asked some Trump-era appointees to leave their positions or be terminated, including all 18 of his appointees to the boards of national military academies.
The terminations were among a string of actions Trump took on his first day in office, including signing a flurry of executive orders to implement his campaign promises on immigration, energy, TikTok and more. Other executive orders addressed federal employees, including one that suspends hiring and another directing agencies to stop work-from-home programs. Trump is expected to implement broad cuts to federal bureaucracy, likely with the help of the new Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency. Trump also pardoned all but 14 people convicted or charged in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, effectively dismissing more than 1,500 cases or convictions. The Senate is in the process of holding hearings for Trump’s nominees for cabinet-level positions, and Senate committees this week greenlit Trump’s Defense Secretary nominee, Pete Hegseth, and Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent.