Taking Stock: Project 2025’s Impact to Date on Federal Employees

Trump has gutted the professional federal workforce, fired Biden officials, and put a loyalist corps in place -- triggering many lawsuits and politicizing workers overnight. Sally O'Driscoll reports.

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Photo: Alex Wroblewski/AFP via Getty Images

By Sally O’Driscoll

In the spring of 2024, we posted summaries of how Project 2025 would affect seventeen different groups of people and the issues they’re most concerned about. Now that Project 2025’s Key Proposals are almost 80% implemented, per our recent assessment (see our story “How far along are we with Project 2025?”), it’s time to take another look at the fallout.

Below we assess the implementation of Project 2025’s agenda so far as it relates to Federal Employees.

The summary in our original 2024 article focused on these key proposals in Project 2025:

• Promote the doctrine of “executive unitary theory,” which seeks to give the executive branch unprecedented power and to restructure lines of authority to consolidate the president’s power, stripping or limiting the ability of Congress and the courts to block the president’s decisions.

• Dismantle the “administrative state” through mass firings of nonpartisan federal workers and replace them with loyalist political appointees; this would be achieved by resurrecting Schedule F. It is first term Trump Executive Order (EO) that reclassifies these workers as “at will” political appointees, making them easier to let go, and deny them worker benefits.). Right-wing appointees could be put into positions in “acting” capacity, so that they could start the dismantling before being confirmed by Congress. “The President Day One will be a wrecking ball for the administrative state,” declared Russ Vought, a former Trump official and Project 2025 author.

  • Enacting Schedule F would eliminate the Prohibited Personnel Practices that control illegal conduct, and the Merit System Principles that govern honesty, effectiveness, and efficiency within government. It would fully politicize the government; federal workers would have to have primary loyalty to the president’s wishes rather than existing or good policy.

  • Enacting Schedule F would also de facto sell the executive branch to the highest bidder through appointees who augment the president’s policy and control enforcement of policies on behalf of any private entity with access to that appointee.

• Push an anti-labor agenda: eliminating federal unions.

Photo: USA Today

Implemented Executive Orders and Lawsuits that reflect Project 2025’s goals for labor, as of May 2025:

As was expected, Trump has relied on executive orders, including resurrected Schedule F, to gut the federal workforce, assert control over independent federal agencies, and install a loyalist conservative Christian corps. He's also fired Biden officials and moved to privatize some of the federal government's programs.

As you can see below, he has often won the first round, relying on executive orders, not Congress (legislation), to push through his policies. But that’s also triggered a strong legal pushback (see our recent legal round-up) by many groups who say these presidential orders are illegal and unconstitutional. Some federal workers have been fired but reinstated; others are on leave and demanding reinstatement. As of today, the federal courts have yielded a mixed bag of rulings – some wins, some temporary stays, and some losses. The legal challenges take longer to unfurl, so the current situation remains a moving picture.

But an important result of Trump's moves is the overnight political galvanization of a formerly apolitical federal workforce, led by federal unions, that is taking to the streets to refuse Trump's and Project 2025's vision for America. They are forcibly speaking out and taking a stand to defend the critical role of a nonpartisan federal workforce in safeguarding public safety and shoring up our US system of checks and balances – a linchpin of our democracy.

Executive Orders regarding federal workers: the immediate impact is to decimate and politicize the federal workforce….

EO 14171: “Restoring Accountability to Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce.”

• This EO is the first attack on the federal workforce – it claims the civil service is currently lacking in “professionalism and accountability.” Based on this rationale, the EO enables agency heads to move nonpolitical career civil servants into a category that used to be called Schedule F but is now renamed “Schedule Career/Policy” positions.

• This change of status strips the workers of union protection and politicizes their positions – the EO specifies that they can be fired if they do not fully implement the president’s policies.

• The undermining of bureaucratic autonomy leads to an expansion of executive power and an erosion of democracy.

  • An example of why this is dangerous: in April 2025, Joe Kent, an aide to Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence, ordered analysts to edit a report they had written on the connection between the Venezuelan government and criminal gangs. The administration made the claim that the Venezuelan government was supporting the gangs in order to justify Trump invoking the Alien Enemies Act and then deporting immigrants to a Salvadoran prison without due process. But the analysts’ report did not support this claim and they did not change it.

  • On May 18, the Supreme Court extended a preliminary injunction on the administration’s use of the Act.

EO 14210: Implementing the President's “Department of Government Efficiency” Workforce Optimization Initiative.

• This EO empowers DOGE (which was created by EO 14158) to implement large reductions in the civil service: “Agency Heads shall promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force (RIFs).”

EO 14217: “Commencing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy.”

• This order is the next step in the planned decimation of the federal workforce. It eliminates “elements of the Federal bureaucracy that the President has determined are unnecessary”:

  • o The Presidio Trust

  • The Inter-American Foundation (IAF)

  • The United States African Development Foundation (USADF)

  • The United States Institute of Peace (USIP)

• The work of dismantling these agencies was given to DOGE.

Specific harms caused by EO 14217 – and responses:

• The Presidio Trust manages the Presidio park in San Francisco: “As a federal agency working in service to the public, we’re guided by a triple bottom line: welcoming all people and protecting the planet, fueled by the performance of successful park businesses.” Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was a key figure in establishing the Trust, and there has been speculation that the attack is aimed at her, rather than “wasteful spending.”

• IAF “provides grant support to Latin American and Caribbean grassroots groups and non-governmental organizations with creative self-help ideas.” In March, DOGE said that all but one employee at IAF had been let go and its grants cancelled, including funding for alpaca farming in Peru, for vegetable gardens in El Salvador, and for beekeeping in Brazil.

• USADF “provides grants to community groups and small enterprises that benefit under-served and marginalized groups in Africa.”

  • Response: On March 6, a judge barred the administration from shutting the agency down and installing a new board president since it was created by Congress. On May 21, Democracy Forward filed a new suit to block the dismantling.

• The Institute of Peace “promotes research, policy analysis, education, and training on international peace and conflict resolution in an effort to prevent and resolve violent conflicts, and to promote post-conflict stability.”

  • Response: On May 19, a judge invalidated the takeover of the Institute of Peace, calling it a “gross usurpation of power.” The institute is independent and not part of the executive branch.

EO 14238: “Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy.”

• This EO empowers DOGE to cut more federal agencies:

  • The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS)

  • The United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM)

  • The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in the Smithsonian Institution (WWICS)

  • The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)

  • The United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH)

  • The Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI)

  • The Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA)

Photo: Craig Hudson/Reuters

Specific harms caused by EO 14238 – and responses:

• The FMCS provides mediation, training, and facilitation to resolve labor-management disputes; DOGE left only five mediators and got rid of most of the other staff.

• The USAGM’s Senior Advisor is Kari Lake; its government website claims the agency is anti-American, corrupt and unsalvageable. Most of its employees were put on leave, and thousands of journalists may lose their jobs.

  • Response: The International Federation of Journalists, the National Writers Union, the NewsGuild-CWA, and the Authors Guild are suing.

• The WWICS is an influential nonpartisan think tank for global policy; the Heritage Foundation specifically targeted it for funding cuts in Trump’s first term, and now DOGE has reduced its staff.

• The IMLS is the only federal agency supporting museum and library services; it channels funds to local libraries. As a result of this EO, its grants were canceled.

• The USICH coordinated homelessness policy and reduces duplication of services across various agencies; its employees were all put on leave by DOGE.

• The CDFI helps low-income communities and businesses to establish bank accounts and apply for business loans, among other things.

• The MBDA distributed $3.2 billion under Biden, helping entrepreneurs of color to build new businesses; it has now been told it is being dismantled, as its work is “no longer consistent with the agency’s priorities and no longer serves the interest of the United States.”

EO 14251: “Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs.”

• This EO excludes at least 100,000 federal workers from unions (that is, it nullifies their membership in the unions they already belong to). These workers are from specified divisions or agencies within the Depts. of State, Defense, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, Justice, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Interior, Energy, Agriculture, Commerce, EPA, USAID, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NSF, International trade Commission, General Services Administration, Social Security, and Office of Personnel Management.

  The rationale is that these workers are engaged in national security work. However, the White House fact sheet on the EO indicates that the president believes that these unions are obstructing his policies. The Trump administration argues that:

  • Certain federal unions have declared war on President Trump’s agenda. The largest federal union describes itself as `fighting back’ against Trump. It is widely filing grievances to block Trump policies. For example, VA’s unions have filed 70 national and local grievances over President Trump’s policies since the inauguration – an average of over one a day.”

  • Protecting America’s national security is a core constitutional duty, and President Trump refuses to let union obstruction interfere with his efforts to protect Americans and our national interests

  • President Trump supports constructive partnerships with unions who work with him; he will not tolerate mass obstruction that jeopardizes his ability to manage agencies with vital national security missions.”

Specific harms caused by EO 14241 – and status of responses:

• This EO speeds up the politicization of the civil service, whose members are now supposed to be loyal to the president rather than the facts. If workers are no longer union members, they lose all job protections and can be fired at will.

  • Response: IFPTE (International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers) sued and was granted a preliminary injunction; the opinion prohibits the administration from implementing the order at all, pending its appeal of the injunction to the D.C. Circuit, including in agencies like the Department of Defense and Social Security Administration, where IFPTE represents tens of thousands of workers. The union expects the case to eventually reach the Supreme Court.

  • Response: The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) sued and was granted a preliminary injunction, which was then rescinded. While the case moves forward, the administration said it would not terminate collective bargaining contracts; however, the NTEU has argued that the agency has indeed implemented them (e.g., halting union dues deductions from pay checks). The litigation continues.

Photo: Samuel Corum | New York Times

LAWSUITS:

The Trump administration is using various lawsuits to expand the power of the executive branch; they use carefully chosen cases and direct them to specific appeals circuits in order to bring their main goals to the Supreme Court as quickly as possible.

Trump v. American Federation of Government Employees:

On May 9, a California court issued a temporary restraining order to stop the firing of certain federal employees. The case arose after Trump issued an executive order (EO 14210) directing federal agencies to “promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force (RIFs), consistent with applicable law.”

• On May 22, the court issued a preliminary injunction to replace the temporary order.

  • The Trump administration then withdrew its request to pause the first order and instead moved directly to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to appeal the new order, and then immediately to the Supreme Court, claiming that the order had “caused mass confusion throughout the Executive Branch.”

• According to Democracy Forward, one of the organizations litigating the case, the administration’s goal appears to be to receive SCOTUS’s permission to violate the Constitution’s separation of powers, allowing the executive branch to take over Congress’s authority.

Trump v. Wilcox:

The case concerns Trump’s efforts to remove two officials at independent oversight agencies, Gwynne Wilcox of the National Labor Relations Board, and Cathy Harris of the Merits Systems Protection Board. They were initially fired in January, as part of a purge of top officials at federal independent agencies. Wilcox and Harris went to federal court in Washington, DC, where they argued that their firings violated federal law because, unlike most federal officials, they can only be removed for good cause.

• The case had already moved through two federal judges, and then the full Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which ordered that they be reinstated.

• On May 22, the Supreme Court granted the Trump administration’s request to pause orders by federal judges that required government officials to allow board members at two independent federal agencies to stay in office after President Donald Trump tried to fire them without cause. The SCOTUS decision puts a pause on their reinstatement while the litigation continues in a federal appeals court and, if necessary, the Supreme Court again.

• The case is especially significant because it seeks to overturn Supreme Court precedent: Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, 1935, which found that Congress can create independent, multi-member regulatory agencies whose commissioners can only be removed for cause.

• The current case seeks to expand the president’s power to do what Trump’s solicitor general, D. John Sauer, calls an important constitutional question: the president’s ability to supervise the agency heads who exercise power on his behalf. In other words, it constitutes a further attempt to take power from Congress and transfer it to the executive branch.

Photo: Associated Press

FIGHTING BACK — RESISTANCE

The new ‘Department of People Who Work for a Living’:

The AFL-CIO has been holding nationwide hearings on Trump’s attacks on civil servants and protections for workers; they call it the Department of People Who Work for a Living (DPWWL) – the workers’ antidote to DOGE.

• At the hearings, all kinds of workers step up and tell their stories and support each other. (Read the report.)

Rise Up: A New Worker Defense Corps

• A new Federal Workers Defense Network of lawyers called Rise Up has been created to provide legal aid and other help to federal workers whose rights have been violated. It is supported by major unions and Democracy Forward.

Photo: Rise Up

“They sowed chaos. They made everyone scared for their jobs. What they’ve done is they’ve radicalized me. So now I am activated.” — laid-off federal employee Amy Paris, sharing a growing sentiment across government.

Federal Workers Stand Up:

The chaos caused by DOGE has forced many federal workers to rethink their professional nonpartisan neutrality. As laid-off worker Amy Paris said, “They sowed chaos,” she said. “They made everyone scared for their jobs. … What they’ve done is they’ve radicalized me… What they’ve done is they’ve taken someone who would have willingly served under their administration to help all of the American people, and… they’ve made me think that they want to destroy the republic. They want to destroy democracy. So now I am activated.” Paris’s job was modernizing the federal web platform for organ transplants – a job that is no longer being done.

Federal Workers protest — and plan nationwide June 6 actions:

Veterans Affairs workers have joined federal union organizers to host public protests in Washington and other cities against the mass layoffs of federal employees, and the cuts to their health services and other benefits. A major Veteran-led day of nationwide action is planned for June 6, the 81^st anniversary of D-Day, at the National Mall in Washington, DC, as well as in 16 state capitols, and in over 100 other venues across 43 states. The protests will highlight the disproportionate and negative impact of Trump’s EOs and federal employee layoffs on veterans. They make up 24% of the 3 million federal workers facing mass layoffs under the Trump administration, despite representing only 6.1% of the US population. — S. O’D.

Photo: Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Learn More:

You can find out more about Project 2025’s plans for the Labor sector and other aspects of its sweeping plan to eliminate federal unions and privatize government duties at our website, Resisting Project 2025. You can also find lots of resources for fighting back, and links to allies in the labor area and other frontline battlefronts.

As always, we want to thank subscribers to this newsletter, and especially any new paid subscribers. We rely on your support and engagement to continue reporting on resistance to Project 2025 and the pushback in sectors against its implementation, which you can read more about here. You are also invited to join and consider a tax-exempt donation to our campaign. Watch for our new T-shirt and merch coming for this month’s nationwide Pride events.

Resist with Pride!