President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with the House GOP conference.Allison Robbert/Pool AFP/AP

In a campaign video Starting in March 2023, Donald Trump outlined his goal to “dismantle the deep state and reclaim our democracy from Washington’s corruption.” Such rhetoric was also common in 2016. But this time, his new administration has a concrete plan to make it happen.

The idea has been around for years, and as Donald Trump prepares to take office, it will begin on day one: making thousands of career federal workers “at-will” employees and, in turn, fireable for not having done what the new administration demands. This will be the first step in a radical overhaul of the federal government.

The newly elected president has repeatedly made clear that his second term will begin with a purge. Once pre-screened paper advocates are in place, policies will be implemented – with less internal resistance from long-time government employees.

To understand the next Trump administration, you need to know Appendix F.

Signed in the run-up to the 2020 election and quickly rescinded by the Biden administration, Schedule F would potentially reallocate tens of thousands of policy-related jobs into a new category, stripping career civil servants of employment protections. employment and making it easier for politicians. people appointed to dismiss them.

As I have reported Previously, one of the main champions of Annex F during Trump’s first term was Russ Voughtthe former director of the Office of Management and Budget. In this role, the avowed Christian nationalist attempted to transform the influential agency into a tool for pursuing the president’s agenda without regard for institutional knowledge and expertise and, at times, challenge of the law.

Vought and the rest of the pending Project 2025 (Heritage Foundation) administration plan for relaunch Annex F – and go beyond the budget office. Potentially, 50,000 Federal workers could be affected, with their expert roles open to MAGA loyalists, ideologically vetted to ensure little resistance to Trump’s imperial presidency project. “It’s going to be revolutionary,” Vought said Heritage Chairman Kevin Roberts in a podcast last year.

The Biden administration has since taken action strengthen merit-based protections for career civil servants, but some experts and observers to have note the change might end up not Rising little more than a “speed bump” to delay the implementation of Annex F and prevent politicization of the workforce. Just last week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who could end up overseeing government health agencies under Trump, said no less than 600 employees of the National Institutes of Health should be fired and replaced.

Plus, Elon Musk seems to be in on the action.

This week, President-elect Donald Trump began the process of announcing his choices to staff the new administration, selecting a new “border tsar», critical for national security rolesAnd Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) as Attorney General. These were sometimes bizarre choices, but nonetheless part of a conventional transition process: a president deciding who would be nominated to fill key positions.

Less typically, Trump said: “first boyfriend» Elon Musk and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy would do so lead the “Department of Government Efficiency” – a non-governmental advisory entity whose acronym, DOGE, refers to billionaire Tesla’s favorite memecoin. The commission, introduced by Musk himself, will work alongside the OMB to restructure federal agencies and cut spending and regulations, until the summer of 2026.

“This will potentially become the ‘Manhattan Project’ of our time,” Trump said. wrote in a statement. According to Musk, who previously advocated 2 trillion dollars In the event of a budget cut, the group “will send shock waves through the system and everyone involved in government waste, which is a lot of people!” »

Since the announcement, it has increased questions about possible funding sources and the extent of power DOGE can actually wield since federal spending requires Congressional approval. But his stated goal of reshaping the executive branch in the image of the MAGA movement foreshadows what is likely to happen once Trump takes office: an all-out war on the federal bureaucracy and career civil servants in Washington.