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Trump calls federal workforce 'crooked,' vows to hold them 'accountable'

In an interview with a right-wing Youtuber, the former president seemingly alluded to reviving Schedule F and other Trump-era policies aimed at making it easier to fire federal employees.

August 28, 2024 03:49 PM ET

Erich Wagner

Former President Trump called federal employees “crooked” and “dishonest” in an interview published Monday, and said if elected in November, that they would be held “accountable.”

The remarks came during an interview conducted by conservative Youtuber Shawn Ryan, who asked the Republican presidential nominee how he planned to restore Americans’ trust in government.

“I think that one of the biggest problems within the country is the distrust in the United States government, and I’m one of them,” Ryan said. “I have zero trust in any government agencies. I have zero trust in our Congress, the Senate, anything. We have a government that’s not functioning right now. How are you going to gain back the trust of the American people within the government, and are we going to see anybody held accountable?”

“The answer is yes on the second [question], they’re going to be held accountable,” Trump responded. “They’ve got to be held accountable [for] what they’re doing. They’re destroying this country. They’re crooked people, they’re dishonest people. They’re going to be held accountable.”

Though Trump did not explicitly say how he would hold federal workers accountable during the interview, he has previously indicated that if elected this fall, he would revive Schedule F, an abortive plan from the end of his time in office to reclassify tens of thousands of federal employees in “policy-related” into the excepted service, effectively making them at-will employees.

Officials with Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign quickly tied Trump’s comments to Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led Republican transition project known as Project 2025, whose policy book also calls for Schedule F’s return.

Though Project 2025 entered the public consciousness due to a slew of unpopular proposals in the Heritage-produced book series, entitled Mandate for Leadership, a key objective of the initiative was to build a database of 20,000 potential political appointees for the next Republican president. The discrepancy between Project 2025’s recruitment goals and the roughly 4,000 federal jobs set aside for political appointees has raised concerns among Democrats and civil service experts that conservatives may be gearing up to stack previously non-partisan posts with Trump loyalists.

“When Donald Trump promises to lock up or fire tens of thousands of civil service workers he deems his enemies, he’s reading directly from his Project 2025 playbook,” said Harris campaign spokesman Ammar Moussa in a statement. “Trump’s Project 2025 was explicitly set up to replace tens of thousands of workers who serve our nation with an army of loyalists solely focused on serving Donald Trump and his plan to be a dictator on day one. This November, voters will stop Trump’s dream from becoming our nightmare.”

Later in the interview, Trump reflected on his first term in office, saying due to his lack of connections in Washington, he relied on people he referred to as “RINOs”—Republicans in Name Only—to staff his administration.

“When I came in originally, I didn’t know anyone in Washington,” Trump said. “[So] I had to rely on people to give me names, and many were really good . . . I’d ask people who were RINOs, ‘Who do you recommend for such and such a position?’ And they’d recommend some people who were RINOs or something, or were weak, or not good. And I don’t have to ask too much right now, because I know the people now.”