“YOU’RE FIRED!”
President Trump started purging more than 1,000 appointees from former President Joe Biden’s administration overnight – starting with celebrity chef Jose Andres and embattled retired Gen. Mark Milley.
The new commander-in-chief fired off an “official notice of dismissal” to four Biden appointees in a midnight social media post, bluntly warning that his team is hunting down even more people to ax.
“Our first day in the White House is not over yet! My Presidential Personnel Office is actively in the process of identifying and removing over a thousand Presidential Appointees from the previous Administration, who are not aligned with our vision to Make America Great Again,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
“Let this serve as Official Notice of Dismissal for these 4 individuals, with many more, coming soon,” he said.
“YOU’RE FIRED!” he added, recycling his catchline from his time on TV’s “The Apprentice.”
Among the first to be booted was Milley, who was given a preemptive pardon by Biden just hours before leaving the White House. The retired general served on the National Infrastructure Advisory Council.
Milley, also the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has publicly called Trump a “wannabe dictator.” Trump has previously suggested Milley should be executed for holding back-channel talks with China.
A portrait of Milley was removed from the Pentagon fewer than three hours after Trump’s inauguration Monday.
The portrait had been hung by the Biden administration alongside other former joint chiefs of staff fewer than two weeks earlier.
Trump said he was also dismissing Andres, a renowned Spanish-American chef who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Biden, from the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition.
Andres, who has long had beef with Trump, was once meant to open a restaurant in Trump’s DC hotel but backed out after the president likened Mexicans to criminals and racists. The pair battled it out in court over their hotel-eatery dispute and eventually settled.
President Trump wasted no time signing a slew of executive orders on Day 1, including those that:
- Direct DOJ not to enforce TikTok “divest-or-ban” law for 75 days
- Halt 78 Biden-era executive actions
- Withdraw from the Paris climate accord
- End all federal cases and investigations of any Trump supporters
- Revoke protections for transgender troops
- Pardon about 1,500 people criminally charged in the Jan. 6 attack, while commuting the sentences for six
- Overhaul the refugee admission program to better align with American principles and interests
- Declare a national emergency at the US-Mexico border
- Designate drug cartels and Tren de Aragua as foreign terrorist organizations
- Reverse several immigration orders from the Biden administration, including one that narrows deportation priorities to people who commit serious crimes, are deemed national security threats or were stopped at the border
- Rescind a policy created by the Biden administration that sought to guide the development of AI to prevent misuse
- Rescind a Biden-era policy that allowed federal agencies to take certain initiatives to boost voter registration
- Rescind the 2021 Title IX order, which bans discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation in education programs that get federal funding
- Revoke Biden’s recent removal of Cuba from US state sponsors of terrorism list
- Order federal employees back to work in office five days a week
- Order a federal hiring freeze, including exceptions for posts related to national security and public safety and the military
- Direct every governmental department and agency to address the cost-of-living crisis
- Restore freedom of speech and prevent censorship of free speech
- End the “weaponization of government against the political adversaries of the previous administration”
- Impose 25% tariffs on products from Mexico and Canada as of Feb. 1
- Reverse Biden sanctions on Israeli settlers in the West Bank
- Reverse Biden order requiring 50% of new cars sold in 2030 be EVs
- Proclaim that there are two biological sexes: male and female
- End diversity, equity and inclusion programs within federal agencies
- Establish Department of Government Efficiency
- Institute enhanced screening for visa applicants from certain high-risk nations
- Reopen Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration
- Order attorney general, secretary of state and secretary of homeland security to “take all appropriate action to prioritize” prosecution of illegal aliens who commit crimes
- Withdraw US from Global Minimum Tax agreement
- Institute a 90-day pause in the issuance of US foreign aid
- Order the attorney general to pursue the death penalty for killing of a law enforcement officer or any capital crime committed by an illegal immigrant
- Order the secretaries of commerce and the interior to restart efforts to route water from California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to other parts of the state
- Withdraw the US from the World Health Organization
- Order Treasury Department to explore creation of External Revenue Service
- Revoke security clearances for ex-national security adviser John Bolton and 51 intelligence officials who said Hunter Biden laptop bore “classic earmarks” of Russian disinformation.
- Declare the border crisis an “invasion” and order the attorney general and secretaries of state and homeland security to “take all appropriate action to repel, repatriate, or remove any alien engaged” in such
- Formally rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” and Alaska’s Mt. Denali to “Mt. McKinley”
The chef, who founded the World Central Kitchen, clapped back over his firing – saying on X that he’d already submitted his resignation last week.
“My 2-year term was already up,” he wrote.
“May God give you the wisdom, Mr. President, to put politics and name calling aside…and instead lift up the everyday people working to bring America together. Let’s build longer tables.”
The 47th president also culled former diplomat Brian Hook from the Wilson Center for Scholars and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms from the President’s Export Council in his late-night purge.
The new administration meanwhile went on a hiring binge, picking up more than 1,300 staffers — a record for Day One hires by any commander-in-chief.
Trump officials said their plan is to be swift to also highly select in who they fill the ranks with.
“The biggest mistake I made” was hiring “bad people, or disloyal people,” Trump told Joe Rogan in an interview last year.
The Presidential Personnel Office is being led by longtime Trump ally Sergio Gor, who is expected to hire around 4,000 people for the new administration.
But no allies of Republicans who have spoken out against Trump will be on the list of hires.
The taboo list includes pals of GOP megadonor Charles Koch, mainstream Republican figures Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Liz and Dick Cheney, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan and those who previously served in his administration but later turned on him, including John Bolton, Gen. James Mattis and Mark Esper.
“In order to save time, money, and effort, it would be helpful if you would not send, or recommend to us, people who worked with, or are endorsed by [the above] … or any of the other people suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome, more commonly known as TDS,” Trump has posted on Truth Social.
Separately, Trump ordered federal workers to return to the office five days a week and weakened job protections for civil servants Monday — the first salvoes in his campaign to gut the federal bureaucracy.
Trump’s allies have said the return-to-work mandate and the stripping of civil-service protections – widely known as “Schedule F” – are intended to help the president replace long-serving government workers with loyalists.
Additional reporting by Lydia Moynihan and Post wires
