The Trump administration has been swamped by angry civil servants outraged over plans to make it easier for Donald Trump to fire federal workers.
Members of the public have also written to the administration after it sought feedback on a proposal to reclassify tens of thousands of career federal government staff and make it easier to sack them.
And much of the feedback wasn’t flattering.
“May the fleas of a million camels infest your armpits, privates and all your toadies,” one observer, Carol Blacker, wrote, referencing an Arabic curse while the president was touring the Middle East.
“No president should have this much power,” said another outraged submission by Leah Veldhuisen on April 21. “This is why the US has a president and not a king!!”
“A total disaster,” wrote Kevin Struhle in one of this week’s public comments. “There aren’t words to describe how bad this initiative is.”
The push to strip federal workers of their civil service protections began after Trump resumed office, when he issued an executive order reinstating a category of political appointees known as “Schedule F”.
This schedule would specifically relate to people in senior policy-making roles who would be easier to fire if they are believed to be performing poorly or “subverting Presidential directives.”
The idea was taken directly from Project 2025 - a Heritage Foundation presidential transition blueprint that Trump repeatedly denied knowing anything about when he was campaigning for office.
However, several of its architects and co-authors are now employed in the White House, including his deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, and Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought.
Trump, aided by his allies and DOGE slasher-in-chief Elon Musk, has long said he wants to “dismantle” the bureaucracy and weed out what he believes are “rogue bureaucrats.”
“If these government workers refuse to advance the policy interests of the President, or are engaging in corrupt behavior, they should no longer have a job,” Trump wrote in a post about the proposed rule on his Truth Social platform last month.
The Office of Personnel Management, which is overseeing the plan, estimates that about 50,000 positions will be reclassified by the new rule.
“This will allow agencies to quickly remove employees from critical positions who engage in misconduct, perform poorly, or undermine the democratic process by intentionally subverting Presidential directives,” it says on its website.
Regulatory changes generally require a period of public comment before they can be finalized. The office initially reported receiving 1,031,126 comments from the public and had extended the deadline for submissions to June 7. After a recount, it later revised this figure to 31,240.
Some of the submissions were supportive of the president’s plan and agreed that it ought to be easier to sack certain workers and “bring accountability to the federal bureaucracy.”
“For too long, unelected career bureaucrats in the federal government have stifled efficiency by undermining the plans and policies of the Chief Executive,” said a submission from Gerald Helton, in what appeared to be a template comment as it was repeated verbatim in many other submissions.
“I support President Trump’s work to rein in unaccountable bureaucrats and end the Deep State!”
But others were far more critical, warning that the changes would diminish federal programs, leave subsequent administrations to deal with the fallout, and potentially cost taxpayers millions to rehire new workers every time there was a change of president.
“These issues are so obvious that one is led to believe the abuse of power is the goal rather than side-effect,” read another angry submission.
