Sounding off on bureaucratic corruption during the Tuesday, April 22, White House Press Briefing, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt spoke about the president’s recent reclassification of many federal workers as Schedule Policy/Career, formerly called “Schedule F,” and took the opportunity to hammer many of the fired bureaucrats as being “engaged in corruption.”
As background, President Trump announced in a Truth Social post on Friday, April 18, that his administration was rescheduling numerous career government employees into an employment category that makes them easier to fire, explaining that doing so would help him hold them accountable.
Doing so, the president said, “Following my Day One Executive Order, the Office of Personnel Management will be issuing new Civil Service Regulations for career government employees. Moving forward, career government employees, working on policy matters, will be classified as “Schedule Policy/Career,” and will be held to the highest standards of conduct and performance. 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. This is common sense, and will allow the federal government to finally be “run like a business.” We must root out corruption and implement accountability in our Federal Workforce!”
Describing the changes in a statement released the same day, the White House said, commenting on what the changes mean for the 2% of the federal employees who are to have their classification changed, “These employees will serve as at-will employees, without access to cumbersome adverse action procedures or appeals, overturning Biden Administration regulations that protected poor performing employees.” It added, “This rule empowers federal agencies to swiftly remove employees in policy-influencing roles for poor performance, misconduct, corruption, or subversion of Presidential directives, without lengthy procedural hurdles.”
So, when asked about those changes and speaking about what will change, Leavitt told reporters that the federal bureaucrats who are engaging in various forms of corruption, as President Trump called out in his Truth Social post, should expect to be fired and should go find a new job.
Making that comment on Tuesday, Leavitt slammed the corrupt bureaucrats of the sort that DOGE has found, telling the reporters in the briefing room, “If they are engaging in corruption, as a government worker, they should no longer have their job. I think that’s pretty common sense.”
Continuing, she explained that federal employees should go along with the agenda of the president, the Congress, and the people who elected them, saying, “If you work for the government, you should be adhering to the will of the American public and advancing the administration’s goals and interests.”
Adding to that, Leavitt snapped that those bureaucrats who aren’t planning on getting on board with President Trump’s agenda should expect to find themselves fired and should, as such, go find a job outside of the government, as they have shown themselves unable to support it. She said, “And if you are not doing that, then you should go find another job whose interests you align with.”
Watch her here: