Can he do that? How Trump could try to break the federal government

President Donald Trump’s picks to lead the next administration are talking about abolishing entire agencies and firing tens of thousands of federal workers at a time.

But can his administration actually do all that?

Experts believe Trump can get much further on upending the government system this go-around compared to his first term — in part because the typical checks and balances are expected to lean in his favor.

Next year, the House and Senate are on track to fall under Republican control. Trump also got 226 federal judges and three Supreme Court justices confirmed while he was in office last time — giving his ideas a sympathetic ear in the courts when he gets sued.

With that in mind, here’s a look at how Trump could try to “break” the federal government:

A president can’t really delete entire agencies, but he could take a page from Nixon to try to starve them

Elon Musk, who Trump has picked to co-lead the new outside-of-government “Department of Government Efficiency,” has said he wants to cut $2 trillion of the $7 trillion in annual federal spending. His partner, Vivek Ramaswamy, told Fox News that they would achieve this through “mass reductions” and that some governmental agencies may be “deleted outright.”

The idea seems far-fetched at first because federal agencies are established by federal law. The Department of Education, for example, was created by a 1979 passed by Congress signed by President Jimmy Carter.

Congress would need to pass new legislation to erase or significantly reform the Education Department — an uphill battle even with a Republican-led Congress.

Enter the 1974 Impoundment Control Act. For much of the country’s existence, presidents could, in theory, ignore spending money appropriated by Congress.

President Richard Nixon used the tactic of sitting on — or impounding — federal money, essentially leaving funds untouched in U.S. Treasury accounts when he thought the spending was wasteful.

Democrats responded in 1974 by passing a law that requires a president to spend federal money the way Congress intended.

In a campaign video posted last year, Trump said he would challenge the Impoundment Control Act. It’s possible too that he could deem the law unconstitutional and try to ignore it — inviting legal challenges that could take years to resolve.

“For 200 years under our system of government, it was undisputed that the president had the constitutional power to stop unnecessary spending through what is known as impoundment,” Trump said in a video during the GOP primaries.

He later added: “When I returned to the White House, I will do everything I can to challenge the Impoundment Control Act in court, and, if necessary, get Congress to overturn it.”

Trump can make federal workers’ lives so miserable that they quit

Among the ideas Trump is expected to try again this term is to make the lives of some federal workers uncomfortable or to relocate their jobs to remote locations.

In his first administration, Trump temporarily decimated the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management by relocating its Washington headquarters to Grand Junction, Colorado. The idea, officials said at the time, was to put leadership closer to the lands and resources they manage. But the vast majority of the workers quit and the office never was able to find employees to replace them.

Another tactic could be to make it harder for workers to file grievances or strip them of legal protections.

In fall of 2020, during the final months of Trump’s first administration, he issued an executive order that would have created a new class of employees handling policy-related duties, essentially stripping them from legal protections that kept them in their jobs.

The idea of Schedule F came too late in Trump’s first administration to have a significant impact, but it’s one expected to be pushed early on this time.

The tactic is risky to taxpayers in the long term. While lawsuits and complaints by federal workers could take years to resolve, the federal government could owe back pay to workers who can prove they were wrongfully terminated.

“Taking a hatchet to this stuff will have an impact today and for decades to come,” said Andrew Huddleston, communications director of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union representing federal employees that opposed Trump’s election.

“It will be the future generations that pay the price,” he said.

Trump will outsource budget plans, effectively hiding how decisions are made and who is making them

In order to remake the government, Trump will need to install loyal allies across senior levels of the government and find ways to slow down legal challenges.

Among his proposals is to outsource FBI background checks for appointees to private investigators, a tactic that would enable him to hire people close to him even if there are security flags.

Trump also has called for the use of “recess appointments” in the Senate, a common move by past presidents. For Trump though, it could enable his allies to ram through nominations without FBI security checks or financial disclosures so long as the chamber is adjourned for 10 days or longer. Sen. John Thune, the GOP’s pick as majority leader, said he hasn’t ruled out the idea, even though it would mean ceding the Senate’s “advise and consent” constitutional confirmation power to the president.

Another Trump tactic for forcing change could be developing his biggest plans in secret, making it harder for opponents to object and mount legal challenges.

Ramaswamy said the new ‘Department of Government Efficiency’, or DOGE, will operate outside of government as a kind of private advisory group. That means its staff won’t be required to submit financial disclosures or report conflicts of interest.

It won’t be clear who is doing work for DOGE or how decisions are made. And while Musk has said he wants staff to work for free, it’s likely industry lobbyists would eagerly sign up if it means being able to influence how future taxpayer money is spent.

Musk, who owns the rocket company SpaceX, has blamed federal regulations slowing his quest to reach Mars and oversees billions in contracts with the federal government, including military satellites. Ramaswamy founded the biotech firm Roivant Sciences and remains a stakeholder who also could benefit financially depending upon how future federal regulations are written.

At last week’s gala hosted by the America First Policy Institute, Trump said Musk and Ramaswamy make the perfect pair to shake up the government.

“We’re going to reduce regulation, waste, fraud, and inefficiency, and these two guys are going to find a lot of it,” Trump said.