“You're fired!“ - the phrase that made Donald Trump famous since his time as a reality show star, seems to continue to be the mantra of the White House.
His first term in the Oval Office was called by some officials a “revolving door“, after dozens of popular politicians one by one left his administration.
Since the beginning of his second term, the administration's senior leadership has been significantly more stable, but the trend of withdrawing nominations, firings and resignations continues, writes the magazine. “Time“.
The firing of Homeland Security Secretary Christie Noam and Attorney General Pam Bondi in the past month, as well as the list of federal leaders he has appointed and then removed since returning to the White House, continues to grow.
The turnover began even before Trump officially took office, when former Congressman Matt Goetz withdrew his candidacy for the post of attorney general in November 2024, recalls the publication “US News“.
The president's second term has become a clear test of loyalty for his entourage and beyond, with a series of firings of people who served under his predecessor Joe Biden - and even some from the first Trump administration - coming after statements that do not match the president's agenda, writes The first major scandal of the new administration erupted just months into his second term. Billionaire Elon Musk, who served as a special civil servant in the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), resigned in May 2025, saying that his "planned term" was over. The rift began after Musk - who donated millions to Trump's election campaign - publicly criticized the tax and budget bill. For weeks, Musk criticized Trump's "Big Beautiful Law" as it was being considered in Congress. The billionaire argued that if passed, the bill would add trillions of dollars to the national deficit and "undermine" his efforts as head of DOGE and his measures to reduce government spending. expenses.
After leaving the ministry after only 129 days in office, Musk wrote on his social network Ex that the bill was “a disgusting abomination“, but did not directly criticize Trump. The president responded that he was “disappointed“ by his former employee's behavior, and a war of words and compromising material broke out between the two on social networks.
Before the scandal, after helping to create the Ministry of Government Efficiency, its co-director Vivek Ramaswamy also resigned from it, amid rumors of tension with Musk.
Months of lull followed, which ended in early March, when the president fired Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noam after a week of tense congressional hearings on the enormous expenses of the department she headed, recalls the “USA” newspaper Today.
She was criticized for a $220 million ad campaign by the department, in which Noam was a central figure. Before her removal, she also faced growing bipartisan criticism of the administration's immigration policies following the deaths of Renee Goode and Alex Pretty in January.
Last week, it became clear that the White House was also parting ways with Attorney General Pam Bondi. Her firing came about two weeks before she was required to appear before the House Oversight Committee to testify under oath about her actions in the Epstein case, the New York Times reported.
In recent months, Trump has made no secret of his frustration with her failure to quickly convict his political opponents and with her handling of the case files. “Epstein“. The president was particularly angry about the Justice Department's failure to win cases against his political opponents, including former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Another high-ranking US official was fired a day after Bondi. The Trump administration removed the head of the US Army, General Randy George, along with two other top military officials, in a surprise shake-up while US forces are embroiled in a war with Iran, the newspaper “EurActiv“ reported.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth removed General George without explaining his decision. It was officially confirmed that General David Howden and Major General William Greene Jr. were also fired.
Trump is conducting a purge of senior military officials, including the removal of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Charles Brown, whom he fired without explanation in February 2025, shortly after taking office, recalls “EurActiv“.
Other senior military officials who were removed include the heads of the Navy and Coast Guard, the general who headed the National Security Agency, the vice chief of the Air Force, a Navy admiral assigned to NATO, and three leading military lawyers. The Air Force chief also announced his retirement without explanation just two years into his four-year term, while the head of US Southern Command stepped down a year after his appointment.
The first senior administration official to be removed since the president returned to the White House was Mike Walz, whom Trump fired as national security adviser last May. He was removed after The Atlantic revealed in a shocking report that he had set up a group chat on the encrypted messaging app Signal to coordinate a sensitive military operation against the Houthis in Yemen and mistakenly added a journalist.
The head of Customs and Border Protection, Greg Bovino, also later left his post. He had been a leading figure in Trump’s immigration policy but was removed in late January after public outcry over the deaths of Goode and Pretty. In late August, the White House also announced the firing of Susan Monares, just weeks after she was confirmed as the new director of the US Public Health Agency. A White House press secretary said at the time that Monares "does not agree with the president's "Healthy America Again" agenda." She contested her firing and initially refused to leave the post, with her lawyers saying that her removal was due to her refusal "to sign unscientific and reckless directives and to fire authoritative health experts."
Cameron Hamilton was removed as interim head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in May of last year, just months after his appointment. He has stood up to the administration, testifying before Congress that he does not approve of dismantling the agency: "I do not believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency," Hamilton said.
According to NBC News, other layoffs may be on the horizon. "I expect changes in the next few weeks - the president is considering both changes and reorganizations," said a senior official close to the president, adding that he did not know who might be next.
Among those at the center of public controversy are Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-Deremer, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who have received varying levels of public criticism for personal scandals or decisions made by their departments.
Lutnick's name has been implicated in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and has had to explain why he appears repeatedly in the convicted sex offender's files and why he visited his private island. Lutnick claims he “had no dealings with him,” but an adviser to the president said he had lost the trust of his chief of staff, Susie Wiles.
Meanwhile, Trump has been accused of running a “misogynistic administration” after Pam Bondi became the second woman to be fired from an already male-dominated cabinet, the Guardian reported. Bondi and Noam are the only two cabinet members to have lost their posts so far in Trump’s second term, although men such as Defense Secretary Pete Hegsett and Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. have also been embroiled in scandals. Both women were also replaced by men, the Guardian noted.
Democrats reacted sharply. “I see a pattern,“ wrote Jasmine Crockett, a congresswoman in the House of Representatives, on social media. “He will throw incompetent women under the bus much faster than incompetent men.“ Congresswoman Yasmine Ansari of Arizona drew comparisons to Hegsett, who a Pentagon watchdog has accused of putting American soldiers at risk when he used the Signal app to share confidential information, and to FBI Director Kash Patel, whose mistakes included prematurely announcing the arrest of the wrong suspect in the Charlie Kirk murder investigation.
Former Republican officials also spoke out about the firings. Bill Crystal, who served in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, wrote: “Bondi was terrible, but no worse than Patel. Nome was terrible, but no worse than Hegseth. Interestingly, only the women were fired.“