Hours after he was sworn into office on Monday, Trump signed an executive order giving him more power over career federal workers, previously known as “Schedule F.” The move is a centerpiece in a broader effort to rein in the size and scope of the federal bureaucracy, an issue he and his ally, Tesla founder Elon Musk, spoke about a lot on the campaign trail.

“We’re getting rid of all of the cancer — I call it cancer — the cancer caused by the Biden administration,” Trump said as he signed the order.

The order restates one issued in the last days of the previous Trump administration and subsequently undone by former President Joe Biden that would create a new class of career federal workers who could be removed based on policy considerations. Previously, they would have been labeled “Schedule F” employees. This order would categorize them as “policy/career” employees.

The order is meant to make government employees more responsive to the president and to prevent what Trump has termed “the deep state” from obstructing his agenda. Critics have argued that it would undermine the quality of the bureaucracy.

The order makes it clear that employees in question are not required to personally or politically support the current president or policies of the administration, but that they “are required to faithfully implement administration policies to the best of their ability, consistent with their constitutional oath and the vesting of executive authority solely in the president.”

“Failure to do so is grounds for dismissal,” it adds.

Biden rolled back Trump’s Schedule F rule shortly after entering office, and Trump will face some obstacles in imposing Schedule F because the Office of Personnel Management finalized a rule in April 2024 against reclassifying workers, part of a consolidated effort by the administration to Trump-proof the federal government.

Presidents can appoint some 4,000 officials in the federal workforce, but Schedule F would give the president control over about 50,000 federal workers. That is still a mere fraction of the 2.2 million people employed by the federal government.

Proponents of Schedule F see it as a way of streamlining the federal government by giving the executive more power to cut into perceived administrative state bloat, but opponents fear it could end up politicizing the federal workforce.

Just after the latest order was signed, a federal employees union, the National Treasury Employees Union, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to block the move, which is “contrary to congressional intent,” union members said in their complaint.