Trump plans to fire over 1,000 Biden appointees; celebrity chef Jose Andres says he already resigned
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Chef and head of World Central Kitchen Jose Andres is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by former US president Joe Biden on Jan 4.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump on Jan 21 said he plans to remove over 1,000 appointees from the administration of former president Joe Biden and that he had fired four individuals immediately, including celebrity chef Jose Andres and former top general Mark Milley.
However, Mr Andres said on social media that his two-year term on the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition was already over.
The Spanish chef, whose World Central Kitchen food aid programme feeds people impacted by disasters, said he submitted his resignation last week.
“My Presidential Personnel Office is actively in the process of identifying and removing over a thousand Presidential Appointees from the previous Administration, who are not aligned with our vision to Make America Great Again,” Mr Trump said, in a post on Truth Social overnight.
“Let this serve as a notice of dismissal,” Mr Trump wrote, and named General Milley, Mr Andres, his former Iran envoy Brian Hook and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who Mr Biden appointed to an export council.
“YOU’RE FIRED!”, he wrote.
The move comes amid other firings in Mr Trump’s first salvoes to gut the federal bureaucracy during his second term in office.
Mr Trump has vowed to dismantle the “deep state” by purging civil servants who do not hew to his agenda, and aims to strip job protections from 50,000 federal employees.
Referring to Mr Trump’s “You’re fired” message, Mr Andres in a post on X urged Mr Trump “to put politics and name calling aside… and instead lift up the everyday people working to bring America together.”
Mr Trump, in his social media post overnight, also said he was dismissing Gen Milley from the National Infrastructure Advisory Council.
Gen Milley, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who Mr Trump has suggested should be executed for holding back-channel talks with China, said he was grateful for a preemptive pardon by Mr Biden on Jan 20. His photo was removed from the Pentagon shortly after MrTrump was sworn into office.
Representatives for Gen Milley could not be immediately reached for comment.
Mr Trump also said he was removing former diplomat Mr Hook from the Wilson Centre for Scholars, a think-tank.
Neither Mr Hook nor Mr Lance Bottoms immediately responded to requests for comment.
Mr Hook was appointed by Mr Trump - not Mr Biden - during his first term to the board of the Wilson Centre. The centre had no comment.
Trump’s administration has fired US Coast Guard Commandant Linda Lee Fagan,
The head of the US Transportation Security Administration, Mr David Pekoske, first appointed by Mr Trump during his first White House term in 2017, was also forced out on Jan 20.
His officials have asked more than one dozen senior career diplomats to step down. Four top officials from an agency that operates US immigration courts were also removed.
On Jan 20, Mr Trump ordered federal workers to return to the office five days a week and weakened job protections for civil servants.
Mr Trump’s allies have said the return-to-work mandate and the stripping of civil service protections, known as “Schedule F,” will hold the federal bureaucracy accountable. REUTERS
