Trump announces purge of over 1,000 Biden appointees

<p>By Kanishka Singh WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he plans to remove over 1,000 appointees from the administration of former President Joe Biden, announcing four dismissals on social media, including celebrity chef Jose Andres and former top general Mark Milley. "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," Trump said in a post on Truth Social just after midnight. The step is likely to reignite concerns that the president aims to replace Biden appointees with individuals faithful to his agenda. Trump said he was dismissing Milley, who was given a pre-emptive pardon by Biden on Monday, from the National Infrastructure Advisory Council. Andres, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Biden, was removed from the President's Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition, Trump said in the post. The portrait of Milley, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who Trump has suggested should be executed for holding back-channel talks with China, was removed from the Pentagon shortly after Trump's inauguration on Monday. Trump also said he was removing former diplomat Brian Hook from the Wilson Center for Scholars and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms from the President's Export Council. "Let this serve as Official Notice of Dismissal for these 4 individuals, with many more, coming soon," Trump wrote, adding: "YOU'RE FIRED!" Trump also ordered federal workers to return to the office five days a week and weakened job protections for civil servants on Monday, the first salvoes in his campaign to gut the federal bureaucracy. Trump's allies have said the return-to-work mandate and the stripping of civil service protections - widely known as "Schedule F" - is intended to help the president replace long-serving government workers with loyalists. (Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington and Gursimran Kaur in Bengaluru; Editing by Saad Sayeed)</p>