Trump Is Starting to Turn on the People He Handpicked

Multiple Senate-confirmed admin officials face ouster, longtime aides come under scrutiny

- Olivia Beavers, Josh Dawsey & Tarini Parti

After months of pushing out career government officials and Democratic holdovers, President Trump is starting to turn on some of his own picks.

On Wednesday, the White House said it was firing Trump's director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a top public health agency, one month after she was confirmed by the Senate. The White House said she wasn't aligned with the president. Several other top officials at the agency resigned in response.

This week's turmoil followed ousters at other agencies. Trump replaced the head of the Internal Revenue Service less than two months into the job because the appointee, Billy Long, clashed with officials at the Treasury Department. Two top Justice Department antitrust officials were removed from their roles after clashing with senior officials at the agency who they accused of cutting deals with favored lobbyists. One of them has publicly questioned the integrity of other DOJ officials. The White House also removed the acting FEMA administrator after he said the emergency management agency should continue to exist, contradicting others in the administration.

In recent days, Trump also pushed his Treasury secretary to fire the agency's second-in-command and installed a second deputy at the FBI after the White House soured on the first.

The firings are separate from his attempts to remove dozens of other personnel he didn't appoint, including a Federal Reserve governor, a top official at the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, prosecutors who investigated him and a coterie of leaders across the government, such as the National Archivist.

"No administration has seen more chaos in its leadership ranks than the Trump administration other than Trump one. He begins by being right, and if anyone challenges his worldview, they need to go away," said Max Stier, who leads the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit that tracks hiring and firing.