Trump’s 2026 Government Agenda

The year ahead promises to be a continuation of his destabilizing and antidemocratic efforts.

In 2025, President Donald Trump unceremoniously pushed more than 220,000 federal employees out the door, unilaterally dismantled agencies, eliminated critical services and programs, weaponized the justice system, fired government watchdogs, used the military for illegal purposes, and installed appointees based on loyalty, not experience or competence.

The year ahead promises to be a continuation of these destabilizing and antidemocratic efforts.

Even if Congress begins to assert its dormant oversight and constitutional responsibilities or the courts curb some individual excesses, Trump’s 2026 agenda will likely include several disturbing elements: the further politicization of the nonpartisan expert civil service, the expanded use of government power to punish individuals and institutions who are not bowing to his wishes, efforts to influence the information ecosystem, and attacks on state electoral systems to maintain political control of Congress.

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In private speeches in 2023 and 2024, Russell Vought, now Trump’s budget director, said he wanted “bureaucrats to be traumatically affected” and that he views federal workers as “villains.” At an event in December, Vought reinforced his view that the civil service is an impediment rather than a means to govern and suggested that targeting federal employees will be a top administration priority.

“Time is our scarcest resource,” Vought said. “That’s why we’re going at it with everything we’ve got and trying to bulldoze the bureaucracy where it exists.”

The bulldozing of the federal workforce will play out with new rules allowing the administration to arbitrarily and without due process protections fire tens of thousands of federal employees in “policy-influencing” roles who were hired for their expertise, not their political affiliation. At the same time, the administration will base new hiring on political loyalty, not merit, in an effort to stack the government with employees who will blindly follow the president’s every whim.

These efforts will bring the country back to the spoils system of the 19th century, when federal jobs were for sale to political followers, a time characterized by a chaotic, corrupt, and inefficient government ill-suited to meet public needs and a changing world.

This radical transformation will go even further, with Trump already having defied long-held norms by sacking leaders of independent federal organizations with whom he disagrees, a power likely to be fully sanctioned later this year by the Supreme Court in a case involving the Federal Trade Commission.

The court’s ruling is expected to upend a 90-year-old precedent that has curbed executive power to dismiss without cause the heads of about two dozen independent government organizations where decisions on everything from securities and bank regulation to consumer and labor protections are supposed to be based on evidence rather than political or special interest considerations.

Elsewhere, Trump will scale his efforts at retribution against individuals and institutions he believes wronged him, including using the Justice Department as his own personal hit squad to go after his perceived enemies and critics. Among those targeted for prosecution in 2025 were Trump bêtes noires former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. In 2026, congressional critics and other outspoken opponents are likely to face legal jeopardy from Trump’s Justice Department and other investigative elements of our government.

Lastly, Trump will continue to exert control over the information ecosystem through government authority, intimidation, and lawsuits so that his version of reality becomes the truth no matter how false or outrageous while seeking to maintain his power and the Republican control of Congress by undermining free and fair midterm elections.

The president sued and secured multi-million-dollar settlements from major media companies that he claimed defamed him and threatened to revoke broadcast licenses of organizations that reported information he did not like. In 2026, the president will no doubt continue to pursue lawsuits against media companies; threaten, disparage and block access to news organizations that do not kowtow to his wishes; and continue his unprecedented move to personally influence a government decision regarding the battle between Netflix and Paramount Skydance Corp., companies that are vying to purchase media conglomerate Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. A key Paramount backer is a major Trump supporter.

Moreover, Trump is already intruding in the electoral process in unprecedented ways to achieve his desired outcomes, cajoling Republican-led states to conduct unusual mid-decade redistricting to maximize GOP seats in the House and using the Justice Department to pressure states to purge voters rolls and turn over voter registration lists for federal inspection. Trump allies also have reportedly requested third-party access to local election equipment, another ominous sign of potential election tampering.

Trump’s actions during the past year traumatized the federal workforce, moved us closer to autocracy, and diminished the ability of the government—our nation’s most important tool for collective action—to serve the public interest.

It is critical for the public and members of Congress from both sides of the aisle to make their voices heard in the year ahead by speaking up and challenging Trump’s authoritarian impulses and the steady erosion of the norms, rules and laws that are critical for an honest and accountable government. The current moment is ominous for all of us, with our democracy and the effective role of the federal government hanging in the balance during 2026 and beyond.

Max Stier is the founding president and CEO of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, an organization focused on building a better government and a stronger democracy.

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