Some agencies, like the National Science Foundation (NSF), are now rehiring previously fired employees.

Trump’s power derives from the fact that he is running an organization that consists of three million people. He has started off his second term by ensuring that a not inconsiderable number of these have a grudge against him, and are now back where they were. Possibly not the move most-likely to ensure that his agenda is effectively-enacted.

Instead, agencies have until September 13 to develop their own staffing reduction plans.

That’s probably more-reasonable simply from an organizational standpoint. That being said, that’s about half the distance until midterms, at which point the Democrats might take the House. If they do, they are probably going to punch holes in attempts to mass-fire federal employees. Plus, if they can take actions that trigger re-hirings, if someone is laid off for a brief period of time, even a layoff for a few months may not last. Historically, the party of the President usually does poorly in midterms.

There’s a window of time that Trump has to really produce a lasting effect, where he can blow away a big chunk of the federal government and it would be hard to reconstitute it, and I think that this has probably caused it to significantly shrink.

Also, usually you don’t, as a President, want to take unpopular actions right before elections. Better to do them immediately afterwards, as he is here.

Basically, if the bureaucracy can manage to stall for the better part of a year on top of this, I suspect that Trump’s going to have difficulty slicing a lot of the Executive Branch away permanently.