U.S. President Donald Trump and his team have acted with stunning speed to begin removing or sidelining hundreds of government workers, while he has also sought to give himself the power to fire hundreds of thousands more.

The Republican president has been in office less than a week but the wrecking ball he has already taken to parts of the U.S. government has sent shock waves through much of America's federal bureaucracy.

At the National Security Council 160 staffers have been sent home. About 20 senior career attorneys at the Justice Department were reassigned. The heads of the U.S. Coast Guard and Transportation Security Administration were fired along with other officials.

Government offices focused on workforce diversity are being permanently shuttered, the staff on leave, while a flurry of executive orders overturning Biden administration policy have left many officials uncertain about their futures, their mandate erased by a blunt stroke of Trump's signature Sharpie marker.

Trump said on Tuesday he also plans to fire over 1,000 officials appointed by his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden.