AMNA NAWAZ: As we reported earlier, the Trump administration ordered all federal employees who work in diversity, equity, and inclusion roles to be placed on paid leave starting today.

In a memo issued by the Office of Personnel Management, agency supervisors are also asked to submit a written plan by the end of the month for dismissing the employees.

It's part one of the administration's efforts to upend DEI efforts nationwide.

Jeff Green, covers DEI efforts for Bloomberg News and joins us now.

Jeff, welcome to the "News Hour."

Thanks for being with us.

JEFF GREEN, Managing Diversity Reporter, Bloomberg: Thanks for having me.

AMNA NAWAZ: So the memo tells agencies to put these staffers on paid leave by 5:00 today.

A plan to fire them, they need to have by next Friday.

Just in the way of one example, there's a watchdog group called American Transparency that says the Department of Health and Human Services alone employs 294 DEI staffers.

But, Jeff, do we know how many federal employees we're talking about here?

JEFF GREEN: We don't.

It's one of the things we're trying to figure out as well.

The scope of this is not completely clear, but it is likely to be, as you said, hundreds of employees.

It's not a small number.

AMNA NAWAZ: And why don't we know those figures?

JEFF GREEN: Because it wasn't immediately available in how the order was structured.

And it's not something that's something we have really been tracking in terms of how many DEI employees there are in the federal government, as the same in corporate America.

We really don't know how many of these people are employed in that specific role.

AMNA NAWAZ: We know there's been some effort to try to gather some of this data in the Biden administration, right?

There was an executive order back in 2021 that mandated all agencies to have a diversity plan to start to track the data on hirings and promotions.

In their first DEI report in 2022, they had demographic data for the federal work force.

It said it was about 60 percent white, 55 percent male overall, at the senior executive level, more than 75 percent white, more than 60 percent male.

But, Jeff, this is not just about the federal work force, is it?

This Trump order directs agencies to make sure contracts and grants are in line with this anti-DEI stance.

What's the impact here?

JEFF GREEN: Well, the impact even goes beyond that.

He's also asked these agency heads, while they're at it, to identify nine companies or institutions, public companies and institutions of large size that might be violating DEI laws and come up with a plan for maybe investigating them.

So this goes way beyond the federal government as of the executive order that came out last night.

Every company in America has to stop and take notice of what happened today.

AMNA NAWAZ: And are there any kind of challenges or new steps in place that could prevent these sort of policies from going into place?

Or is it just that these employees will be fired and all these private companies, you say, will have to adjust their plans as well?

JEFF GREEN: Those are basically two different questions.

For federal employees, Trump is the CEO of America, at least of the administration.

And he can fire people as he wants.

It doesn't mean there can't be litigation later, but he does have the will, just -- or the ability, just like anybody who runs an organization, to decide who works there and who doesn't, to some degree.

I mean, there are some limitations of union contracts and things that might control some of what he can do.

But when it comes to the external actions, that's kind of unclear.

He can definitely ask his agencies to come up with a list and he can have that list and he can publish a list.

It's not 100 percent clear then what would happen to that list.

He could have the attorney general or the Department of Justice or the Department of Labor launch an investigation into these companies, though.

That is within the -- I mean, all of these things are technically potentially within the scope of what Donald Trump can order his administration to do.

AMNA NAWAZ: And these are issues I know you have been long tracking.

So give us a sense of where this order, this effort stands in sort of the broader view of the Trump administration when it comes to DEI.

JEFF GREEN: Well, there's been this expectation that he was going to do something about DEI.

And building up to this over the last couple years, there's already been a conservative backlash against DEI, which has prompted many companies to scale back what they're doing.

And so there's been this sense that, when Trump came in, there would be some escalation.

It wasn't clear to what level.

I think this is beyond what some people were expecting, but maybe in line with the conservatives were warning was going to happen.

AMNA NAWAZ: All right, that is Jeff Green, who covers DEI efforts for Bloomberg News.

Jeff, thank you for joining us.

JEFF GREEN: Thanks for having me.