Donald Trump’s widely expected 2024 campaign — which he could formally announce as early as this year — appears likely to focus on upending Washington's bureaucracy.

The former president and his allies would put thousands of government employees in their sights who are traditionally insulated from politics. On Tuesday, during a summit in Washington, Trump and his top political allies sketched out an economic component of their attacks on bureaucracy, targeting an old GOP villain: regulations.

“Regulations hurt a lot and the regulatory state is one of the reasons the economy has contracted,” Larry Kudlow, a former Fox host who worked as director of the National Economic Council in Trump’s White House, said during a panel conversation hosted by the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute.

“We need to make it much easier to fire rogue bureaucrats who are deliberately undermining Democracy,” Trump added during his speech later in the day, when he strongly implied he would be a candidate in 2024. If those reforms are enacted, Trump vowed, "Washington will be an entirely different place."

‘Strangling Enterprise’

While Republicans have assailed Washington bureaucracy and regulations for generations, the effort this time comes after twin stories from Axios that laid out how far Trump and his allies are preparing to go should voters return them to power.

The articles outlined a plan that — if enacted — would upend Washington by firing potentially thousands of government employees who are traditionally not replaced after each election cycle.

When taking office, presidents typically have around 4,000 so-called “political” appointments to make. If Trump’s plan came to fruition, that number could balloon to more than 50,000.

Critics say the idea would introduce massive uncertainty into basic government services every time a new president is elected. But Kudlow made the case Tuesday that dramatic actions in 2024 could help spur economic growth.

He claimed federal regulations now impose a total economic cost of about $2 trillion per year. “That's remarkable,” he said. ”It's like strangling enterprise.” He said that Biden had run the economy into the ground and "we're either in a recession or at the front end of the recession."

Also on Tuesday’s panel was Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA). The Republican Whip picked up on Kudlow’s comments and listed agencies that he said were guilty of “regulatory state overreach” — from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Departments of Energy and the Interior.

The focus on supposed government bloat and regulation — which was also a 2016 and 2020 campaign talking point — comes even though the Trump administration added billions in government red tape during his time in office, as the American Action Forum reported. Historically, every president ends up adding to government rules while in office, with Democrats adding more than Republicans.