What exactly stops him from having these people forcibly removed and/or their access to government resources cut, their paychecks held, their clearances revoked, etc? Who is in charge of those things that can stand up to that?
Trump doesnât directly do any of those things, he would have to order other people to do so, and the risk of doing so is that if he encounters more resistance people start to notice that the emperor has no clothes.
The more people resist the more it encourages others to do the same. The president is not a king that can dictate commands, and the more people stop obeying the more Trump runs into those protections that stop him being a tyrant.