Summary
- White House confirms “substantial” federal worker layoffs
- Education and health departments among agencies hit hardest
- Move goes beyond typical furloughs during government shutdowns
- Democrats argue firings may be illegal, vow not to back down
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House budget office said Friday that mass firings of federal workers have started in an attempt to exert more pressure on Democratic lawmakers in the ongoing government shutdown.
Russ Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said on the social media site X that the “RIFs have begun,” referring to reduction-in-force plans aimed at reducing the size of the federal government.
A spokesperson for the budget office said the reductions are “substantial” but did not offer more immediate details.
The Education Department is among the agencies hit by new layoffs, a department spokesperson said Friday without providing more details. The department had about 4,100 employees when Trump took office in January, but its workforce was nearly halved amid mass layoffs in the Republican administration’s first months. At the start of the shutdown, it had about 2,500 employees.
Federal health workers were also being fired Friday, though a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spokesman did not say how many or which agencies were being hit hardest. And an official for the American Federation of Government Employees, which is suing the Trump administration over the firings, said in a legal filing Friday that the Treasury Department is set to issue layoff notices to 1,300 employees.
Notices of firings have also taken place at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which leads federal efforts to reduce risk to the nation’s cyber and physical infrastructure, according to a person familiar with the actions who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss them.
The White House previewed that it would pursue the aggressive layoff tactic shortly before the government shutdown began on Oct. 1, telling all federal agencies to submit their reduction-in-force plans to the budget office for its review. It said reduction-in-force plans could apply for federal programs whose funding would lapse in a government shutdown, are otherwise not funded and are “not consistent with the President’s priorities.”
This goes far beyond what usually happens in a government shutdown, which is that federal workers are furloughed but restored to their jobs once the shutdown ends.
Democrats have tried to call the administration’s bluff, arguing the firings could be illegal, and seemed bolstered by the fact the White House had yet to carry out the firings.
But President Donald Trump had said earlier this week that he would soon have more information about how many federal jobs would be eliminated.
“I’ll be able to tell you that in four or five days if this keeps going on,” he said Tuesday in the Oval Office as he met with Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney. “If this keeps going on, it’ll be substantial, and a lot of those jobs will never come back.”
The AFGE, a labor union for federal employees, asked a federal judge Friday for a restraining order to halt the firings, calling the action an abuse of power designed to punish workers and pressure Congress.
“It is disgraceful that the Trump administration has used the government shutdown as an excuse to illegally fire thousands of workers who provide critical services to communities across the country,” said the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, Everett Kelley, in a statement.
Virginia Democratic lawmakers blasted the layoffs. In a tweet, U.S. Sen. Mark Warner called the firings “not an unfortunate byproduct of the government shutdown, but a deliberate choice. Republicans are intentionally holding federal workers hostage to force through their agenda driving up health care costs for millions.”
He and U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine issued a joint statement Friday: “Donald Trump and Russ Vought are once again showing us exactly who they are: reckless ideologues willing to inflict real pain on hardworking Americans to score political points. They have repeatedly treated federal employees not as partners in serving the American people, but as punching bags for their political agenda. Now, in the middle of a shutdown manufactured by Republicans — who control the House, the Senate and the White House — they’re doubling down by laying off federal workers, turning their own failure to govern into a direct attack on the people who keep this country running and jeopardizing vital government services.”
U.S. Rep. Don Beyer, a Democrat who represents part of Northern Virginia, added, “This is a disaster for Virginia, intentionally inflicted by President Trump and his Republican allies. These firings are also already being fought in court,” he wrote in a statement Friday. “This president is killing jobs at a disastrous rate, while forcing the continuation of a government shutdown that would end if he simply agreed to prevent skyrocketing health care price increases. Instead of doing that, however, Trump and Vought are illegally firing more workers, hurting essential services for the American people, and damaging our economy in Virginia and across the country.”
Meanwhile, the halls of the Capitol were quiet on Friday, the 10th day of the shutdown, with both the House and the Senate out of Washington and both sides digging in for a protracted shutdown fight. Senate Republicans have tried repeatedly to cajole Democratic holdouts to vote for a stopgap bill to reopen the government, but Democrats have refused as they hold out for a firm commitment to extend health care benefits.
Some Republicans on Capitol Hill have suggested that Vought’s threats of mass layoffs have been unhelpful to bipartisan talks on the funding standoff.
The top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, said in a statement that the “shutdown does not give Trump or Vought new, special powers” to layoff workers.
“This is nothing new, and no one should be intimidated by these crooks,” she added.
The top Senate Democrat, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, said the blame for the layoffs rested with Trump.
“Let’s be blunt: nobody’s forcing Trump and Vought to do this,” Schumer said. “They don’t have to do it; they want to. They’re callously choosing to hurt people—the workers who protect our country, inspect our food, respond when disasters strike. This is deliberate chaos.”
Still, there was no sign that the top Democratic and Republican Senate leaders were even talking about a way to solve the impasse. Instead, Senate Majority Leader John Thune continued to try to peel away centrist Democrats who may be willing to cross party lines as the shutdown pain dragged on.
“It’s time for them to get a backbone,” Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said during a news conference.
The Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan organization that tracks federal service, says that more than 200,000 civil servants have left since the start of this administration in January due to earlier firings, retirements and deferred resignation offers.
“These unnecessary and misguided reductions in force will further hollow out our federal government, rob it of critical expertise and hobble its capacity to effectively serve the public,” said the organization’s president and CEO, Max Stier.
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AP Education Writer Collin Binkley and AP writers Kevin Freking and Mike Stobbe contributed to this report.
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Ronnie Johnson has joined BDO USA as a Tax Principal in the firm’s Norfolk office. With over 19 years’ experience in tax advisory and compliance, Ronnie specializes in S corporations, partnerships and high-net-worth individuals. His industry experience includes professional services, real estate and construction, retail and government contracting.