The Trump administration has begun firing federal workers, the White House’s budget chief announced Friday, as Republicans look to maximize pressure on the Democratic Party more than a week into the government shutdown.
“The RIFs have begun,” Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought posted on X, announcing the the government-wide reductions in force that have been anticipated since federal funding lapsed on October 1.
It was not immediately clear how many federal workers had received RIF – or reduction in force – notices, but an OMB spokesperson said the layoffs would be “substantial.”
“It will be substantial, and we regret that the Democrats have shut down the government and forced workers to be put in this position,” the official said.
While the White House has repeatedly placed blame on congressional Democrats for not reopening the government, it is initiating layoffs during this shutdown by choice – administrations are not required to carry out firings when government funding lapses. The layoffs are separate from the furloughs that always occur when government funding runs out.
The top Democratic appropriator in the Senate, swiftly criticized the move. “Once again: if President Trump & Russ Vought decide to do more mass firings, they are CHOOSING to inflict more pain on people. ‘Reductions in force’ are not a new power these bozos get in a shutdown,” Sen. Patty Murray of Washington wrote on X. “We can’t be intimidated by these crooks.”
The White House declined to share specifics of the layoffs, including which agencies and workers are included in them.
But several agencies told CNN that they had started conducting the reductions.
“HHS employees across multiple divisions have received reduction-in-force notices as a direct consequence of the Democrat-led government shutdown,” an agency spokesperson told CNN. “All HHS employees receiving reduction-in-force notices were designated non-essential by their respective divisions. HHS continues to close wasteful and duplicative entities, including those that are at odds with the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again agenda.”
Spokespeople at the departments of treasury and education also told CNN that RIF notices had gone out to some of their employees.
Initially, the Trump administration promised to swiftly roll out mass layoffs of federal workers with the start of the government’s lapse in funding, but – as CNN reported – the White House then appeared to shift strategy, holding off on doing so a bit longer as an increasing number of Republican lawmakers and Trump administration officials acknowledged the potential political perils of the move.
Federal employee unions vow court fight
The American Federation of Government Employees called the administration’s move “disgraceful.”
“In AFGE’s 93 years of existence under several presidential administrations – including during Trump’s first term – no president has ever decided to fire thousands of furloughed workers during a government shutdown,” Everett Kelley, the union’s national president, said in a statement.
AFGE, along with another union representing federal workers, filed a lawsuit in a California federal court seeking to stop the Trump administration from initiating the mass layoffs, calling them illegal.
The unions pressed District Court Judge Susan Illston on Friday to immediately halt the RIFs now that the administration had started carrying them out. The filing comes after the unions last week asked the judge for a temporary restraining order to block the administration from carrying out its threat.
“We will see you in court,” Skye Perryman, CEO of Democracy Forward, which is representing the unions, posted on X in response to Vought’s post.
Illston has not ruled on the requests but earlier this week ordered OMB to provide the status of RIF notices that are planned or in progress by 6 p.m. ET Friday. The judge also asked for information on which agencies would issue layoff notices and how many employees would receive them.
Max Stier, CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, previously told CNN that the shutdown does not give the administration additional power to downsize the federal workforce. “There is no extra legal authority on their part to conduct RIFs on the basis of a shutdown,” he said Tuesday.
In a statement Friday, Stier criticized the Trump administration for using “civil servants as hostages in this ongoing breakdown of our public institutions.”
“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,” he said.
By CNN
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