WaPo (“Trump administration begins laying off federal workers amid shutdown“):
The Trump administration began laying off federal workers Friday as the government shutdown stretched into its 10th day, fulfilling threats from President Donald Trump to take advantage of the closure to shave off more parts of the federal workforce he dislikes.
“The RIFs have begun,” White House budget director Russell Vought posted on X on Friday afternoon, using an acronym for reductions in force.
The administration told a federal judge in California on Friday night that seven agencies — Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Homeland Security and Treasury — had issued RIF notices to a total of more than 4,100 workers. Lawyers for the government added that the Environmental Protection Agency had also told about 20 to 30 employees that they might be affected by a RIF in the future and other agencies are “actively considering whether to conduct additional RIFs related to the ongoing lapse in appropriations,” according to the court filing.
Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday that the administration deliberately moved to lay off “people that the Democrats want.”
“It’ll be Democrat-oriented because we figure, you know, they started this thing,” he said. “So they should be Democrat-oriented. It’ll be a lot.”
As the dismissals unfurled Friday, they did appear to mostly target offices that do work typically out of line with Trump administration priorities, including a unit within the Department of Health and Human Services focused on family and community policy and an office focused on fair and equal housing within the Department of Housing and Urban Development, according to several federal employees familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. Also nixed was an Education Department division focused on improving academic achievement for K-12 students, a half-dozen staffers said.
Employees will have at least 30 days, and many will have at least 60 days, before any dismissals take effect, according to federal guidance.
AP (“Firings of federal workers begin as White House seeks to pressure Democrats in government shutdown“) adds:
In comments to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday night, Trump said many people would be losing their jobs, and that the firings would be focused on Democrat-oriented areas, though he didn’t explain exactly what that meant.
“It’ll be a lot, and we’ll announce the numbers over the next couple of days,” he said. “But it’ll be a lot of people.”
Trump said that, going forward, “We’re going to make a determination, do we want a lot? And I must tell you, a lot of them happen to be Democrat oriented.”
“These are people that the Democrats wanted, that, in many cases, were not appropriate,” he said of federal employees, eventually adding, “Many of them will be fired.”
Still, some leading Republicans were highly critical of the administration’s actions.
“I strongly oppose OMB Director Russ Vought’s attempt to permanently lay off federal workers who have been furloughed due to a completely unnecessary government shutdown,” said Maine Sen. Susan Collins, the chair of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, who blamed the federal closure on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski called the announcement “poorly timed” and “yet another example of this administration’s punitive actions toward the federal workforce.”
For his part, 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.”
This may or may not be bluster. OMB doesn’t have the legal authority to conduct RIFs in this manner and, certainly, none of this has anything to do with the shutdown itself. Federal workers, including members of the armed forces, don’t get paid until appropriations are passed. Still, it escalates the drama considerably.
Meanwhile, Congress is taking the long weekend off. The House has been out of session for some time and the Senate is not expected to convene again until Tuesday.
Federal civilians, including my wife and me, received our paychecks for the previous pay period this week, minus the three-and-a-half days we were furloughed. Military members, who are all exempt regardless of their duty assignment, will miss their first paycheck on Wednesday unless the Senate passes the clean CR the Republicans have demanded on Tuesday. (The House will not be in session, so there’s no possibility of a compromise budget meeting that deadline.)
Through a combination of good fortune and financial discipline, our household will be able to weather this for some time. Others—probably most others—are not so fortunate. Many government employees, military included, live paycheck to paycheck. They’re essentially pawns in this silly game.
But this RIF action shows the futility of the whole standoff: so long as Congressional Republicans allow the administration to encroach on their institutional prerogatives, including flouting civil service laws, closing Congressionally-authorized agencies, and the like, any budget agreement is irrelevant. The administration can simply renege on the deal any time they choose.
