Mass firings begin as White House weighs keeping troops paid

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration made good on its threat to begin mass firings of federal civilian employees Friday while exploring creative avenues to make sure military personnel don’t miss their paychecks slotted to go out next week.

With no end in sight to the partial government shutdown that began 10 days ago, White House budget director Russell Vought announced on X that he has begun executing mass layoffs across federal agencies.

An Office of Management and Budget official said the layoffs are “substantial,” without elaborating. Details began trickling out ahead of a court-ordered deadline by close of business Friday, however, hitting numerous agencies including Treasury, EPA, Homeland Security, Education, and Housing and Urban Development, among others.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., meanwhile, officially canceled votes in the House next week, meaning there is virtually no chance that Congress could pass a stand-alone bill to provide pay to 2 million troops whose next paycheck is due Oct. 15.

But in keeping with President Donald Trump’s pledges to “take care of” the military while punishing “Democrat agencies,” his administration is looking at how to make sure the troops are kept whole financially. A senior White House official said the administration is “exploring every legal maneuver and option at our disposal to get our troops paid during the Democrat Shutdown.”

The moves mark an escalation of Republicans’ strategy to wear down the Democrats’ opposition to reopening the government without also dealing with their top legislative priority at the moment, an extension of enhanced health care tax credits. Republicans are refusing to negotiate with them until the government is reopened through passage of a short-term funding extension.

Friday’s announcement of layoffs came at least partly in response to a court order stemming from a lawsuit filed Sept. 30 by the American Federation of Government Employees and other unions challenging the administration’s authority to conduct mass firings during a shutdown.

“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 AFGE President Everett Kelley, in a statement Friday. “Federal workers are tired of being used as pawns for the political and personal gains of the elected and unelected leaders.”

The layoffs were expected to hit a wide swath of departments and agencies.

Employees across the Department of Health and Human Services “have received reduction-in-force notices as a direct consequence of the Democrat-led government shutdown,” a department spokesperson said Friday. The agency “continues to close wasteful and duplicative entities, including those that are at odds with the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again agenda.”

Even the Department of Homeland Security, which Republicans recently favored with extra money in their “big, beautiful” reconciliation law, is taking a hit. A department spokesperson said layoffs will be conducted at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

“During the last administration, CISA was focused on censorship, branding and electioneering,” the official said. “This is part of getting CISA back on mission.”

According to a union court filing, the Treasury Department on Friday was issuing 1,300 layoff notices across the agency. It wasn’t clear how many are IRS staff, who make up the largest piece of the department by far and which had furloughed more than 34,000 workers earlier this week.

Democrats, already angered by previous administration firings and furloughs and attempts to claw back appropriated funds, leveled a fresh round of criticism Friday.

“No one is making Trump and Vought hurt American workers — they just want to,” said Senate Appropriations ranking Democrat Patty Murray of Washington, in a statement. “This is nothing new, and no one should be intimidated by these crooks.”

Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, joined in the criticism by taking aim at the Trump administration and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., who has rallied Democrats to oppose the short-term continuing resolution to reopen the government as he fights for extending health insurance subsidies.

“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 caused by Sen. Schumer,” Collins said in a statement.

If a fix doesn’t happen, the current shutdown would be the first of its kind in which military personnel have gone without pay.

During the 2018-19 government shutdown that lasted 35 days, the Defense appropriations bill had already been signed into law, and in 2013 Congress enacted separate legislation to ensure the troops got paid on time.

While Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Va., introduced a stand-alone bill that would pay the military during a shutdown, there’s no indication Republican leaders will take that up.

Republicans are arguing they have already passed legislation to ensure troops get paid — the House-backed continuing resolution which Senate Democrats have blocked eight times.

“We have voted so many times to pay the troops. We’ve already done it,” Johnson said. “The ball is in the court of Senate Democrats right now. That’s it.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., called on Republicans to return to Washington and pass legislation to pay the troops. “They are not serious about reopening the government,” Jeffries said. “Republicans are not even serious about paying our active-duty troops.”

Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., earlier on Friday hinted that the White House and Pentagon may have some accounting maneuvers up their sleeves in a pinch, however.

“My expectation is, yes, they’re going to start making some decisions about how to move money around, which agencies and departments are going to be impacted, which programs are going to be impacted, which employees are going to be impacted,” Thune said at a joint news conference with Johnson.

Anticipating the Trump administration may try to keep paychecks flowing to the military while cutting other programs and staff, House Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro preemptively called such a move illegal.

“There’s no inherent power that the president has, and certainly no inherent power that Russ Vought has to move money around that’s been appropriated by… House, Senate, Democrats and Republicans, that’s the law of the land,” DeLauro, D-Conn., said on a call with reporters.

Another White House effort to force Democrats’ hands could be additional rescissions to claw back congressionally approved funding.

“There’ll be more of that, we expect, in the days ahead,” Johnson told reporters Friday.

However, the administration has been pursuing rescissions all year, and renewed efforts appear more likely to embolden Democrats than shake them.

Congress passed a law pulling back $9 billion in foreign aid and public broadcasting funding this summer, and the Government Accountability Office has found seven times this year that the administration has unlawfully held back funding.

“I think it is fair to say that a lot of people are wondering, what the point of enacting an appropriations bill is, if we have no assurances that it won’t just be clawed back by the majority,” Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, a senior appropriator, said this week.

There’s no sign of an immediate breakthrough on the horizon. While some senators floated a proposal to provide Democrats a vote on legislation extending expiring health credits this week in exchange for ending the shutdown, Democrats aren’t biting.

“This is something they’ve been talking about for three weeks,” Schumer said. “It’s the same old thing. It shows that they’re feeling the heat that people care about health care. There’s no mention of the word ‘Johnson,’ and there’s no guarantee that it would ever pass whatever is put on the floor,” he said, referring to Johnson’s refusal to negotiate with Democrats.

Thune remained confident on Friday that five more Senate Democrats would eventually back the House-passed bill, despite the eight tries thus far that blocked the measure.

“I think this is going to happen organically with enough reasonable Senate Democrats who care enough about doing the right thing for their country and not what’s in the best interest of their left-wing political base, to come forward and help us find a solution,” Thune said.

(Lia DeGroot, Rebecca Kheel, Sandhya Raman, Mark Schoeff Jr. and Todd Ruger contributed to this report.)

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