Trump admin lays off federal workers

The Trump administration began laying off federal workers across a wide range of agencies on Friday, the 10th day of the U.S. government shutdown.

President Donald Trump on Friday afternoon told reporters in the Oval Office that the number of federal workers who will be laid off will “be a lot.”

“It’ll be Democrat-oriented,” Trump said, reiterating his promise to target programs he believes are favored by Democratic officials.

The permanent job cuts, formally known as “Reductions in Force,” are different from the furloughing of government workers. Furloughed employees return to their jobs after a government shutdown ends.

The layoffs were first announced by Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget.

“The RIFs have begun,” Vought wrote on X.

OMB soon after confirmed his tweet, and said the cuts “are substantial.”

RIF notices went to workers at the Treasury Department, and the Health and Human Services Department.

Other departments targeted by the RIFs included Commerce,, Education, Energy, EPA, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, and Interior. 

A court filing on Friday showed at least 4,000 federal workers received layoff notices, with the Treasury and Health departments seeing the largest cuts.

The announcement comes four days after National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett warned in a CNBC interview that could “start taking sharp measures” if the shutdown continued due to the lack of a stopgap funding deal approved by Congress.

Hassett said that “any government worker who loses their job” will have Democrats to blame for their layoff.

While many federal workers have been furloughed because of the shutdown, it is not the normal practice in shutdowns to permanently lay off government employees.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said, “Russell Vought just fired thousands of Americans with a tweet. 

 “Let’s be blunt: nobody’s forcing Trump and Vought to do this,” Schumer said in a statement. “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.” 

“Here’s what’s worse: Republicans would rather see thousands of Americans lose their jobs than sit down and negotiate with Democrats to reopen the government,” Schumer said.

Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, in a statement said, “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 Senator Schumer.”

“Regardless of whether federal employees have been working without pay or have been furloughed, their work is incredibly important to serving the public,” Collins said. “Arbitrary layoffs result in a lack of sufficient personnel needed to conduct the mission of the agency and to deliver essential programs, and cause harm to families in Maine and throughout our country.”

 A spokesman for the Health and Human Services Department, in a statement to CNBC, said, “HHS employees across multiple divisions have received reduction-in-force notices as a direct consequence of the Democrat-led government shutdown.”

“HHS under the Biden administration became a bloated bureaucracy, growing its budget by 38% and its workforce by 17%,” department spokesman Andrew Nixon said.

“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,” Nixon said.

A union representing federal workers, the American Federation of Government Employees, quickly replied to Vought’s tweet, writing, “The lawsuit has been filed.” AFGE, the largest federal employee union, represents 820,000 workers, some of whom work for the District of Columbia.

“America’s unions will see you in court,” the AFL-CIO said in its own tweet.

Lee Saunders, the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, in a statement obtained by NBC News, said, “These mass firings are illegal and will have devastating effects on the services millions of Americans rely on every day.”

“Whether it’s food inspectors, public safety workers, or the countless other public service workers who keep America running, federal employees should not be bargaining chips in this administration’s political games,” Saunders said.

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