The White House said Friday it had begun laying off federal employees and would continue a threat to do so amid an ongoing government shutdown.
“The RIFs have begun,” Russ Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), wrote on X.
An OMB spokesman confirmed that the layoffs had begun “and that they are significant.” However, they did not provide information on how many employees or which agencies were affected.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said in a statement that employees “across multiple departments” had received notices of troop reductions “as a direct result of the Democrat-led shutdown.”
“All HHS employees who received notices of staffing reductions were deemed non-essential by their respective departments,” the department said. “HHS continues to close wasteful and duplicative facilities, including those that conflict with the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again agenda.”
The layoffs are likely to be the trigger legal challenges.
“America’s unions will see you in court,” the AFL-CIO posted on X.
The White House has been threatening layoffs of federal workers and cuts to government programs for more than a week if Democrats don’t vote with Republicans to reopen the government.
In previous shutdowns, federal employees were furloughed until the government reopened, but workers were not laid off.
“If this continues, there will be significant consequences,” Trump said Tuesday of the layoffs. “And many of these jobs will never come back.”
On Thursday, Trump said his administration wanted to cut “Democrat programs.”
“That’s how it works. That’s what they wanted,” Trump said.
Democrats and unions representing government workers had criticized the administration for using federal workers as a bargaining tactic. Even some Republicans had done that welcomed the White House’s decision to withhold firings despite their threats.
“I think to their credit the White House has been putting things off for 10 days in the hopes that enough Democrats in the Senate will come to their senses and do the right thing and fund the government,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Friday, minutes before Vought’s announcement.
“But now that we get it [to where] “People are starting to miss paychecks, it’s becoming real,” Thune continued. “My expectation is, yes, they will have to start making decisions about where to send money, which agencies and departments will be affected, which programs will be affected, which employees will be affected.” That’s what a shutdown does.”
Democrats have remained consistent about their demands that Republicans agree to an extension ObamaCare subsidies which expire at the end of the year and lead to an boost in insurance premiums.
Republican leaders have not backed down from their position of refusing to negotiate on health care until Democrats support reopen the government.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration laid off thousands of federal workers as part of a cost-cutting effort led by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Elon Musk, who left as a special government employee in May.
Al Weaver and Nathaniel Weixel contributed.
