The White House said Friday it had started laying off federal workers, following through on a threat to carry out reductions in force (RIFs) amid an ongoing government shutdown.
By Brett Samuels
“The RIFs have begun,” Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought posted on social platform X.
An OMB spokesperson confirmed the layoffs had started “and they are substantial.” But they did not provide information on how many employees or which agencies were impacted.
President Trump suggested on Friday evening that his administration was specifically targeting Democrats with the layoffs.
“It’ll be a lot. And it’ll be Democrat-oriented, because we figure, you know, they started this thing,” Trump told reporters.
The White House had previously suggested the number of employees targeted for layoffs could be in the thousands. An administration official confirmed the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Housing and Urban Development were among the agencies affected.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said in a statement that employees “across multiple divisions” had received notices about reductions in force “as a direct consequence of the Democrat-led shutdown.”
“All HHS employees receiving reduction-in-force notices were designated non-essential by their respective divisions,” the department said. “HHS continues to close wasteful and duplicative entities, including those that are at odds with the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again agenda.”
Education Department also confirmed some employees will be affected by layoffs, but wouldn’t say how many.
The layoffs were likely to trigger legal challenges.
“America’s unions will see you in court,” the AFL-CIO posted on X.
The White House has for more than a week wielded the prospect of layoffs of federal workers and cuts to government programs as a threat if Democrats did not vote with Republicans to reopen the government.
In previous shutdowns, federal workers have been furloughed until the government reopened, but workers have not been fired.
“If this keeps going on, it will be substantial,” President Trump said Tuesday of layoffs. “And a lot of those jobs will never come back.”
On Thursday, Trump said his administration was looking to cut “Democrat programs.”
“That’s the way it works. They wanted this,” Trump said.
Democrats and unions representing government workers had criticized the administration for using federal employees as a negotiating tactic. Even some Republicans had welcomed the White House’s decision to hold off on layoffs despite the threats.
“I think, to their credit, the White House has, now for 10 days, laid off doing anything in hopes that enough Senate Democrats would 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’re getting [to where] people start missing paychecks, this gets real,” Thune continued. “My expectation is, yes, they’re going to have to start making some decisions about where 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. That’s what a shutdown does.”
Democrats have remained unified over their demands that Republicans agree to extend ObamaCare subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year and cause insurance premiums to spike.
GOP leaders haven’t budged from their position of refusing to negotiate on health care until Democrats help to reopen the government.
The Trump administration earlier this year laid off thousands of federal employees as part of cost-cutting efforts led by the Department of Government Efficiency and Elon Musk, who departed as a special government employee in May.