WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House budget office said Friday that mass firings of federal workers have started, an attempt by President Donald Trump’s administration to exert more pressure on Democratic lawmakers as the government shutdown dragged into a 10th day.
Russ Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said on the social media site X that the “RIFs have begun,” referring to reduction-in-force plans aimed at reducing the size of the federal government.
In a court filing, the budget office said well over 4,000 employees would be fired, though it noted that the funding situation was “fluid and rapidly evolving.”
The firings would hit the hardest at the departments of the Treasury, which would lose over 1,400 employees; Health and Human Services, with a loss of over 1,100; and Housing and Urban Development, set to lose over 400. The departments of Commerce, Education, Energy, and Homeland Security and the Environmental Protection Agency were all set to fire hundreds of more employees. It was not clear which particular programs would be affected.
The aggressive move by Trump’s budget office goes far beyond what usually happens in a government shutdown and escalates an already politically toxic dynamic between the White House and Congress. Talks to end the shutdown are almost nonexistent.
