Donald Trump‘s federal workforce hatchet man has announced that a bloodbath is now underway after days of threats amid the government shutdown.
Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, posted on X, the ‘RIFs have begun,’ referring to the DOGE-style reduction-in-force plans to slash the bloated bureaucracy in Washington DC.
The layoffs ‘are substantial,’ an OMB source claimed without confirming the number of firings or the departments on which they were focused.
Trump and the Republicans have been dangling the threat of Vought — an ultraconservative architect of Project 2025 — in attempt to force the Democrats to the negotiating table.
The government has been shutdown since October 1 as Democrats and Republicans are at loggerheads over a stopgap bill that would keep the government funded through November 21.
The Democrats are demanding that Obamacare premium tax credits are added to the legislation, but Republicans say this would provide free healthcare to more than a million illegal immigrants.
The White House previewed that it would pursue the aggressive layoff tactic shortly before the government shutdown began on October 1, telling all federal agencies to submit their reduction-in-force plans to the budget office for its review.
It said reduction-in-force could apply for federal programs whose funding would lapse in a government shutdown, is otherwise not funded and is ‘not consistent with the President’s priorities.’
Trump and the Republican Party have been dangling the threat of Vought — an ultraconservative architect of Project 2025 — in attempt to force the Democrats to the negotiating table. Trump last week posted an AI video showing Vought as the Grim Reaper
Director of the US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Russell Vought speaks to reporters outside the West Wing of the White House on July 17
This goes far beyond what usually happens in a government shutdown, which is that federal workers are furloughed but is restored to their jobs once the shutdown ends.
Democrats have tried to call the administration’s bluff, arguing the firings could be illegal, and seemed bolstered by the fact that the White House had yet to carry out the firings.
But Trump had said earlier this week that he would soon have more information about how many federal jobs would be eliminated.
‘I’ll be able to tell you that in four or five days if this keeps going on,’ he said Tuesday in the Oval Office as he met with Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister. ‘If this keeps going on, it´ll be substantial, and a lot of those jobs will never come back.’
Meanwhile, the halls of the Capitol were quiet on Friday, as the shutdown entered its tenth day, with both the House and the Senate out of Washington.
Senate Republicans have tried repeatedly to cajole Democratic holdouts to vote for a stopgap bill to reopen the government, but Democrats have refused as they hold out for a firm commitment to extend health care benefits.
There was no sign that the top Democratic and Republican Senate leaders were even talking about a way to solve the impasse.
Instead, Senate Majority Leader John Thune continued to try to peel away centrist Democrats who may be willing to cross party lines as the shutdown pain dragged on.
‘It’s time for them to get a backbone,’ Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said during a press conference.
