President Donald Trump is weighing slashing “thousands” of federal jobs ahead of a meeting with his budget director, Russell Vought, as the White House looks to ratchet up pressure on Democrats to end a government shutdown that has entered its second day.
“It’s likely going to be in the thousands,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday, saying that the “entire team at the White House” was working to identify possible cuts.
“We’re going to look at agencies that don’t align with the administration’s values, that we feel are a waste of the taxpayer dollar,” she added.
Leavitt’s comments came after Trump on social media earlier Thursday said he planned to meet with Vought to “determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.”
Republicans have sought to use the threat of permanent cuts to the federal bureaucracy to encourage Democrats to vote to reopen the government, and the White House has said firings could happen imminently. But some budget experts have argued that spending money to conduct permanent layoffs during a shutdown is illegal.
House Speaker Mike Johnson defended Trump’s move, saying that the president has the power to fire workers and cut spending during a shutdown. He pinned blame for the lapse in appropriations on Democrats.
“If they keep the government closed it will get more and more painful,” Johnson told reporters. The White House, he added, is “going to look to the administration’s priorities and make sure they are funded.”
Vought has begun withholding spending for New York City transit projects and clean energy programs in states that voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in 2024.
It’s not yet clear what the scale of the federal downsizing could be, but Senator Shelley Moore Capito, a West Virginia Republican, predicted there could be sizable cuts.
“Do I think Russ Vought wants to shrink government in a dramatic way? Absolutely. He’s pretty clear about that,” Capito told CNBC Thursday.
The White House’s moves to pull back funding and dismiss federal workers aims to put pressure on Democrats to vote to re-open the government. The hardball tactics go well beyond what is common in a shutdown, where typically many federal workers are furloughed and then receive back pay once the government is funded.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that about 750,000 employees will be furloughed during the shutdown at a cost of $400 million per day in lost compensation.
Political Posturing
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent accused Democrats of negotiating in bad faith over government funding.
“The Democrats want to negotiate like terrorists,” Bessent told CNBC Thursday, adding that Republicans are seeking a “clean” extension of government funding. Democrats are seeking to include health care subsidies in that spending bill.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, told CBS that Democrats have been “begging” Republicans to negotiate but so far there have been “zero” talks because the GOP hasn’t engaged.
A Washington Post poll found that more voters blame Trump and Republicans for the government shutdown than they do Democrats — by a 17-point margin. Independents overwhelmingly side with Democrats on the question, but Democrats are also more united: Only 67% of Republicans blame Democrats for the shutdown, while 87% of Democrats blame Republicans.
Neither the House nor Senate are scheduled to vote on Thursday, in observance of the Yom Kippur holiday. The Senate is slated to return on Friday, but Senate Republican leader John Thune said the chamber is “unlikely” to hold votes over the weekend. The House won’t return to Washington until Tuesday.
Representative Byron Donalds, a Florida Republican, said that he expects the impasse to continue into early next week, at least.
“I think it probably goes into next week, could be longer. It’s really up to Chuck Schumer,” Donalds said in an interview on Fox Business Thursday, referring to the Senate Democratic leader.
Democrats are pushing for an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies that expire at the end of the year. Republicans say they want to fund the government first before engaging in any negotiations on that issue.
“None of these shutdowns, whether they were Republican or Democratic inspired, have ever achieved their objective,” Representative Tom Cole, the Oklahoma Republican who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, told Fox Business. “It’s a really dumb thing to do.”
