President Donald Trump on Tuesday warned that “a lot” of federal employees could be laid off as the government barreled toward a midnight shutdown.
Asked Tuesday morning outside the White House how many workers he plans to lay off if the government shuts down, the president said, “We may do a lot.”
Trump pinned the blame on congressional Democrats as the two sides have failed to reach a deal on federal funding that’s set to run out at midnight Wednesday. The president’s comments come as federal workers across the government are bracing for potential widespread layoffs in a workforce already reeling from cuts from the Trump administration.
The White House budget office last week directed agencies to consider reduction-in-force — or RIF — notices for staffers in areas where funding lapses and whose activities are “not consistent” with the president’s priorities.
Those layoff notices would be “in addition to any furlough notices provided due to the lapse in appropriation,” said a memo from the White House. “Once fiscal year 2026 appropriations are enacted, agencies should revise their RIFs as needed to retain the minimal number of employees necessary to carry out statutory functions.”
Among Democrats’ demands is a push to renew soon-to-expire health care subsidies. The stalemate continued after the administration and congressional leaders failed to reach a deal at a White House meeting Monday.
Federal workers, advocates of the civil service and critics of the Trump administration are decrying the prospect that the administration would use a government shutdown to further its goals of cutting the federal workforce.
The administration has already downsized agencies across the government since taking office in January, in part through early cuts led by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency and also through incentivizing workers’ departures.
On top of the possible shutdown deadline this week, Tuesday marks the official last day of work for about 100,000 federal employees who accepted incentives to leave their jobs under the Trump administration’s “deferred resignation program,” the head of the Office of Personnel Management told NBC4 in Washington. Another 50,000 are slated to depart the workforce at the end of the year, OPM’s Scott Kupor told the news outlet.
With a shutdown and mass layoffs looming, EPA union leader Justin Chen said it is “appalling for the Trump administration to use the EPA workforce as a political pawn.”
A move by the administration to lay off workers during a shutdown would prompt widespread political pushback and would likely draw court challenges.
“The Administration’s plans raise serious legal issues,” wrote Sam Berger, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonprofit think tank. Berger previously served in the Biden White House budget office.
A shutdown “provides no new legal authority to engage in mass layoffs, nor does it provide any sound management or policy reason to do so,” Berger wrote.
A shutdown would not “provide any sound management or policy reason” for layoffs, Berger added, noting that most U.S. government shutdowns have lasted only a few days and the longest dragged — from December 2018 until January 2019 — lasted 35 days.
The laws governing federal layoffs require at least 30 days between when employees are notified about possible layoffs until their employment ends.
