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- The government is barrelling toward a shutdown on Wednesday amid a standoff on Capitol Hill.
- The Trump administration is signaling that a shutdown would lead to mass firings of federal workers.
- Top Democrats are dismissing it as political intimidation designed to get them to cave.
If the government shuts down on Wednesday, many more federal workers could permanently lose their jobs.
That’s the implication of a new memo to federal agency heads from President Donald Trump’s Office of Management and Budget, obtained by BI on Thursday.
The memo directs agency heads to “consider” reduction-in-force notices for employees in programs that are “not consistent with the President’s priorities” and that will lose funding if the government shuts down.
“We remain hopeful that Democrats in Congress will not trigger a shutdown and the steps outlined above will not be necessary,” the memo concludes.
It’s unclear how many workers could be affected by potential reductions in force. The Trump administration has already fired hundreds of thousands of federal workers in this same manner, including via DOGE, and the Supreme Court gave them the green light to do so in July.
This week, the administration moved to rehire some of those same employees.
Government funding runs out after Tuesday, September 30, and both parties have been at odds over government funding.
House Republicans passed a funding bill last week, but it stalled in the Senate, where it needs the support of at least seven Democratic senators to pass.
Democrats have insisted that Republicans must negotiate with them, and have proposed reversals to Medicaid cuts in the “Big Beautiful Bill,” along with extending government subsidies to support the Affordable Care Act, as key conditions.
Republicans have largely refused to negotiate with Democrats and have insisted that they simply vote for the GOP-drafted bill, leading to the impasse.
Top Democratic leaders dismissed the Trump administration’s memo as an attempt to intimidate them into voting for the GOP funding bill.
“This is an attempt at intimidation. Donald Trump has been firing federal workers since day one—not to govern, but to scare,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement. “This is nothing new and has nothing to do with funding the government. These unnecessary firings will either be overturned in court or the administration will end up hiring the workers back, just like they did as recently as today.”
“We will not be intimidated by your threat to engage in mass firings,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote on X. “Get lost.”
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