Republican Senator Ted Cruz celebrated the Trump administration’s threat to use the government shutdown to conduct mass layoffs of federal workers.
The Texas lawmaker said Trump’s budget chief, Russ Vought, has “changed the dynamic” with the current shutdown.
Cruz attributed Vought with saying if there is a shutdown, “President Trump is going to use that opportunity not to tell people ‘you’re furloughed for a few days’ but instead to send pink slips and to get rid of left-wing bureaucrats who are imposing left wing priorities that are contrary to President Trump’s priorities.”
“I think that is fantastic,” Cruz said on Fox Business.
He said it will cause Democrats in Congress to “scream and weep and gnash their teeth.”
“I cannot wait for the next Democrat lunch when they start screaming at each other when they start seeing pink slips go out at the EPA, at the Department of Labor, at the IRS and suddenly the bureaucrats that they are entrusting to advance their job killing agenda are themselves without a job.”
Cruz acknowledged that what usually happens in a partial government shutdown is that federal workers are furloughed, but when it ends, they come back and receive back pay.
Ahead of the looming deadline this time around, Vought directed agencies in a memo to prepare for mass layoffs, as the administration has long sought to slash the federal workforce.
Some GOP lawmakers have warned the administration to be careful not to go too far, as DOGE efforts earlier this year sparked widespread outrage and hit departments performing critical work.
However, since the shutdown began just after midnight, the Trump administration has leaned into threats to fire workers, indicating the layoffs would be “imminent.”
On Thursday, Trump fully embraced that Vought was an architect of Project 2025 after he vehemently denied on the campaign trail that he would implement the conservative initiative to reshape the government.
“I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut,” Trump wrote.
The president wrote that he could not believe Democrats had given him “this unprecedented opportunity.”
The administration has already taken aim at blue states as it looks to slash funding allocated by Congress.
Vought announced that it was cancelling $18 billion for New York infrastructure projects. He also specifically targeted green energy projects in sixteen blue states.
Democrats have blasted the moves as hurting hard-working Americans, killing jobs and harming the overall economy as well as being illegal.
It remains to be seen where the president and his team look next as they look to inflict pain on blue states and Democrats.
GOP leadership on Thursday shrugged off concern about the approach backfiring.
“The White House, the executive branch take no pleasure in this,” House Speaker Mike Johnson claimed when asked about it at his press briefing. He did not acknowledge that mass layoffs are not the norm or required of a shutdown.
“When they are tasked with determining what the priorities are, obviously they are going to follow their principles and priorities and not the other team,” Johnson said. “That’s the results of an election that everybody voted in.”
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