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President Donald Trump on Sunday placed the blame squarely on Democrats for the government shutdown, which is expected to trigger sweeping layoffs across the federal workforce.
Trump told reporters before boarding Marine One that the looming layoffs are “up to them,” referring to Democrats who voted against a bill to fund the government and avert the shutdown.
The federal government shut down at 12:01 a.m. ET on Wednesday, forcing agencies to send home workers in roles not considered essential.
These furloughs are temporary; once Congress resolves the standoff, employees typically return to work and receive back pay. As a result, past government shutdowns have been more political theater than economic shock, with markets and jobs rebounding quickly.
This time, however, the Trump administration has warned that some furloughed workers may not return, turning a routine disruption into a potential blow to an already fragile labor market.
Washington, D.C., home to a large share of federal employees, has been hit especially hard after Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) advisory board pushed for layoffs earlier this year.
On Tuesday, when asked how many federal workers could be laid off, Trump told reporters at the White House, “We may do a lot,” saying Democrats have made little progress to end the stalemate.
At the same time, the administration is preparing to oversee what could become the largest mass resignation in U.S. history, with more than 100,000 federal employees scheduled to leave under its deferred resignation program.
National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that layoffs will start “if the president decides that the negotiations are absolutely going nowhere.”
He said he’s hopeful “we can get the Democrats to see that it’s just common sense to avoid layoffs like that.”
If Democrats are “reasonable once they get back into town on Monday,” Hassett added, then Trump will see “no reason for those layoffs.”
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