The Trump administration started to lay off thousands of employees at federal agencies on Friday, following through on the president’s threat to use the government shutdown as an excuse to carry out one of Project 2025's goals of shrinking the federal workforce.
"The RIFs have begun," Project 2025 mastermind-turned-Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought wrote Friday in a post on X, referring to "Reductions in Force," or mass layoffs.
President Donald Trump and Republican leaders had been saying for days that they would use a government shutdown as pretense to further shrink the federal workforce, hoping that the threat would scare Democrats into voting the way Republicans wanted them to and gutting health care funding.
Now they have followed through on the threat, with The New York Times reporting that the cuts “range into the thousands” though an official number is currently unclear because—true to form—the layoffs are being conducted chaotically.
Trump and the GOP are hoping that voters blame Democrats for the layoffs, even though Trump did not have to lay people off and has admitted publicly that any cuts are intended as punishment rather than for any necessity.
“No one is making Trump and Vought hurt American workers by conducting mass firings—they just want to,” Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington said in a statement. “A shutdown does not give Trump or Vought new, special powers to cause more chaos or permanently weaken more basic services for the American people, and the simple fact is this administration has been recklessly firing—and rehiring—essential workers all year. This is nothing new, and no one should be intimidated by these crooks.
Even Republican lawmakers are worried that the plan will backfire.
"Abritrary layoffs result in a lack of sufficient personnel needed to conduct the mission of the agency and deliver essential programs, and cause harm to families in Maine and throughout our country," a concerned Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said in a statement.
Democrats, meanwhile, are slamming Trump and Republicans for the bald-faced cruelty.
"Republicans would rather see thousands of Americans lose their jobs than sit down and negotiate with Democrats to reopen the government," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote in a post on X.
"Laying off federal workers and doubling the price of health insurance was a choice. Making the price of electricity go up double the inflation rate is a choice. And giving 20 billion dollars to Argentina is a choice. They have enough money. They just don’t have any for you," Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) wrote in a post on X.
Other Democrats added that the layoffs are likely illegal, as federal law says workers need to be given a 30-day notice.
"We believe that they are not only unethical and immoral, but illegal for him to be RIF-ing people during a shutdown," Rep. Sarah Elfreth, a Democrat from Maryland where a high number of federal employees live, told Fox News. "There's nothing, there's no new authority granted to the president or OMB during a shutdown. And so I don't believe in negotiating by threat."
Related | Democrats are winning the shutdown fight
In fact, a union representing federal workers has already filed a lawsuit seeking to halt the layoffs.
"It is disgraceful that the Trump administration has used the government shutdown as an excuse to illegally fire thousands of workers who provide critical services to communities across the country," Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in a statement.
Kelley added, “AFGE is currently challenging President Trump’s illegal, unprecedented, abuse of power and we will not stop fighting until every reduction-in-force notice is rescinded.”
As has always been the case with Trump and Republicans: The cruelty is the point.
Emily Singer October 11, 2025 at 12:00AM From Daily Kos
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