White House to agencies: Prepare mass firing plans for a potential shutdown

In memo, the Trump administration says the Reduction-in-Force plans would go beyond standard shutdown furloughs.

The White House budget office is instructing federal agencies to prepare reduction-in-force plans for mass firings during a possible government shutdown, specifically targeting employees who work for programs that are not legally required to continue.

The Office of Management and Budget move to permanently reduce the government workforce if there is a shutdown, outlined in a memo shared with POLITICO ahead of release to agencies tonight, escalates the stakes of a potential shutdown next week.

In the memo, OMB told agencies to identify programs, projects and activities where discretionary funding will lapse on Oct. 1 and no alternative funding source is available. For those areas, OMB directed agencies to begin drafting RIF plans that would go beyond standard furloughs, permanently eliminating jobs in programs not consistent with President Donald Trump’s priorities in the event of a shutdown.

The move marks a significant break from how shutdowns have been handled in recent decades, when most furloughs were temporary and employees were brought back once Congress voted to reopen government and funding was restored. This time, OMB Director Russ Vought is using the threat of permanent job cuts as leverage, upping the ante in the standoff with Democrats in Congress over government spending.

“Programs that did not benefit from an infusion of mandatory appropriations will bear the brunt of a shutdown,” OMB wrote in the memo. Agencies were told to submit their proposed RIF plans to OMB and to issue notices to employees even if they would otherwise be excepted or furloughed during a lapse in funding.

Programs that will continue regardless of a shutdown include Social Security, Medicare, veterans benefits, military operations, law enforcement, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and air traffic control, according to an OMB official granted anonymity to share information not yet public.

The guidance comes as Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill are locked in an impasse over funding, with just days before the fiscal year ends Sept. 30. The House passed a stopgap spending measure to float federal operations through Nov. 21, but Democrats in the Senate have refused to advance it, demanding that Republicans come to the table to negotiate a bipartisan package that could include an extension of expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies.

The OMB letter notes that if Congress successfully passes a clean stopgap bill prior to Sept. 30, the additional steps outlined in this email will not be necessary.

The memo appears to vindicate warnings issued by some Democrats — most prominently Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer — during the last shutdown standoff in March. Schumer at the time moved to allow a GOP-written spending bill to pass, arguing that a shutdown would be a “gift” allowing Trump and his deputies “to destroy vital government services at a significantly faster rate than they can right now.”

Schumer says he has since revised that view, saying this month that the administration’s attacks on federal agencies “will get worse with or without [a shutdown], because Trump is lawless.”

He made a similar point Wednesday after POLITICO published details of the memo, calling it an “attempt at intimidation.”

“This is nothing new and has nothing to do with funding the government,” he said. “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.”

But House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries struck a different note in an X post that appeared to take the threat seriously. He addressed it to voters in federal-worker-rich Virginia, who will soon elect a governor and other state officials.

“Their goal is to ruin your life and punish hardworking families already struggling with Trump Tariffs and inflation,” he said. “Remember in November.”

Top congressional leaders will meet Trump at the White House on Monday as shutdown looms

The top four congressional leaders will meet with President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday, multiple sources told CNN, as Washington works to avoid a looming government shutdown.

The eleventh-hour meeting with House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer comes as government funding is set to run out on Tuesday night, with both sides remaining dug in on their positions.

Trump canceled a meeting earlier this week with Schumer and Jeffries, the Democratic leaders. The president labeled “unserious and ridiculous demands” from Democrats as cause for scrapping the meeting, which he said would be unproductive.

The decision came after Trump spoke to Johnson and Thune by phone, CNN previously reported, and the two Republican leaders argued against making a deal with the Democrats. But on Monday, all top leaders will be included in the meeting.

Punchbowl News was first to report on the upcoming meeting.

Jeffries and Schumer, both of New York, said in a statement Saturday that “As we have repeatedly said, Democrats will meet anywhere, at any time and with anyone to negotiate a bipartisan spending agreement that meets the needs of the American people.”

Schumer called Thune on Friday to push for a meeting, an aide for the minority leader said.

Although Republicans control Capitol Hill and the White House, they need at least seven Democrats in the Senate to join them to pass a spending package under the chamber’s rules. Schumer, however, is demanding any funding bill contain an extension of the enhanced Affordable Care Act premium subsidies, along with several other items, to get his party’s support. GOP leaders want an extension of funding for seven weeks, with additional money for security for the legislative, executive and judicial branches.

If the impasse is not resolved, the coming government shutdown could be unlike any other in recent memory. While no two shutdowns are the same, Trump and the White House Office of Management and Budget have already signaled that they are willing to use a different playbook — urging agencies to downsize workers in programs whose funding has lapsed and which don’t align with the president’s priorities.

Trump is no stranger to government shutdowns. The most recent one occurred during his first term, starting in late December 2018 and lasting 35 days, the longest on record.

This story has been updated with additional information.

Kamala Harris has a five-word response to the Comey indictment

Even as she reflects on last year’s campaign in touring for her new book, Kamala Harris has been weaving in critiques of President Donald Trump’s second term that came out of her loss – and FBI Director James Comey’s indictment was too much to ignore.

“It’s frustrating, but more than that, it’s painful to see,” Harris said, speaking exclusively to CNN on Friday afternoon during a break in the Washington swing of her tour, when asked what she made of Trump’s term so far. “It’s painful to see. I mean what’s happening with Comey: Are you fucking kidding me? The United States Department of Justice?”

Before being elected to the Senate in 2016, the former vice president spent her professional life as a prosecutor, including her time as San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general, and issues of the law hit hard for her.

Harris warned during the campaign that Trump would go after people he considered his political enemies. The Justice Department bringing charges against Comey came after Trump publicly pressured Attorney General Pam Bondi and replaced the US attorney for the district where Comey was indicted.

“He said it; we knew he would do it,” Harris said. “But it is every day unrelenting.”

Harris said she had seen the Truth Social post from last week addressed to “Pam,” as in Bondi, demanding the prosecution, and had heard the speculation that it might have been intended as a direct message to the attorney general.

Either way, Harris told CNN, Trump’s intent seemed clear, and that means a president who has ordered the prosecution of a person against whom he has long sought vengeance.

Asked whether she sees the indictment as the crossing of a Rubicon, or a boundary, Harris said, “I don’t know. Define Rubicon.”

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