The White House is pledging to fire more federal workers, the next salvo in President Donald Trump’s push to pressure Democrats to sign onto the GOP’s continuing resolution and end the government shutdown.
“OMB is making every preparation to batten down the hatches and ride out the Democrats’ intransigence,” the White House Office of Management and Budget wrote Tuesday on X. “Pay the troops, pay law enforcement, continue the RIFs, and wait.”
Trump and Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought launched their long-threatened shutdown-related layoffs last Friday, with Republicans calling the reductions in force financially prudent and faulting Democrats for forcing the administration’s hand. But the day before, Trump said at a Cabinet meeting that his administration would only cut “Democrat programs” declaring that his own party’s priorities wouldn’t be affected by White House bean counters.
“That’s the way it works,” he said. “They wanted to do this so we will give them a little taste of their own medicine.”
The White House has also used the shutdown to cut billions in climate and infrastructure funding earmarked for states that voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in last year’s election.
Most Senate Democrats have withheld supporting the GOP continuing resolution to bring Republicans to the negotiating table over extending premium tax credits within the Affordable Care Act, with open enrollment set to tee off on November 1. But Republican leadership in both the White House and Congress is signaling the burden is on the holdout Democrats to act.
“We’re barreling toward one of the longest shutdowns in American history unless Democrats drop their partisan demands and passed a clean, no strings attached budget to reopen the government and pay our federal workers,” Speaker Mike Johnson said in a press briefing Monday.
The messaging battle is up for grabs. American voters are more likely to fault the GOP for the shutdown, but they still trust Republicans over Democrats on the economy, according to recent polling.
“Democrats decided to shut down the government because they think free health care for illegal aliens is more important than the American people,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told POLITICO in a statement. “Chuck Schumer may think every day of the shutdown ‘gets better’ for the radical left, but the American people disagree. President Trump is working hard to mitigate the pain caused by the Democrats by finding solutions to pay the military and fund other critical services that the Democrats couldn’t care less about.”
OMB did not immediately respond to a request for comment from POLITICO.
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