The Trump administration plans to fire more than 10,000 civilian federal workers during the partial government shutdown, White House budget director Russ Vought said Wednesday, just before a federal judge temporarily blocked the government from so-called reductions in force.
That estimate, which came in an interview on the Charlie Kirk radio show broadcast from the White House, would more than double the number of planned layoffs the administration outlined in a court filing Friday. That document said more than 4,100 layoffs were planned at seven departments, though it also said more could be on the way as agencies finalized their plans.
“I think it’ll get much higher,” Vought said of the reductions-in-force, known as RIFs. “And we’re going to keep these RIFs rolling throughout this shutdown because we think it’s important to stay on offense for the American taxpayer and the American people.”
That interview came just before a federal judge temporarily blocked the administration from firing workers during the shutdown. Judge Susan Illston of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued the temporary restraining order in response to a lawsuit by federal employee unions claiming the firings are illegal.
The order applies to federal employees in any program, project or activity that includes any bargaining unit or member represented by any of the labor groups that brought the lawsuit. It covers people who received RIF notices since Oct. 10, when the first shutdown-related notices were issued.
The judge found the labor groups are likely to succeed on their claim that the government violated administrative rules.
“If what plaintiffs allege is true, then the agencies’ actions in laying off thousands of public employees during a government shutdown — and in targeting for RIFs those programs that are perceived as favored by a particular political party — is the epitome of hasty, arbitrary and capricious decisionmaking,” Illston wrote. “The many snafus that plaintiffs detail in their papers, some of which are outlined above, are testament to this.”
And Illston wrote that the groups are likely to succeed on their claim that the Office of Personnel Management and Office of Management and Budget direction that agencies consider RIFs during a shutdown “rests on illegal grounds.”
“The memorandum thus essentially seeks to overturn mandates that Congress has put in place,” Illston wrote. “Neither the OMB/OPM documents themselves, nor defendants in their opposition papers, make any attempt to justify this position.”
The judge also noted that at the hearing, government lawyers “refused to answer the question of whether or not defendants’ action are legal, instead saying that defendants were ‘not prepared’ to address the merits today.”
Illston gave the government until Friday to give the court an accounting of all RIFs, actual or imminent, and verify compliance with the court order.
The judge also set a hearing for Oct. 28 on whether to issue a similar preliminary injunction, a more permanent block, and a quick briefing schedule.
Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees said the decision “affirms that these threatened mass firings are likely illegal and blocks layoff notices from going out.”
“Federal workers have already faced enough uncertainty from the administration’s relentless attacks on the important jobs they do to keep us safe and healthy,” Saunders said.
The lawsuit, filed Sept. 30, claims that firing federal employees during a shutdown is an unlawful abuse of power designed to punish workers and pressure Congress. The Trump administration has defended the firings as falling within its authority, while saying the court lacks jurisdiction to rule on the matter.
Vought, meanwhile, made clear in his radio interview that the administration viewed the partial shutdown as a prime “opportunity” to pursue firings to slash the federal bureaucracy.
He singled out “Green New Deal” programs in the Energy Department, the Minority Business Development Agency at the Commerce Department that he said “divvies up business grants on the basis of race,” environmental justice programs at the EPA, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at the Department of Homeland Security, which he said was “participating in censorship of the American people.”
“We want to be very aggressive where we can be in shuttering the bureaucracy, not just the funding but the bureaucracy,” he said. “And we now have an opportunity to do that.”
When asked how many workers could be fired, he said, “I think we’ll probably end up being north of 10,000.”
Democrats have excoriated the White House for firings they said are without merit, needlessly harmful and carelessly implemented. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., heaped scorn on the administration in a floor speech Wednesday, pointing in part to the need for the administration to admit that nearly 800 Health and Human Services Department employees were laid off in error.
“These accidental firings show you how stupid it is for Russell Vought to treat federal workers as political pawns,” Schumer said. “It’s destructive. It’s cruel. It’s vicious. And it will backfire in the eyes of the public.”
Vought also said the administration is “in the close-out phase of USAID,” referring to the U.S. Agency for International Development, whose functions have mostly been transferred to the State Department or dismantled.
“This will be the final nail in the coffin, the extent to which we put this agency out of business once and for all,” he said.
And he said the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau “had the DNA of [Sen.]” Elizabeth Warren and should be dismantled “within the next two or three months.”
Jacob Fulton contributed to this report.
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