Donald Trump claimed on Saturday that he has found a way to pay US military troops despite the ongoing federal government shutdown, saying he has instructed his defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, to release funds.
Posting on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote: “I am using my authority, as commander-in-chief, to direct our secretary of war, Pete Hegseth, to use all available funds to get our troops PAID on October 15.”
Trump said he had identified the funds to make the payments happen, adding: “I will not allow the Democrats to hold our military, and the entire security of our nation, HOSTAGE, with their dangerous government shutdown. The radical left Democrats should OPEN THE GOVERNMENT.”
The recent federal government shutdown began on 1 October and is the first since a 35-day closure that happened in December 2018 and extended into the new year during Trump’s first presidential term. The shutdown came as Democrats were looking to regain their footing with voters, who re-elected Trump last year and relegated them to the minority in both chambers of Congress.
More than 1.3 million military personnel across the country would not have received their first post-shutdown paychecks this month, only getting paid for the 21-30 September period. An estimated 750,000 federal employees have also been furloughed.
As the Hill reported, however, federal workers are generally paid once a shutdown ends, whether they are furloughed or working. After the last shutdown in 2018, Congress wrote into law that federal workers must be paid once the government reopens.
On Thursday, the US Senate remained deadlocked on legislation to end the shutdown, even as Trump repeated his threat to make Democrats pay for the funding lapse that has closed federal agencies and furloughed employees across the nation.
Speaking to Punchbowl News, the Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, expressed confidence in the strategy, saying: “Every day gets better for us.”
The White House announced the layoffs of federal workers on Friday, following through with a threat it made to initiate the mass firings of government employees.
A document filed with a federal court on Friday evening revealed that hundreds of layoffs took place across the executive branch, including about 315 at the Department of Commerce, 466 at the Department of Education and 187 at the Department of Energy.
Union leaders warned the layoffs would have “devastating effects” on services relied upon by millions of Americans, and pledged to challenge the moves in court.
“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,” said Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents 800,000 federal and DC government workers.
After Russell Vought, the director of the White House office of management and budget, wrote on social media that “RIFs have begun”, referring to the government’s reduction-in-force procedure to let employees go, the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the US, responded, saying: “America’s unions will see you in court.”
In a repost of Trump’s delivery of the news that he proposes to pay the military by 15 October, Hegseth responded: “President Trump delivers for the troops.”
