JD Vance, the US vice-president, used false claims to blame Democrats for the government shutdown as the White House warned that worker layoffs were imminent.
Federal departments have been closing since midnight after a deadlocked Congress failed to pass a funding measure. The crisis has higher stakes than previous shutdowns, with Trump racing to slash government departments and threatening to turn furloughs into mass firings.
Making a rare appearance in the White House briefing room, Vance told reporters: “We are going to have to lay some people off if the shutdown continues. We don’t like that. We don’t necessarily want to do it, but we’re going to do what we have to do to keep the American people’s essential services continuing to run.”
Vance denied workers would be targeted because of their political allegiance but acknowledged there was still uncertainty over who might be laid off or furloughed. “We haven’t made any final decisions about what we’re going to do with certain workers,” he said. “What we’re saying is that we might have to take extraordinary steps, especially the longer this goes on.”
About 750,000 federal employees are expected to be placed on furlough, an enforced leave, with pay withheld until they return to work. Essential workers such as military and border agents may be forced to work without pay, and some will likely miss pay cheques next week.
At the same briefing, press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that government agencies are already preparing for cuts.
“Unfortunately, because the Democrats shut down the government, the president has directed his cabinet, and the office of management and budget is working with agencies across the board, to identify where cuts can be made – and we believe that layoffs are imminent,” she said.
The press secretary acknowledged she could not be precise about timing or identify the percentage of workers likely to be affected.
As the messaging war over the shutdown intensifies, Democrats, motivated by grassroots anger over expiring healthcare subsidies, have been withholding Senate votes to fund the government as leverage to try and force negotiations.
Vance sought to upbraid Democrats over their demands, targeting Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, known as AOC.
“The Chuck Schumer-AOC wing of the Democratic party shut down the government because they said to us, we will open the government only if you give billions of dollars of funding to healthcare for illegal aliens. That’s a ridiculous proposition.”
It is also a false claim. US law bars undocumented immigrants from receiving the health care benefits Democrats are demanding, and the party has not called for a new act of Congress to change that.
At a press conference on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic minority leader in the House of Representatives, said Trump and Republicans shut the government down to deny healthcare to working-class Americans.
“The president has been engaging in irresponsible and unserious behaviour, demonstrating that, all along, Republicans wanted to shut the government down,” he said. “That’s no surprise, because for decades, Republicans have consistently shut the government down as part of their efforts to try to extract and jam their extreme rightwing agenda down the throats of the American people.”
On another front, the White House began targeting Democratic-leaning states for a pause or cancellation of infrastructure funds.
Russ Vought, the OMB director, said on X that roughly $18bn for New York City infrastructure projects had been put on hold to ensure funding is not flowing to “unconstitutional DEI principles”. Later he said nearly $8bn in clean energy funding “to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled”.
Schumer and Jeffries responded in a joint statement: “Donald Trump is once again treating working people as collateral damage in his endless campaign of chaos and revenge.”
Shutdowns are a periodic feature of gridlocked Washington, although this is the first since a record 35-day pause in 2018-19, during Trump’s first term. Talks so far have been unusually bitter, with Trump mocking Schumer and Jeffries on social media.
The president’s most recent video showed Jeffries being interviewed on MSNBC with an AI-generated moustache and sombrero, and four depictions of the president playing mariachi music.
Vance made light of the tactic. “I think it’s funny. The president’s joking and we’re having a good time. You can negotiate in good faith while also making a little bit of fun at some of the absurdities of the Democrats’ positions, and even poking some fun at the absurdity of the themselves.
“I’ll tell Hakeem Jeffries right now, I make the solemn promise to you that if you help us reopen the government, the sombrero memes will stop. I’ve talked to the president of the United States about that.”
Jeffries has denounced the memes as racist. Vance retorted: “I honestly don’t even know what that means. Like, is he a Mexican American that is offended by having a sombrero meme?”
Efforts to swiftly end the shutdown collapsed on Wednesday as Senate Democrats – who are demanding extended healthcare subsidies for low income families – refused to help the majority Republicans approve a bill passed by the House that would have reopened the government for several weeks.
Congress is out on Thursday for the Jewish Yom Kippur holiday but the Senate returns to work on Friday and may be in session through the weekend. The House is not due back until next week.
A Marist poll released on Tuesday found that 38% of voters would blame congressional Republicans for a shutdown, 27% would blame the Democrats and 31% both parties.
