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President Donald Trump on Thursday explicitly threatened to use a temporary lapse in government funding to enact permanent cuts to the federal workforce as a way to punish workers at agencies he believes are staffed by people who did not vote for him or his party.
In a post on Truth Social, the president said he would meet today with Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought “to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.”
He added that he “can’t believe” that “Radical Left Democrats” gave him what he described as an “unprecedented opportunity” to do so.
Trump’s threat to strip thousands of civil servants of their livelihoods as a political punishment comes less than a day after Vice President JD Vance told reporters that the temporary lapse in funding would mean “certain people are going to have to get laid off” even though previous government shutdowns have only resulted in furloughs that end when funding is restored.
It’s also consistent with Vought’s longstanding plans to exploit a temporary government shutdown as a way to eliminate government programs he and other Republicans dislike despite the lack of clear authority to do so.
Trump says he’s meeting with OMB Director Russell Vought (pictured at right) about the widespread layoffs he has threatened in retaliation against Democrats during the government shutdown (AFP via Getty Images)
In a memorandum sent to agency executives last month, Vought directed them to submit plans for mass firings of “employees in programs, projects, or activities” that aren’t funded by Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill spending package or are “not consistent with the President’s priorities.”
Vought, a veteran right-wing activist who was an architect of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, has already used the ongoing government shutdown to punish millions of Americans for having voted for Democrats in last year’s election.
On Wednesday, he announced $8 billion worth of climate-related projects in 16 states — all of which voted for former vice president Kamala Harris last November and are represented by Democrats in the Senate — would be canceled.
The affected states are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington, according to Vought.
The White House budget director also announced a pause on $18 billion in infrastructure funding for two major projects in New York: The Hudson Tunnel and Second Avenue Subway.
He said the pause was needed “to ensure funding is not flowing based on unconstitutional DEI principles.”
The House and Senate Democratic leaders, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, are both from New York.