White House dares Democrats with nuclear response to looming shutdown

While Democrats continue to dig their heels in ahead of the looming deadline to avert a government shutdown, the White House has made clear that the administration is willing to go nuclear.

The Office of Management and Budget, headed by Director Russell Vought, escalated the already tense funding fight by threatening mass firings across the federal workforce if Democrats shut down the government. In a new memo, the OMB directed agencies to identify programs whose funding lapses after the September 30 deadline and instructed them to begin drafting reduction in force notes for employees who may be affected.

Democrats introduced their own bill containing a $1.5 trillion ‘progressive reckless wish list.’

“Over the past 10 fiscal years, Congress has consistently passed Continuing Resolutions on or by September 30 on a bipartisan basis,” the memo reads. “Unfortunately, congressional Democrats are signaling that they intend to break this bipartisan trend and shut down the government in the coming days over a series of insane demands, including $1 trillion in new spending.”

“As such, it has never been more important for the administration to be prepared for a shutdown if the Democrats choose to pursue one.”

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Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images

The House narrowly passed the GOP-led continuing resolution in a 217-212 vote, seeking to keep the government open through November 21. The funding bill was a clean 91-page CR that included anomalies to increase funding for security, allocating $30 million for Congress, $30 million for the executive branch, and $28 million for the judicial branch.

As the memo points out, the clean CR was consistent with previous bipartisan funding bills. Despite this, Democrats refused to reach across the aisle to keep the government open and instead introduced their own bill containing a $1.5 trillion “progressive reckless wish list.”

The Senate is now tasked with taking up the CR just days before the deadline.

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Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the Trump administration’s threat to fire federal workers is just an “attempt at intimidation.” Notably, the shutdown would not affect programs like Social Security, Medicare, veterans’ benefits, law enforcement, military operations, Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and air traffic control.

“This is an attempt at intimidation,” Schumer said in a post on X. “Donald Trump has been firing federal workers since day one — not to govern, but to scare. This is nothing new and has nothing to do with funding the government. These unnecessary firings will either be overturned in court or the administration will end up hiring the workers back, just like they did as recently as this week.”

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