After promising thousands of job cuts, Trump has yet to act and already faces legal challenge
Demonstrators rally in support of federal workers earlier this year outside of the Department of Health and Human Services. Credit: AP/Mark Schiefelbein
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and his top aides have repeatedly threatened to lay off thousands of federal workers during the ongoing government shutdown, but a week into the funding stalemate no mass firings have occurred and the administration is facing a lawsuit questioning its authority to use the shutdown to slash jobs.
Days before the lapse in government spending, federal agency heads were notified by Trump’s top budget director in a Sept. 24 memo to start drawing up mass firing plans. Thousands of workforce cuts were "imminent," potentially in "two days," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on the first day of the shutdown.
By the seventh day, Trump told reporters that in "four or five days" he would reveal the level of job cuts. "A lot of those jobs will never come back," Trump said in the Oval Office on Tuesday.
As Trump and his top aides continue to dangle the prospect of layoffs if Congress fails to break a stalemate over a bill to reopen the government, legal analysts contend the administration does not have the authority to use a shutdown as the basis for firing federal employees.
WHAT NEWSDAY FOUND
- President Donald Trump and his top aides have repeatedly threatened to lay off thousands of federal workers during the ongoing government shutdown, but a week into the funding stalemate no mass firings have occurred and the administration is facing a lawsuit questioning its authority to use the shutdown to slash jobs.
- Days before the lapse in government spending, federal agency heads were notified by Trump’s top budget director in a Sept. 24 memo to start drawing up mass firing plans. Thousands of workforce cuts were "imminent," potentially in "two days," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on the first day of the shutdown.
- But as Trump and his top aides continue to dangle the prospect of layoffs if Congress fails to break a stalemate over a bill to reopen the government, legal analysts contend the administration does not have the authority to use a shutdown as the basis for firing federal employees.
"Using the lapse in appropriations to justify a reduction in force is unlawful," Angela Cornell, a federal labor law professor at Cornell Law School told Newsday in a phone interview. "There is a process and procedure for public employee job reductions. There are regulations and statutes that govern how employees are to be treated during the shut down. These are long-established laws, and they should be followed."
The White House’s argument
Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, a longtime proponent of slashing the size of the federal workforce, urged agency heads in a Sept. 24 memo to "use this opportunity to consider" preparing job-termination notices known as Reduction in Force (RIF) notices.
Vought said the notices should be considered for "all employees in programs, projects, or activities," that would not be funded once federal funding expired on Oct. 1, and that were not "consistent with the President’s priorities."
OMB did not immediately return a request for comment on Wednesday, but Vice President JD Vance, speaking to reporters at an Oct. 1 White House Press Briefing, argued any layoffs that occurred during the shutdown were "to save money in some places so that essential services don't get turned off in other places."
Federal unions respond
In a lawsuit filed days after Vought issued his memo, a coalition of federal labor unions including the American Federation of Government Employees, argued that laying off workers during the shutdown would violate a series of federal laws that govern what is permissible during a shutdown.
"The law plainly does not permit this administration’s scheme to order mass firings across the federal government for their own political advantage, including by illegally keeping federal employees working during a government shutdown to carry out the firing of their fellow employees," said Robin Tholin, an attorney representing the unions, in a statement provided by the union.
The lawsuit primarily cites The Antideficiency Act of 1870 which forbids federal agencies from spending money not appropriated by Congress. The union lawyers argue any plans to implement widespread layoffs would require agency heads to violate the act by working during the shutdown to roll-out those plans.
The layoff procedures "require extensive agency action to plan and implement, which generally cannot legally occur during a shutdown while most employees, including those who would be responsible for planning and implementing such actions, are furloughed and prohibited," according to the lawsuit.
Pending court action
Late Tuesday, a federal judge in California issued a temporary ruling in the lawsuit ordering the White House to provide details on its layoff plans by Friday, according to Politico.
U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston of the Northern District of California, a Clinton appointee who is presiding over the case, also scheduled an Oct. 16th hearing for both the unions and Trump administration to discuss whatever plans OMB presents.
Illston previously sided with unions in a lawsuit they filed against the Trump administration seeking to pause layoffs across 22 government agencies. She issued the temporary pause in May, but the conservative Supreme Court, responding to an emergency lawsuit filed by Trump’s lawyers, put her order on hold.
Laura Figueroa Hernandez is the White House correspondent and previously covered New York City politics and government. She joined Newsday in 2012 after covering state and local politics for The Miami Herald.
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