In a significant escalation of the ongoing government shutdown, White House Budget Director Russ Vought announced that more than 10,000 federal employees are expected to lose their jobs as part of sweeping reductions across multiple agencies. The announcement marks one of the largest workforce contractions in recent U.S. government history.
During his first live interview since the shutdown began, Vought confirmed that agencies have started issuing reduction-in-force (RIF) notices, signaling the start of large-scale layoffs. “We want to be very aggressive where we can be in shuttering the bureaucracy—not just the funding, but the bureaucracy—and we now have an opportunity to do that,” he said on The Charlie Kirk Show.
According to Vought, the terminations will primarily affect programs viewed as inconsistent with President Trump’s policy goals, including environmental justice initiatives under the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as well as cuts to the Minority Business Development Agency and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Roughly 4,000 employees have already been dismissed, with the total expected to surpass 10,000 once the process is complete.
The administration’s efforts, however, encountered a legal obstacle when a federal judge in California issued an injunction temporarily blocking the layoffs. The Trump administration has stated its intent to appeal the ruling, maintaining that the cuts are necessary to streamline government operations and reduce spending.
The announcement came shortly after President Donald Trump reiterated his intention to eliminate what he called “Democrat programs” if the shutdown persists beyond the week. “We’re closing up programs that are Democrat programs that we were opposed to,” Trump said Tuesday. “And they’re never going to come back in many cases.”
Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson voiced concern over the sustainability of the administration’s emergency measures to protect military families from the shutdown’s financial fallout. The administration recently redirected unspent Pentagon research and development funds to ensure active-duty military personnel received their paychecks, but Johnson cautioned that the move offers only temporary relief.
“The problem we have right now is that, in spite of President Trump’s heroic efforts to make sure they get paid, that is a temporary fix,” Johnson said. “The executive branch, his help, is not permanent. It can’t be.”
He warned that without congressional intervention, service members could soon miss an entire paycheck. “If the Democrats continue to vote to keep the government closed as they have done so many times, then we know U.S. troops are going to risk missing a full paycheck at the end of this month,” Johnson added.
Thousands of federal employees remain furloughed or laid off, while essential workers—including military personnel and federal law enforcement officers—continue to work without immediate pay. A short-term spending measure passed by the House earlier this month would temporarily fund the government through November 21, buying time for lawmakers to negotiate a full-year budget for fiscal 2026.
However, the measure remains stalled in the Senate, where it requires 60 votes to advance. To date, only three Senate Democrats have joined Republicans in efforts to end the shutdown, leaving Washington deadlocked as federal workers, agencies, and military families brace for deepening uncertainty.