(Washington) The White House said Wednesday that it hoped to lay off at least 10,000 federal civil servants during the ongoing budgetary shutdown as a judge declared the dismissals already in effect illegal.
“I think we’ll probably end up over 10,000” layoffs, powerful White House Budget Office Director Russell Vought said in a podcast interview Charlie Kirk Show. Since the assassination of the conservative influencer in September, his podcast has been taken over by relatives.
“We want to be as sharp as we can in the extinction of bureaucracy,” added Russell Vought, who has made this mission his priesthood since Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
More than 4,000 federal civil servants, who work in no less than seven different ministries, have already received dismissal notices, according to a court document published Friday.
PHOTO MARK SCHIEFELBEIN, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Russell Vought, director of the White House Budget Office
These first “reductions in force” are only a “glimpse” of what is yet to come, argued Russell Vought.
However, a federal judge in California suspended these dismissals on Wednesday, declaring them illegal, according to several American media.
According to Judge Susan Illston, cited in particular by the Wall Street Journaleverything suggests that the White House has “taken advantage” of the budgetary paralysis to “believe that anything goes, and that the laws no longer apply to them”.
Frozen pay
Since 1er October and the expiration of the United States budget, Republican and Democratic elected officials in Congress are unable to agree on how to exit the “shutdown”.
A Republican text which would put an end to it failed on Wednesday for the ninth time in the Senate.
According to estimates from the Bipartisan Policy Center think tank, more than 700,000 federal civil servants have been put on furlough, with frozen pay, while nearly 700,000 others continue to work without being paid either until the blockage ends.
On the other hand, the more than 1.3 million American military personnel were to be paid as planned, after Donald Trump ordered on Saturday to use certain funds in this direction.
The White House confirmed on X Wednesday that the president had signed an executive order to “ensure that active-duty U.S. military personnel receive their pay on October 15.”
In addition to the impact on civil servants, concern is growing that air traffic will be disrupted due to increasing absenteeism among air traffic controllers and transport security officers.
“Cruel” decision
In Congress, Republicans are proposing to extend the current budget, with the same spending levels, while Democrats are calling for an extension of subsidies for health insurance programs for low-income households.
Due to the rules in force in the Senate, where Republicans have a majority, several Democratic votes are needed to pass a budget.
But Donald Trump rejects any negotiation with the opposition on health issues, without first “reopening” the federal state.
To try to get more and more Democratic senators to give in, the Republican president has increased his threats, saying he wants to eliminate “programs supported by Democrats.”
“I think they made a big mistake” with this blockage, he said on Sunday.
The leader of the Democratic senators, Chuck Schumer, denounced Thursday the White House decision to fire civil servants, calling it “cruel, unnecessary, and deeply hurtful”.
“Let’s be very clear, no one forced the government to make these layoffs. They did it because they wanted to, period,” declared the New York elected official in the chamber.
