White House budget director Russ Vought is projecting that over 10,000 federal employees will be terminated due to the current government shutdown.
Vought pledged to “continue the RIFs,” alluding to the reduction-in-force notifications issued by agencies to terminate government employees on Friday.
Shortly after Vought’s statement, a federal judge in California introduced ambiguity into Vought’s commitment by prohibiting the layoffs associated with the closure. The Trump administration will contest that verdict.
Approximately 4,000 government employees have been terminated, as shown by court documents; however, the budget director anticipates that the total will likely exceed 10,000,
“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,” Vought added on The Charlie Kirk Show, speaking in his first live interview since the shutdown began.
Vought anticipated that the layoffs would affect agencies misaligned with the Trump administration’s priorities, including environmental justice initiatives at the Department of Energy and EPA, the Minority Business Development Agency, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
The remarks were made a day after President Donald Trump pledged to provide a new list of programs for elimination on Friday, should the shutdown persist until the week’s conclusion.
