‘We are going to have to lay people off,’ says Vance, adding the government will prioritise ‘essential services’
The vice-president said that layoffs will be expected if the shutdown drags on for another few days or weeks.
We are going to have to lay people off. We’re gonna have to save money in some places so the essential services don’t get turned off in other places. That is the reality of the government shutdown that Chuck Schumer and the Democrats have foisted upon the administration.
Key events
In this afternoon’s conference call with House Republicans, Russell Vought, the budget director, has told members that the reduction-in-force plans would go into effect in the next day or two, the New York Times is reporting, citing a lawmaker on the call.
And slightly contradicting what Vance just said, the NYT’s report adds that Vought framed the shutdown as an opportunity for the administration to get rid of what the White House sees as unnecessary bureaucrats, especially in programs that do not align with Donald Trump’s agenda. He also discussed the possibility of passing a bill to pay troops.
‘We are going to have to lay people off,’ says Vance, adding the government will prioritise ‘essential services’
The vice-president said that layoffs will be expected if the shutdown drags on for another few days or weeks.
We are going to have to lay people off. We’re gonna have to save money in some places so the essential services don’t get turned off in other places. That is the reality of the government shutdown that Chuck Schumer and the Democrats have foisted upon the administration.
Vance denies the administration will target federal workers based on their politics
Vance denies that the Trump administration would target federal workers for layoffs based on their politics.
Asked about Trump suggesting yesterday that the administration has asked agencies to target federal workers whom they believe are Democrats, he says:
We’re not targeting federal agencies based on politics. We’re targeting the people’s government so that as much as possible of the essential services can continue to function.
Vance says he doesn’t think the shutdown will be that long
Back to Vance, he says “I actually don’t think it’s going to be that long of a shutdown” citing “some evidence that moderate Democrats are cracking a little bit”.
The Democrats who crossed party lines today to vote for the GOP’s stopgap funding bill are the same ones who voted for it yesterday.
Medicaid may help cover emergency care at hospitals for undocumented immigrants who would otherwise qualify for the program, but this is not health insurance coverage.
Trump’s sweeping tax and spending bill reduced the amount that hospitals receive for those services in states that expanded Medicaid, but it did not eliminate funding altogether.
Less than 1% of total Medicaid spending went toward emergency Medicaid for undocumented immigrants in fiscal year 2023, according to healthcare non-profit KFF.
Trump’s sweeping tax and spending bill narrowed eligibility for Obamacare subsidies for certain “lawfully present” immigrants.
The Democrats’ proposal would restore that eligibility. This has nothing to do with undocumented immigrants.
In fact, the Democrats are pushing to continue enhanced federal subsidies for Affordable Care Act coverage and to reverse deep cuts to Medicaid contained in Trump’s sweeping tax and spending package signed in July.
Neither of those changes would provide health coverage to undocumented immigrants, since they aren’t eligible for either program.
A reminder that undocumented immigrants are ineligible for federal health insurance programs Medicare, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. They also cannot buy health care plans on government exchanges set up by the Affordable Care Act and therefore cannot receive any subsidies.
The Democrats have not proposed to change this.
Vance repeats the GOP claim that they are willing to have the conversation about healthcare, but the Democrats have taken the government “hostage”.
David Smith
Proof that the messaging war over the government shutdown is getting serious. The White House have wheeled out vice-president JD Vance to the podium for today’s press briefing.
Vance quickly launched into a falsehood as he played the blame game.
He said:
The reason your government is shut down at this very minute is because, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of congressional Republicans and even a few moderate Democrats supported opening the government, the Chuck Schumer-AOC wing of the Democratic party shut down the government because they said to us, we will open the government only if you give billions of dollars of funding to healthcare for illegal aliens. That’s a ridiculous proposition.
Karoline Leavitt is speaking now. She is accompanied by JD Vance who will also deliver remarks.
She starts off by blaming Democrats for the government shutdown and says that if they cared about healthcare, they would applaud Trump’s measures to lower healthcare costs since he took office, like the deal he announced yesterday with Pfizer to lower prescription drug prices.
Shrai Popat
Following today’s decision by the supreme court to keep Federal Reserve governor, Lisa Cook, in her position for the time being, I’ve been speaking to professor Carl Tobias at the University of Richmond School of Law.
He said that both the decision to keep Cook in place, as well as the court’s announcement today that they’ll hear oral arguments in the merits of the case in January, are “good signs for both sides”.
“It does protect the independence of the Fed, at least in the short term,” Tobias added. “The one big question is even if they have arguments in January, when will they issue the ruling? That could come early, because I expect the government will ask them to expedite everything, but it could be as late as June.”
Tobias also noted that the supreme court’s decision to maintain the status quo in the short term, is also positive to allow the markets to “settle down” and mitigate uncertainty.
One key point Tobias made was that if the supreme court ultimately decides that Cook can stay in her role until the end of her term, it’s “less clear” what precedent this sets writ large.
He cited recent decisions by the court which kept the Trump administration’s firings of political appointees at independent agencies, like the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), in place.
GOP’s House-passed funding bill fails again in the Senate
Earlier this afternoon, the Senate failed to advance Republicans’ stopgap funding bill once again in a 55-45 vote after most Democrats voted against it.
The GOP needed 60 votes to pass the bill that would fund the government for another seven weeks until 21 November, which would require at least seven Democratic votes if all Republicans supported it.
Three Democrats crossed party lines to support the measure as they did last night: Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, and Angus King of Maine. Rand Paul of Kentucky was the only Republican to vote against.
White House press briefing
The White House is due to hold a press briefing in the any minute now. We’ll have coverage of course and also some useful fact-checking and context where needed.
It’s been a day of very heavy partisan commentary from Republicans and Democrats against the backdrop of the political crisis and national chaos of a federal government shutdown.
There is likely to be some fierce back and forth in the west wing as select media question White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Stay tuned.
White House freezes $18bn in NYC infrastructure funding
White House budget director Russell Vought has said that the Trump administration is putting on hold billions of dollars of funding for two major construction projects in New York City, on day one of the federal government shut down.
“Roughly $18 billion in New York City infrastructure projects have been put on hold to ensure funding is not flowing based on unconstitutional DEI principles,” Vought wrote on X.
“Specifically, the Hudson Tunnel Project and the Second Ave Subway,” he added in a second post. He said the Department of Transportation would release more details on the pause.
The announcement would – incidentally – dramatically affect major projects for the home state and city of Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries.
Earlier this morning, House speaker Mike Johnson said Democrats had handed the Trump administration “the keys to the kingdom” and said Vought would now be able to decide “what services are essential, what programs and policies should be continued, and which would not be a priority for taxpayers”.
Vought, who is due to brief House Republicans at 1pm ET, told Fox Business yesterday that the government has the authority to “make permanent change to the bureaucracy”, such as cutting jobs and programs rather than just furloughing government workers. He said:
There are all manner of authorities to be able to keep this administration’s policy agenda moving forward, and that includes reducing the size and scope of the federal government, and we will be looking for the opportunities to do that. We have the authority to make permanent change to the bureaucracy here in government.
Supreme Court leaves Federal Reserve governor Cook in place for now
Callum Jones
Lisa Cook, the US Federal Reserve governor, will keep her job for now, despite Donald Trump’s extraordinary bid to remove her from the central bank’s board with immediate effect.
The US supreme court deferred action on the Department of Justice’s request to allow the president to fire Cook, at least until it hears oral arguments on the case in January.
Trump has launched an unprecedented campaign to exert greater control over the Fed, publicly lambasting the US central bank over its decisions, installing a close ally on its board of governors and attempting to fire Cook.
His battle for influence has raised questions over the independence of the Fed, which for decades has steered the US economy without political interference. Read more here.
Joanna Walters
Here is an ICYMI, yesterday longtime Democratic US Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois turned down what had been a forthcoming honor from the Catholic archdiocese of Chicago to mark his long history of campaigning for immigration reform in the US, to bring about a fairer system for people to gain rights to get legal status in the US.
Durbin withdrew after a fight blew up among church chiefs in Illinois, because of Durbin’s support for abortion rights.
Pope Leo, who is from Chicago, was asked about the kerfuffle over the award, when talking with reporters in Italy yesterday. That ended up with the pope slamming Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies, with Leo questioning whether they were in line with the Catholic church’s “pro-life” teachings.
“Someone who says I am against abortion but I am in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States, I don’t know if that’s pro-life,” the pontiff said. You can read more on that here.
Durbin announced in April that he will not seek re-election in 2026, after almost 30 years in the congressional upper chamber.
Summary
Just over 12 hours into the first US federal government shutdown in almost seven years, there is no shortage of partisan political recriminations and chaos and no solution in sight. Meanwhile, the US Supreme Court has made an important decision, so stick with us for all the news as it happens.
Here’s where things stand:
No resolution. The US Senate just voted 47-53, with all Republicans opposed, to reject a Democrats’ proposal to fund the government. It required 60 votes to pass. The congressional upper chamber is now voting on the House-passed Republican short-term spending bill, which also needs 60 votes to pass and is also expected to fail.
The White House website has had a shutdown makeover to ram home the Trump administration’s claim that “Democrats have shut down the government”. It even features a ticking clock illustrating duration of the shutdown so far.
The House of Representatives will not return to Washington until next week, speaker Mike Johnson has announced, as the deadlock over the shutdown is set to persist.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, defended the fact that the Democrats did not engineer a shutdown earlier in the Trump administration, when the GOP was more willing to talk. “They did not negotiate at all this time,” he said.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said Schumer has “handed the keys of the kingdom” to the executive branch to “downsize the scope and scale” of the government. He predicted a “pretty massive backfire” for Democrats.
A government shutdown raises questions about how the Environmental Protection Agency can carry out its mission of protecting the America’s health and environment with little more than skeletal staff and funding.
Former US vice president Kamala Harris posted online a few minutes after the shutdown began: “President Trump and Congressional Republicans just shut down the government because they refused to stop your health care costs from rising. Let me be clear: Republicans are in charge of the White House, House, and Senate. This is their shutdown.”
A US federal government shutdown was triggered after a deadline to reach a funding agreement before the start of the new fiscal year, on 1 October, came and went without a deal.
Senate votes down Democratic continuing resolution
The Senate just voted 47-53, with all Republicans opposed, to reject the Democrats’ counterproposal to fund the government. It required 60 votes to pass.
The upper chamber is now voting on the House-passed Republican short-term spending bill, which also needs 60 votes to pass and is also expected to fail.
