The Latest: Budget office says ‘substantial’ firings of federal workers have started

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The White House budget office said Friday that mass firings of federal workers have started in an attempt to exert more pressure on Democratic lawmakers as the government shutdown continues.

Russ Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said on the social platform X that the “RIFs have begun,” referring to reduction-in-force plans aimed at reducing the size of the federal government.

The White House previewed that it would pursue the aggressive layoff tactic shortly before the government shutdown began on Oct. 1, telling all federal agencies to submit their reduction-in-force plans to the budget office for its review. It said reduction-in-force could apply for federal programs whose funding would lapse in a government shutdown, is otherwise not funded and is “not consistent with the President’s priorities.”

The Latest:

The office said in a court filing that well over 4,000 workers would be dismissed, though it noted that the funding situation is “fluid and rapidly evolving.”

The firings would hit the hardest at the departments of the Treasury, which would lose over 1,400 employees; Health and Human Services, with a loss of over 1,100; and Housing and Urban Development, set to lose over 400.

Commerce, Education, Energy, Homeland Security and the Environmental Protection Agency were all set to fire hundreds more.

It was not clear which particular programs would be affected.

The administration is pushing again to deport Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was mistakenly sent to El Salvador, even though three African countries that have been approached have rejected the idea, a judge heard during testimony Friday.

Abrego Garcia is challenging efforts to remove him to a third country after the government admitted that a previous order prevents deportation to his home country, El Salvador. Immigration officials said recently that they plan to send him to the southern African country of Eswatini

The case has come to represent the bitter partisan struggle over the president’s sweeping immigration policy and mass deportation agenda.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said she will decide soon whether Abrego Garcia should remain in custody or be released from immigration detention while his challenge moves forward. That followed a hearing she ordered asking officials to explain steps they have taken to deport Abrego Garcia.

▶ Read more about the latest in the case

The contracts announced Friday are the first to be funded by $50 billion set aside in a bill the president signed in July. They also draw on money left over from 2021.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem waived environmental and other legal reviews in California and New Mexico to expedite construction.

Seven contracts were awarded to a company identified as BCCG Joint Venture in a U.S. Customs and Border Protection statement. Construction is to take place in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

The first Trump administration built more than 450 miles (720 kilometers) of wall, covering nearly one-fourth of the border.

The president, giving his reaction to the award, listed off peace efforts he made while in office this year but said that when it comes to the Nobel Peace Prize, “You could also say it was given out for ’24, and I was running for office in ’24.”

There is some truth to that: There is a Feb. 1 deadline to be nominated for the 2025 award, which fell just a week and a half into his second term.

Trump said Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado called him after her win and told him, “I’m accepting this in honor of you because you really deserved it.”

He then joked: “I didn’t say, ‘Then give it to me.’”

“I think she might have,” Trump added.

The president also confirmed that he will deliver an address to the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, and that he expects to meet with “leaders from all over the world” in Egypt.

Trump expressed confidence that a ceasefire, which went into effect earlier Friday, will hold.

“Hopefully, you’re going to have success or as I call it everlasting success,” he said.

“I’m going to be there regardless,” the president told reporters during an Oval Office appearance for an announcement on prescription drug pricing.

The leaders are expected to meet at the end of October on the sidelines of a regional conference in South Korea.

Trump had said earlier on social media that there didn’t seem to be a reason to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping anymore because of export controls the country placed on rare earths.

He said in the Oval Office that China’s move was unexpected.

Both Pfizer and AstraZeneca will offer medications through the site, which the administration says will allow people to buy drugs directly from manufacturers.

The website’s landing page features two very large pictures of Trump and a promise that the site is “Coming Soon” in January 2026.

It says at the bottom that the website was “Designed in DC by The National Design Studio,” which was created by executive order in August and is being led by Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia.

A monthslong calm on Wall Street shattered as the S&P 500 sank 2.7% in its worst day since April; the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 878 points, or 1.9%; and the Nasdaq composite fell 3.6%.

Stocks had been heading for a slight gain in the morning, until Trump took to his social media platform and said he’s considering “a massive increase of tariffs” on Chinese imports. He’s upset at restrictions China has placed on exports of its rare earths, which are materials that are critical for the manufacturing of everything from consumer electronics to jet engines.

The ratchet higher in tensions between the world’s largest economies led to widespread drops across Wall Street, with roughly six out of every seven stocks within the S&P 500 falling. Nearly everything weakened, from Big Tech companies like Nvidia and Apple to stocks of smaller companies looking to get past uncertainty about tariffs and trade.

Late in the afternoon, the president brought the press into the Oval Office to announce that drug manufacturer AstraZeneca will offer “major discounts” on prescriptions.

He touted it as “another historic achievement in our quest to lower drug prices for all Americans.”

The president says he’s placing an additional 100% tax on Chinese imports starting Nov. 1 or sooner. He cited Chinese export controls on rare earths.

If Trump goes ahead with it, the move would push tariff rates close to levels that in April fanned fears of a steep recession and financial market chaos.

Trump made the announcement on his social media site. He said the date for imposing the tariff would depend on “any further actions or changes taken by China.”

The Republican president is known for backing down from his threats.

“It is appalling that the Trump administration is using the government shutdown as an excuse to fire federal workers, including dedicated EPA employees who provide critical services to communities across the country,” said Justin Chen, president of American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, which represents EPA workers.

The Environmental Protection Agency said it has begun an unspecified number of layoffs. A spokesperson blamed congressional Democrats, saying they “have chosen to shut down the government and brought about this outcome.”

Chen said using EPA jobs “as political leverage is an unprecedented and illegal abuse of power,” adding that they will weaken the agency workforce and thus pose a direct threat to public health and safety.

Rachel Gittleman, president of AFGE Local 252, said the Trump administration is laying off almost all employees below the director level at the agency’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. The office was down to about 165 employees after mass firings that nearly halved the Education Department in March.

The office oversees much of the department’s grantmaking activities to school districts. It supports work ranging from helping schools affected by natural disasters to allocating funding for teacher training and disbursing money allocated by Congress.

Fewer than 10 employees were being terminated at the Education Department’s Office of Communications and Outreach. It will eliminate one of two teams remaining in the office after the March layoffs.

The union said it’s unclear exactly how many Education Department staffers are being laid off as part of mass firings across the federal government Friday.

As James’ indictment provokes harsh condemnations from high-profile Democrats – including allegations of “tyranny” and “political retribution” – one party member is reserving judgment.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams attends an event at the NYPD’s 40th precinct, Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025, in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)

On Friday, Eric Adams, the outgoing mayor of New York City, repeatedly evaded questions about the prosecution, saying only that he would “let the process play out.”

“Don’t start asking me about what do I think about what’s going on now,” he added, launching into a lengthy broadside about the lack of support he received following his own federal indictment. “I want to know what did you think about when my life was destroyed.”

Adams’ corruption case was dropped earlier this year following another norm-breaking intervention by Trump’s Justice Department. The Democratic mayor has since refused to criticize the president publicly and recently met with Trump intermediaries to discuss the possibility of accepting a federal job in exchange for dropping out of the mayoral race.

Adams has since abandoned his reelection campaign but says he hasn’t received any formal offers to join the Trump administration.

Virginia’s two senators, Democrats Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, say the Trump administration’s firing of thousands of federal workers is not an unfortunate byproduct of the government shutdown, “but a deliberate choice.”

The senators represent a state that will be predominantly affected by the layoffs. They said the president and his budget director, Russell Vought, are “reckless ideologues willing to inflict real pain on hardworking Americans to score political points.”

“It’s irresponsible, it’s cruel, and it won’t work,” they wrote in a joint statement.

In a speech earlier this year, Trump said America’s first president was a “great general” who was also a “great executive and a true statesman.”

The statue belongs to the National Park Service and is a 1992 reproduction of the original white marble statue on display at the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond, according to the White House. The original was made by French artist Jean-Antoine Houdon.

The statue sits at the edge of the Rose Garden in an area where first lady Melania Trump had installed a different work of art during her husband’s first term in office.

Homeland Security says that layoffs are happening at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

The Department did not say how many people would be laid off.

The agency is one of the smaller components within the sprawling Department of Homeland Security. As of May, there were about 2,540 employees at CISA compared with a total Homeland Security staff of roughly 270,000 people.

CISA was formed in 2018 during the first Trump administration and is charged with protecting the nation’s critical infrastructure.

The agency has been a frequent target of the Trump administration and its allies over the agency’s work to counter misinformation about the 2020 presidential election and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The unions cited Vought’s social-media post and said they’ve begun receiving credible information that the Office of Management and Budget has directed federal agencies governmentwide to begin issuing layoff notices.

They argue that firing federal employees during a shutdown is an unlawful abuse of power designed to punish workers and pressure Congress and violates laws that govern how shutdowns are supposed to function.

The lawsuit was first filed in federal court in San Francisco last week by the group Democracy Forward. The plaintiffs are the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Illinois Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth said they were denied access Friday to a federal immigration enforcement building outside Chicago, the site of confrontations between protesters and federal agents.

“It is appalling that two United States senators are not allowed to visit this facility,” Duckworth said. “What are you afraid of? What are you afraid of? You don’t hide, you don’t run away when you’re proud of what you’re doing.”

The two Democrats were at the building in Broadview where National Guard members had assembled Thursday. Hours later, a judge halted the Trump administration’s deployment of troops in northern Illinois for at least 14 days.

Durbin and Duckworth said they wanted to see the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility as part of their congressional oversight authority. ICE processes immigrants there before taking them elsewhere. Illinois lawmakers said they were denied access in the summer.

A labor union for federal employees is asking a federal judge for a restraining order to halt the White House’s plans to fire federal workers during the government shutdown.

The American Federation of Government Employees was already challenging the Trump administration for threatening to perform the mass firings during the shutdown, arguing that the layoffs violate the laws that govern how shutdowns are supposed to function and are an unlawful abuse of power designed to punish workers and put pressure on Congress

In a statement, the union president, Everett Kelley called it “disgraceful that the Trump administration has used the government shutdown as an excuse to illegally fire thousands of workers who provide critical services to communities across the country.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi said at a news conference Friday in Tampa that a California man has been charged with sending a threatening letter to conservative podcaster Benny Johnson, who lives in the Tampa area.

She identified the suspect as 69-year-old George Russell Isbell Jr.. An FBI criminal complaint filed in Tampa federal court contains a copy of the letter, which compares Johnson to slain activist Charlie Kirk and makes threats of violence.

Bondi would not say whether Isbell took any steps to carry out a threat, but said the Justice Department is extra vigilant about political violence.

“We are going to catch you if you do something like this,” Bondi said. “We cannot allow political violence to continue.” Johnson and his wife, Katelyn, attended the news conference and expressed gratitude that an arrest was made. “This has to stop,” Benny Johnson said.

Court documents show Isbell, who lives in the San Diego area, is charged with mailing threatening communications. His public defender in California did not immediately return an email seeking comment on the charge.