The president’s trip to the Middle East tomorrow comes as the federal government shutdown approaches its second week. Yesterday, the mass firing of federal workers appeared to get underway. In a court filing, the budget office said more than 4,000 employees across several agencies will receive layoff notices, but noted the situation is, quote, rapidly evolving. It’s an attempt by the White House to exert pressure on congressional Democrats to end the shutdown. Torian Small is sat the White House with more. Torian, good morning. Good morning, Dana. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer responding to those announced layoffs, calling it deliberate chaos as the shutdown stretches into another week.

It’s a shutdown stalemate. We’re not in a good mood here in the Capitol. It’s a somber day. Defeated and frustrated, lawmakers left Washington Friday, pointing fingers with no resolution in sight. Republicans have the House, the Senate and the presidency. They decided to shut the government down. They have a simple choice in front of them. Open up the government. Quit playing politics. The Senate will take up. Democrats don’t realize this and it seems like it would wake them up and help them to realize, hey, listen, everything that we’re doing, we’re losing. Everything we’ve done, we’ve been losing.

This is absolutely killing them. And I mean, everybody is against them. Nobody, nobody is waking up in the morning and saying, you know what, Hakeem Jeffries? Keep doing what you’re doing. You know what, Nancy Pelosi? Keep doing what you’re doing. You know what, Jasmine Crockett? Keep on preaching whatever it is that you’re preaching. Nobody. And I mean, zero people are waking up today and like, you know what, Democrats, we see what you’re doing and we need you to keep on doing exactly what you’re doing. Nobody, the main thing, because they have no leg to stand on, the main thing that they are advocating for is extended health care through Obamacare that basically helps illegal migrants here inside of the country before they get deported.

You’re willing to let the whole thing just continue to crumble. Now, we know that Trump don’t bluff. Trump don’t bluff. He didn’t bluff with the tariffs. He didn’t bluff with the Department of Government Efficiency. He didn’t even bluff with Elon Musk. What makes you think that they’re going to blow? He warned you. He said, listen, y’all don’t really know it. But if this thing goes into shutdown and it starts to go past week one, people are going to start losing a jobs. Now you can fight for it after we reopen up the government. You can try to get them back from layoff, but I’m telling you, people are going to start losing a jobs.

Now, conversely, what the Trump administration has used, he’s directed the use of the revenue from tariffs to be used to pay military members and other essential workers that we need critical for the United States of America, and you know why Democrats are also switching over, why people that used to support the Democrat Party are switching over. You know what he’s mandated? He’s mandated for them to use the money that they’re generating from tariffs to pay military workers or military members and to make sure that people are getting their money when it comes to social services.

So, wait a minute, he wants to make sure that the poorest amongst us are getting theirs and the people that protect the country are getting theirs. Dueling stopgap legislation for a ninth time, Tuesday, the 14th, one day before federal employees and military members missed their paychecks, while Speaker Mike Johnson will keep the House closed. This is not a strategy call to keep the House working in their districts right now, there’s an urgent necessity of it. The Trump administration also made good on its threat of mass layoffs if Congress doesn’t reopen the government.

OMB Director Russ Vogt posted on social media, quote, the reductions in force have begun and President Trump confirmed in the Oval Office Friday it will be targeted. How many layoffs have you authorized for this first round? And from which agencies? And it will be Democrat oriented because we figure, you know, they started this thing, so they should be Democrat oriented. Democrats are calling it an intimidation tactic. Donald Trump and his toxic administration have been laying off federal employees and engaging in mass firings since day one of his presidency. And this is just a continuation of their unlawful actions because cruelty has been the point from the very beginning.

People don’t start getting. Listen, the 15th is two days away. And when that paycheck don’t hit, it’s you know what? That’s when you don’t start seeing an uncomfortable conversation being had. When you start hitting people’s money and hitting people’s paycheck, it hit different. It hit way different. It’s a whole nother conversation. This is J.D. Vance and I told you all that I was going to lean on more liberal news today to get it from their perspective. All right. This is J.D. Vance speaking about the Trump administration laying off workers. I do want to turn to the big news here back at home, the ongoing government shutdown.

I want to play you a little bit of what President Trump had to say about shutdowns passed when Barack Obama was president. Take a look. If there is a shutdown, I think it would be a tremendously negative mark on the president of the United States. They’re not going to be talking who the head of the House was, the head of the Senate. I really think the pressure is on the president. If you were president, what would you do? Well, very simply, you have to get everybody in a room. You have to be a leader.

The president has to lead. You have to get the people in a room and you have to get a deal. Mr. Vice President, by President Trump’s own calculus, the pressure is on him to get everyone into a room and get a deal. Is it not? Well, Kristen, I wouldn’t focus on the political pressure to get a deal. We really don’t care what the poll numbers say. But what about what President Trump said? What about what Mr. Trump said? His own words. The one thing that I don’t like about NBC, MSNBC, CNN and all of these places sometimes, and I’m cool with pressure on politicians, regardless of whether you’re a Democrat or Republican, I’m OK with the pressure pressure questions.

I’m cool with them showing previous clips. I’m OK with that because I believe that J.D. Mann’s can answer the question effectively, but you got to actually let them answer the question. You have to let them answer the question. If he’s four words in and then you stop him, you have to let him answer the question and then you can follow up and put more pressure and say, hey, I don’t think you answered the question. Wait, I asked it or whatever like that. But you got to let him speak, got to let him speak.

Well, Kristen, the president was talking back then when Barack Obama was president about the political realities. We are focused now on the governing realities because we’re in power and we’re trying to make the American people’s government work for the American people, despite the fact that Chuck Schumer, the Democrats have shut down the government. We have to step back and remember, Kristen, that there is a clean bill to open the United States government. A majority, sorry, the vast majority of Republicans and even a few moderate Democrats voted to open the government.

But it’s Chuck Schumer and the far left of Senate Democrats who prevented this government from reopening. Now you talk about negotiation. We’re happy to negotiate about any matter. We’re happy to talk about health care policy, but not while the government is being held hostage. Kristen, this is not abstract. This is not something that’s that’s pie in the sky. There are low income women and children who will not get the food benefits they need to feed their families unless we reopen the government. We’re trying to figure out how to pay our troops in the midst of this shutdown to keep our country safe and to make sure that our troops get their payments.

We have got to reopen the government and the president is committed to this. In fact, we’ve got a bill in the House that already passed the House. We want to make sure that that bill passes the Senate, but not so long as Chuck Schumer allows the entire country to be hijacked by a few far left senators. So what J.D. Vance is saying is similar to what everybody is saying is we want to let them continue to negotiate and have a different conversation and we want to continue to push forward with our agenda and we want to debate fiercely, but we can’t do it while the people is shutting down the government.

And so if they’re using this, because let’s be clear, the Republicans did not do this. They did not do this when Biden was in office. And that’s the key. Republicans did not do this while Biden was in office. They did not use what it is that they wanted, even though we were losing as far as and I won’t even say losing because I think that they stole that election. But that’s a whole other conversation, even though we did not control the presidency and all of this stuff. You know what? They still let them get the chips passed.

They still let them keep the government open, even though it was threatened to be closed over 13 times, they still let the government make sure that it funds whatever it is that it needed to be funded. They was trying to leverage it in order to pass reconciliation. They was trying to leverage it in order to make sure that they kept funding illegal migration into the country and they tried to make it seem like, oh, no, this is part of a bigger bill when all of this stuff. No, it wasn’t. No, it wasn’t.

And so the Republicans allow for things to continue to go. The government to continue to be open while they push and they tried to negotiate and then they just changed the dynamics of things by winning and the next election and controlling all three branches. But we still need 60 votes in order for us to keep the government open. So now, now, because the Democrats are absolutely getting destroyed and they don’t have a leg to stand on and come midterms and the next election, they won’t have anything. And I mean nothing to be able to stand on as far as how they can say that they’ve done well over the last two to four years.

They’re using this as leverage in order to try to get something off so that they can try to say that they got a victory and they need to keep the government open. That’s a basic, the most basic fundamental thing that the Congress is supposed to do is to keep the government funded. Everything else comes second. Everything else comes second. You have to keep the government funded. Vice President still have a lot to get to. You are in power and the administration has begun layoffs of thousands of federal workers. And yet during the 2019 shutdown under the first Trump administration, which lasted 35 days, no federal workers were laid off.

Why are these firings necessary? Well, I just think it shows the different priorities of Democrats and Republicans in the midst of these shutdowns. You really have to ask yourself, who do we care more about federal bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., or low income women getting the food benefits they deserve? Are troops getting the payment they need? Flood insurance across the southeast in the midst of hurricane season? But laying people off is a priority. Federal workers. Kristen, if you would let me finish, we have to lay off some federal workers in the midst of this shutdown to preserve the essential benefits for the American people that the government does provide.

So we don’t want to be in this situation. We don’t want to be laying off federal workers, but the Democrats have shut down the government. They have forced us to choose between American citizens and federal bureaucrats. We’re choosing the benefits, the critical services that benefit our American citizens. So I think that that’s a fair answer. I think it’s a fair answer. If we are in a position where we got to choose A or B, we don’t choose A and we don’t make sure that the people get the essential services that our military is getting paid and we don’t do whatever it is that we got to do in order to ensure that money goes where it’s supposed to go.

That’s essential and everything else is a plus. So now you’ve changed the dynamics of things. We told you that we were going to lay off workers and you didn’t believe it. And so now not only are people losing paychecks, they’re going to lose paychecks permanently, possibly. [tr:trw].

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