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Sept. 24, 2025, 10:46 PM EDTBy Monica Alba and Zoë RichardsWASHINGTON — The White House is raising the stakes of a potential government shutdown by drafting a request for federal agencies to prepare “reduction in force” plans in case Congress doesn’t pass a spending bill before Oct. 1.In a memo from the Office of Management and Budget, obtained by NBC News, the Trump administration indicated it’s prepared to go beyond the traditional furloughing of some government employees during shutdowns and fire federal employees.”With respect to those Federal programs whose funding would lapse and which are otherwise unfunded, such programs are no longer statutorily required to be carried out,” the memo says. “RIF notices will be in addition to any furlough notices provided due to the lapse in appropriation.”The memo, first reported by Politico, points to job losses for certain federal employees if the government shuts down next week.”Programs that did not benefit from an infusion of mandatory appropriations will bear the brunt of a shutdown, and we must continue our planning efforts in the event Democrats decide to shut down the government,” the memo says.The memo says agencies would be directed to consider reduction-in-force notices for all employees in programs, projects or activities whose discretionary funding will lapse on Oct. 1 that lack available alternative funding sources and are “not consistent with the President’s priorities.”Democrats and Republicans are locked in a standoff as government funding is on the brink of expiring at the end of the day Tuesday. The Republican-controlled House passed a short-term bill to fund the government through Nov. 21, but the Senate — which requires 60 votes to approve a measure — rejected both the GOP and the Democratic proposals to keep the government open.The OMB memo puts significant pressure on Democrats, in which they risk federal employees’ getting fired if they don’t vote with Republicans to keep the government open.Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., fired back at OMB Director Russell Vought on Wednesday night.“This is an attempt at intimidation. Donald Trump has been firing federal workers since day one—not to govern, but to scare,” Schumer said in a statement. “This is nothing new and has nothing to do with funding the government. These unnecessary firings will either be overturned in court or the administration will end up hiring the workers back, just like they did as recently as today.”Jeffries, on X, wrote: “Listen Russ, you are a malignant political hack. We will not be intimidated by your threat to engage in mass firings. Get lost.”President Donald Trump on Tuesday canceled a meeting scheduled for Thursday with top congressional Democrats ahead of the potential shutdown.After Trump backed out, Schumer said: “Trump and Republicans are holding America hostage. Donald Trump will own the shutdown.”Bobby Kogan, a former OMB official and the senior director of federal budget policy for the left-leaning Center for American Progress, said in a statement that reduction-in-force efforts would “be an action of enormous self-harm inflicted on the nation, needlessly ridding the country of talent and expertise.”Monica Alba reported from Washington, Zoë Richards from New York.Monica AlbaMonica Alba is a White House correspondent for NBC News.Zoë RichardsZoë Richards is a politics reporter for NBC News.Frank Thorp V contributed.
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Oct. 8, 2025, 9:14 AM EDT / Updated Oct. 8, 2025, 2:06 PM EDTBy Megan LebowitzPresident Donald Trump said in a post to Truth Social on Wednesday that Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker “should be in jail” in an escalation of his conflict with the two Democratic officials.”Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers!” he said in the post. “Governor Pritzker also!”The president’s post comes a day after Texas National Guard troops arrived in Illinois, despite the Democrats’ fierce opposition. Trump has threatened for weeks to send troops to Chicago as part of a crime-fighting and immigration effort, and Democrats have slammed his push as overreach and a political stunt.Reached for comment, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said that “JB Pritzker and Brandon Johnson have blood on their hands” and accused them of having “stood idly by while innocent Americans fall victim to violent crime time and time again.”She argued that “instead of taking action to stop the crime, these Trump-Deranged buffoons would rather allow the violence to continue and attack the President for wanting to help make their city safe again.”The statement did not address NBC News’ questions about what crimes the president believes Johnson and Pritzker and whether the White House planned to try to have federal agents arrest them.Texas National Guard troops arrive outside Chicago02:11Pritzker responded to the president in a post to X, saying, “I will not back down.”“Trump is now calling for the arrest of elected representatives checking his power,” he said in the post. “What else is left on the path to full-blown authoritarianism?”Later, Pritzker told reporters that Trump is “a coward.””He likes to pretend to be a tough guy,” Pritzker said of the president. “Come and get me.”Reached for comment, Johnson said that “this is not the first time Trump has tried to have a Black man unjustly arrested.”“I’m not going anywhere,” he added.On Monday, Illinois sued in an attempt to prevent the White House from deploying federalized troops to Chicago. A judge scheduled a hearing on the case for Thursday and declined to sign a temporary restraining order, which would have blocked the administration as the case proceeds in court. The president’s comments come as protests across Immigration and Customs Enforcement have rippled across the country as the administration ramped up efforts to detain and deport migrants. The White House has previously argued that deploying the National Guard is necessary to “protect federal assets and personnel” and prevent “attacks on law enforcement.”Trump first deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles, over Gov. Gavin Newsom’s objections, after protests broke out in response to immigration raids. The president then ordered the National Guard to the streets of D.C., painting it as an effort to fight crime. The administration is also trying to send federalized National Guard troops from California to Portland, Oregon, but a judge granted a temporary restraining order this week to block the move as the case is considered in court. A Pentagon spokesperson had said that the troops would have worked to “support U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal personnel performing official duties, including the enforcement of federal law, and to protect federal property.” In Chicago, a frequent target of the president, Johnson signed an executive order on Monday in an effort to block immigration agents from using city property during their operations in Chicago. “We will not tolerate ICE agents violating our residents’ constitutional rights nor will we allow the federal government to disregard our local authority,” Johnson said in a press release marking the so-called “ICE Free Zone” executive order. Pritzker has emerged as a leading critic of the Trump administration as his state faces the president’s ire. Trump has compared Chicago to a “war zone,” and Pritzker said Sunday in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” that “they’re just making this up.””Then what do they do? They fire tear gas and smoke grenades, and they make it look like it’s a war zone,” Pritzker said on Sunday, appearing to refer to federal agents. “And they, you know, get people on the ground are, frankly, incited to want to do something about it, appropriately.”In recent days, Pritzker also said that he believed that Trump should be removed from office. “There is something genuinely wrong with this man, and the 25th Amendment ought to be invoked,” he said, referring to a process for removing the president from office.On Tuesday, Pritzker was asked during an event whether he believed he could be arrested. “I’m asking any of you to come visit me in the gulag in El Salvador,” Pritzker joked, referring to the prison where the Trump administration has deported some immigrants.House Speaker Mike Johnson did not say whether he believed Mayor Johnson and Pritzker should be jailed when asked by NBC News about Trump’s post. “Should they be in prison? Should the mayor of Chicago and the governor of Illinois be in prison?” Johnson responded. “I’m not the attorney general. I’m the Speaker of the House, and I’m trying to manage the chaos here. I’m not following the day-to-day on that.”Trump has repeatedly threatened legal action against some of his political opponents, including former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Last month, he urged Attorney General Pam Bondi in a post to Truth Social to not “delay any longer,” slamming his political opponents and writing, “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”Comey was indicted days later and is set to be arraigned on Wednesday. Megan LebowitzMegan Lebowitz is a politics reporter for NBC News.Natasha Korecki and Julie Tsirkin contributed.
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Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleOct. 9, 2025, 3:20 PM EDTBy Sahil Kapur and Scott WongWASHINGTON — Eight days into the government shutdown, Senate Democratic communications directors received a private briefing and a memo from pollster Geoff Garin.The crux of the message: Stay the course because Democrats are winning the battle of public opinion.“Voters continue to blame Trump and Republicans more than Democrats for the shutdown,” said the memo, which was obtained by NBC News and featured new polling data conducted by Hart Research, with findings that are backed by other public national surveys on the shutdown fight.It added that voters are siding with Democrats’ health care funding demands, that “Republicans are starting the feel the heat” on the issue and that the GOP’s political pain will worsen “the longer and more aggressively” Democrats litigate it.ACA subsidies set to expire fueling government shutdown01:48The memo helps explain why Democrats are refusing to blink in the staring contest, defying predictions by the White House and Republican leaders that they would have backed down by now.Republicans need five more Democratic votes to break a filibuster and pass their bill to reopen the government on a temporary basis and buy time for a larger spending deal. On Thursday, the Senate voted again — for the seventh time — on that plan and a Democratic alternative. No senators budged.Instead, Democratic leaders, emboldened and energized, are taking every opportunity to highlight their central demand: extend the expiring Obamacare subsidies to avoid health insurance premium hikes or coverage losses for millions of Americans next year. Insurers are already sending out notices of upcoming rate hikes in the mail, and bringing costs back down will get messy if Congress waits until the end of the year to act.We’d like to hear from you about how you’re experiencing the government shutdown, whether you’re a federal employee who can’t work right now or someone who is feeling the effects of shuttered services in your everyday life. Please contact us at tips@nbcuni.com or reach out to us here.The health care subsidies are used by scores of working-class voters, including Trump supporters. Enrollment in Obamacare is about 24 million, and an estimated 92% of those insured benefit from the enhanced tax credit, which was first passed in the 2021 Covid-19 relief bill.A KFF national poll showed that 57% of “MAGA supporters” favor extending the subsidies, while 43% are opposed. Overall, 78% of U.S. adults said they favor extending the funding, while 22% say it should expire.But Republican leaders, facing a divided conference with many members who want to end the subsidies, are refusing to make any promises on the issue. Instead, they say, Democrats must vote to reopen the government, and then the two parties can discuss the subsidies.The pivot to health care has frustrated House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.“They’re trying to make this about health care. It’s not. It’s about keeping Congress operating so we can get to health care. We always were going to. They’re lying to you,” Johnson told reporters on Thursday. “The health care issues were always going to be something discussed and deliberated and contemplated and debated in October and November.”Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has referred to them as “Covid subsidies” that were designed to expire for a reason, and insisted on imposing new restrictions on the funding in order to have any chance of preventing a full sunset.Democrats are refusing to settle for assurances of a debate or a future vote. They say they want an extension attached to government funding legislation in order to win their votes. They have offered their own government funding bill, which includes attached Obamacare funding and repeals President Donald Trump’s recent Medicaid cuts and changes.Republicans, meanwhile, have seized on a quote published in Punchbowl in which Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said, “Every day gets better for us.”Thune had a poster made of the quote and brought it to the floor on Thursday. Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., made his own poster of Schumer’s face with the quote.“He said, ‘Every day gets better for us.’ Who is us?” Barrasso asked on the floor. “Not better for the American people. Who does he mean by us? Not the military who’s not getting paid. Not the Border Patrol who’s not getting paid. Not the traffic controllers who aren’t getting paid.”On the Senate floor Thursday, Schumer attempted to clarify his remarks, arguing that with each passing day of the shutdown, Democrats’ “case to fix health care and end the shutdown gets better and better, stronger and stronger.”This is now the eighth-longest government shutdown in history, according to an NBC News analysis. If the government is still closed at the end of Friday, it will become the seventh-longest shutdown.#embed-20251002-shutdown-milestones iframe {width: 1px;min-width: 100%}Federal workers, including members of the military, are working without pay and will begin to miss paychecks in the coming days if the government remains shuttered. The direct deposit deadline is Friday, while physical checks are scheduled to go out on Oct. 15; those payments will not occur during a shutdown.With Johnson keeping the House out of session for a third consecutive week, tensions are running high among the few lawmakers running around the Capitol. On Wednesday, Johnson and fellow Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York sparred with Arizona Democratic Sens. Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly over Johnson’s delay in seating Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz.Later, Lawler, a Republican representing a swing district, confronted House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., after his news conference over Democrats’ refusal to back the GOP funding bill or a one-year extension of Obamacare subsidies. The debate devolved into a shouting match about Trump’s “big bill,” health care cuts and Lawler’s chances for re-election.Johnson and Senate Democrats argue about government shutdown and health care03:20There are some signs that House Republicans are beginning to grow restless and feeling pressure from constituents back home.Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., a onetime Trump loyalist who has recently broken with the president, has faulted Johnson and her party for having no plan to address the expiring health care subsidies.And Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Va., who, like Lawler, faces a tough re-election fight in next year’s midterms, is one of a handful of Republicans who have called on Johnson to reconvene the House. She represents a military-heavy district in Virginia Beach and is demanding a vote on her legislation, the Pay Our Troops Act.“I’m urging the Speaker and our House leadership to immediately pass my bill to ensure our servicemembers, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck while supporting their families, receive the pay they’ve earned,” Kiggans wrote on X. “Military pay should not be held hostage due to Washington’s dysfunction!”Responding Thursday, Johnson said that House Republicans already passed a bill on Sept. 19 to fund the entire government, which includes paying the troops, through Nov. 21.“We put that bill on the floor, and the Republicans voted to pay the troops, TSA agents, border patrol, air traffic and everybody else,” Johnson told reporters. “The Democrats voted no.”Asked about his confrontation with the Democratic senators a day earlier, Johnson acknowledged that “emotions are high” between the parties.“And so is it better for them, probably, to be physically separated right now? Yeah, probably is, frankly,” the speaker said. “I wish that weren’t the case, but we do have to turn the volume down. The best way to turn the volume down is to turn the lights back on and get the government open for the people.”Sahil KapurSahil Kapur is a senior national political reporter for NBC News.Scott WongScott Wong is a senior congressional reporter for NBC News. Kyle Stewart and Frank Thorp V contributed.
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