The Trump administration has kicked off a wave of mass layoffs across the federal government, cutting thousands of jobs in what critics say is a political power play to pressure Democrats as the government shutdown drags on.
White House budget chief Russell Vought announced the move on X (formerly Twitter) Friday with a blunt message: “The RIFs have begun.” The acronym refers to “reductions in force” — Washington’s bureaucratic term for mass firings.
Officials later confirmed the cuts were “substantial,” revealing that more than 4,000 federal employees across seven major departments had been let go. The hardest hit include the Treasury Department and Health and Human Services, which together account for over half of the layoffs.
The shocking move is being seen as the latest twist in President Donald Trump’s long-running effort to shrink the federal workforce — a campaign promise he has revived amid a bruising budget battle with Congress.
Sources inside the administration told NBC News the numbers could rise further, describing the current figures as “a snapshot in time.”
According to a Justice Department filing, the Departments of Homeland Security, Education, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, and the Environmental Protection Agency are also feeling the pain.
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315 workers at Commerce were let go
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466 at Education
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187 at Energy
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1,100 to 1,200 at Health and Human Services
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176 at Homeland Security
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1,446 at Treasury
Even the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office wasn’t spared, with 126 employees notified when the shutdown began on October 1.
Union leaders are furious. Lee Saunders, president of the AFSCME, blasted the firings as “illegal, cruel, and politically motivated,” vowing to fight them in court. The AFL-CIO and American Federation of Government Employees have already filed an emergency motion seeking a restraining order to stop the layoffs.
Democrats are accusing the Trump administration of weaponizing the shutdown to dismantle government institutions and settle political scores. “A shutdown doesn’t give Trump new powers to fire workers,” one Democratic lawmaker fumed. “This is pure vengeance.”
At the Department of Homeland Security, officials admitted that cuts were being made inside the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) — a frequent Trump target since its former director publicly stated that Trump lost the 2020 election.
“This is part of getting CISA back on mission,” a DHS spokesperson said pointedly, accusing the agency of focusing on “censorship and electioneering” under Biden.
Meanwhile, HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon defended the firings as a cleanup operation, saying they were aimed at eliminating a “bloated bureaucracy” and realigning with Trump’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.
As tensions mount, the move has reignited fears of a government-wide purge, with critics warning of deep disruption to essential services — and an escalating showdown between Trump and Washington’s unions.
For thousands of federal workers now facing unemployment, the message from the White House was clear: the layoffs are just getting started.
Source: ameyawdebrah.com/
