President Donald Trump talked tough with the media and the party he rebukes as the “shutdown Democrats” Tuesday, saying some furloughed federal workers “don’t deserve to be taken care of, and we’ll take care of them in a different way.”
The remark can be seen as a threat to massively reduce the federal workforce through outright firings to cut “waste, fraud, and abuse” over what Trump has called Democrat-forced government bloat.
“It depends on who we’re talking about,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Tuesday when asked about the administration’s talk of denying back pay for furloughed workers.
“The Democrats have put a lot of people in great risk and jeopardy, but for the most part, we’re going to take care of our people,” he said. “There are some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of, and we’ll take care of them in a different way.”
A new White House memo signaled a potential reversal of long-standing policy guaranteeing compensation for hundreds of thousands of workers affected by the shutdown.
Pressed on the legal requirement to provide back pay, Trump insisted, “I follow the law, and what the law says is correct.”
But he did not clarify what he meant by handling certain workers “in a different way,” but he vowed Americans will find out in “four to five days” if the Democrats’ government shutdown continues.
The remarks came as the Office of Management and Budget circulated a memo suggesting that back pay is not automatic and would require a new congressional appropriation — despite a 2019 law Trump signed after the longest shutdown in U.S. history, which states that federal employees “shall be paid” once funding is restored.
The memo argued the statute authorizes payment but does not itself appropriate funds, leaving Congress to decide whether to include retroactive pay in any funding bill.
The move marks a sharp departure from decades of practice in which furloughed workers — including essential personnel who continue working without pay — are reimbursed once the government reopens.
Republicans defended the tactic as a way to increase pressure on Democrats to compromise.
“That should turn up the urgency and the necessity of the Democrats doing the right thing here,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said in his remarks with the media.
With the shutdown now in its seventh day, both Congress and the White House remain locked in a standoff, with no agreement in sight and hundreds of thousands of federal employees potentially at risk of losing their jobs.
“Why do you say some federal workers should not get their back pay?” Trump was asked.
“Ask the Democrats that question,” Trump shot back.
Trump said OMB Director Russ Vought is ready to make permanent and deep cuts to federal government bloat.
“Have you identified programs to eliminate under this shutdown?” Trump was asked.
“Oh, sure, We have a lot,” Trump replied. “I’m not going to tell you, but we’ll be announcing it pretty soon. But we have a lot of things that we’re going to eliminate and permanently eliminate.
“You know, one of the things that we have is some advantage, you could say — because of the shutdown, which I think they made a big mistake — we’re able to take out billions and billions of dollars of waste, fraud and abuse.
“And they’ve handed it to me on a silver platter. And, you know, Russell Vought is a serious person, very serious person. And he’s sitting there and he’s getting ready to cut things. And this is something that was handed to us by, I assume, [Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer.
“I just don’t know if Schumer has any power anymore.”
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