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.”
Trump escalates trade war with China
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.
Environmental Protection Agency union calls layoffs ‘illegal abuse of power’
“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.
Dozens of employees face layoffs at Education Department
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.
Breaking with fellow Dems, NYC Mayor Eric Adams declines to criticize prosecution of NY AG Letitia James
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 senators say firings are ‘deliberate choice’
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.
Trump adds a bronze George Washington statue to the White House Rose Garden
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.
Layoffs at agency tasked with cyber, physical infrastructure security
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.
Labor unions ask judge for an immediate order blocking mass firings of federal workers
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.
US senators denied entrance to immigration facility outside of Chicago
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.
Federal workers’ labor union asks judge to halt mass firings
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.”
California man charged with sending threatening letter to conservative podcaster Benny Johnson
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.
Trump is back from his Walter Reed visit
President Donald Trump departs Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
The president returned to the White House from his “semiannual physical” around 2:15 p.m. Friday, slightly ahead of schedule.
He did not answer questions from reporters upon his arrival. The White House has not indicated when it would release results or more information about his exams from Friday.
Democratic governors say the federalization of the National Guard is a ‘preview’ of Trump’s plan
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek and California’s Gavin Newsom warned in Newsom’s podcast Friday. The governors also condemned the deployment of military troops to Chicago and Portland.
They said they wouldn’t be surprised to see federal law enforcement officers at voting places next year during the midterm elections.
“This is a preview of things to come at voting booths and polling places all across the country,” Newsom said. “This is about something much insidious than just control in the short run.”
Kotek met with Secretary Kristi Noem when she was in Portland earlier this week, but said “it’s hard to have a rational conversation with irrational people.”
Education Department is among agencies hit by new layoffs
A spokesperson for the department has confirmed that it will lose even more staff, though details weren’t immediately provided.
The department -- which Trump wants to eliminate -- had about 4,100 employees when he took office in January but its workforce was nearly halved amid mass layoffs in the administration’s first months.
The agency had about 2,500 employees when the government shut down on Oct. 1.
Layoffs of furloughed workers happening at federal health agencies, officials confirm
Trump administration officials said furloughed federal health workers are being fired “as a direct consequence” of the government shutdown, but they did not say how many or which agencies were being hit hardest.
A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson confirmed the terminations in an email Friday, saying everyone receiving a notice was designated as nonessential.
“HHS continues to close wasteful and duplicative entities, including those that are at odds with the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again agenda,” said the spokesperson, Andrew Nixon.
Some employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one of the HHS agencies, on early Friday afternoon said they had not heard of anyone receiving a notice yet.
Federal prosecutors obtain indictment against 2 Chicago residents who boxed in border control agent
Federal prosecutors have obtained a grand jury indictment against a woman and man accused of using their vehicles to strike and then box in a Border Patrol agent’s vehicle last Saturday in Chicago.
The agent
exited his car and fired five shots at Marimar Martinez, 30, who was treated and released. The indictment filed Thursday formalizes the initial charges of assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon – a vehicle -- that were filed Sunday against Martinez and Anthony Ruiz, 21.
Because of the indictment, probable cause hearings for Martinez and Ruiz that were scheduled for Friday were canceled. Future court dates were not immediately set.The two were
released Monday pending trial. Martinez’s lawyer claimed then that body camera footage contradicts the government’s narrative of her actions.
S&P 500 drops 2% after Trump shatters Wall Street’s calm by threatening more tariffs on China
The S&P 500 dropped 2% after President Donald Trump shattered a monthslong calm on Wall Street by threatening to crank tariffs higher on China.
The main measure of Wall Street’s health is heading toward its worst loss since April. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 622 points, and the Nasdaq composite sank 2.7%.
Stocks had been on track 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 the restrictions China has placed on exports of its rare earths.
Judge orders removal of fence outside Chicago-area ICE facility amid protests
A federal judge late Thursday ordered ICE to temporarily remove a fence outside an ICE facility in the western Chicago suburb of Broadview.
The Village of Broadview sued DHS, accusing the agency of erecting an 8-foot-tall fence to illegally block the public street outside the facility, creating problems for local emergency services trying to access the area. The ICE facility has been the site of intense protests over the last few weeks.
Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson said the decision was a “validation of local law and, most importantly, a decisive win for public safety.” She said it “remains to be seen if ICE will respect the judge’s order and dismantle this hazard immediately, or if they will continue their pattern of defiance.”
Budget office says ‘substantial’ firings of federal workers have started
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 media site 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.
Senate Majority Leader digs in on government funding fight
Sen. John Thune is showing no sign of backing away from his current tactic of pressing Democrats to vote for a stopgap government funding bill.
Thune, a South Dakota Republican, has tried to peel away Democratic senators to vote to advance the bill. So far, it hasn’t worked. Despite repeated votes on the bill since the government shutdown, the voting pattern has not changed, leaving Republicans five votes short of advancing the legislation.
Yet Thune at a news conference laid down a challenge to any Democrat who may be thinking about crossing party lines: “All it takes is a little backbone, a little courage on behalf of five Democrats.”
The Associated Press
The Latest: Budget office says ‘substantial’ firings of federal workers have started
