Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought departs a Senate Republican Conference luncheon at the U.S. Capitol on July 15, 2025. | Francis Chung/POLITICO

President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday afternoon announced that it has begun firing federal workers, OMB Director Russ Vought wrote on X.

“The RIFs have begun,” Vought posted, on day 10 of the government shutdown, referring to reduction-in-force plans that the White House has long contemplated.

“Can confirm RIFs have begun and they are substantial,” an OMB spokesperson told POLITICO. “These are RIFs not furloughs.”

It’s unclear how many people were laid off, and Vought provided no further details.

But an administration official granted anonymity to discuss the layoffs said they hit agencies including: Interior, Homeland Security, Treasury, EPA, Commerce, Education, Energy, HHS and HUD.

And Vought’s post appears to follow through on a threat to inflict more political pain on Democrats.

Trump on Thursday said his administration would target programs backed by Democrats.

“We’re only cutting Democrat programs, I hate to tell you, but we are cutting Democrat programs,” the president said during a Cabinet meeting. “We will be cutting some very popular Democrat programs that aren’t popular with Republicans, frankly.”

Since before the government shutdown began, the White House budget office has been previewing plans to seize on the funding lapse to permanently terminate the employment of federal workers.

In a memo to agencies two weeks ago, OMB instructed Trump administration officials to prepare to carry out reduction-in-force — or RIF — plans during the shutdown, targeting employees who work for programs that are not legally required to continue or clash with Trump’s policy priorities.

“I think they held off as long as they could,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

But Sen. Susan Collins, the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, criticized the move, warning “arbitrary layoffs” would undermine federal agencies, especially as the shutdown continues with no end in sight.

Unions representing federal employees, who are suing to halt the mass firings, wrote in a court filing on Friday that they believed the Treasury Department was working to issue termination notices to 1,300 employees across the agency, which also includes the Internal Revenue Service.

A Treasury spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Two employees within Interior said after Vought’s social media post they had not heard from department officials about possible large-scale terminations. One of the people said they had been told by a union representative that the union had also not been notified of imminent firings.

“He’s such a troll,” a second Interior employee said of Vought’s post.

An Interior Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions.

Democrats decried the move as a purposeful and political effort to wreak havoc.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “nobody’s forcing Trump and Vought to do this.”

“They don’t have to do it; they want to,” he said. “They’re callously choosing to hurt people—the workers who protect our country, inspect our food, respond when disasters strike.”

Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) calling the firings, illegal and unconstitutional. “He — Russ Vought — is out of control,” Levin said. “We will not be threatened and intimidated by the likes of Russ Vought.”

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, (D-Conn.) the House’s top Democratic appropriator, told reporters on Friday that Russ Vought likely couldn’t be happier.

“It’s the proverbial pig in you-know-what,” she said. “He loves it, because he’s just accumulating power, because the president doesn’t know anything about budgets or about appropriations.”

In past shutdowns, federal workers were furloughed, not fired. Trump already decimated the federal workforce in the first months of his second term, culling a bureaucracy he accused of “waste, fraud and abuse.”

“This administration wants to reopen the government,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said this week. “We don’t want to see people laid off. But unfortunately if this shutdown continues, layoffs are going to be an unfortunate consequence.”