Douglas Jackson, a service-disabled veteran who was laid off during Friday’s federal government layoffs, couldn’t believe it when he heard the vice president say the Trump administration was being forced to choose between Americans and “federal bureaucrats.”
“I’m an Orlando veteran. I’m not a DC bureaucrat,” he told CNN, just days after the White House sent reduction in force — or RIF — notices to more than 3,500 federal workers. “Either they don’t know who they’re firing, or they just don’t care.”
Jackson, who served in the Marines for four years during which he was exposed to burn pits in Iraq, described a feeling of disgust and betrayal when he heard President Donald Trump say most of those laid off “happen to be Democrat-oriented.”
“There’s no way he could know our party affiliation,” Jackson said, noting he’s not registered with either party and has voted for Democrats and Republicans alike.
The 40-year-old had been reinstated earlier this year to his public affairs job in the IRS’ Large Business and International Division after being cut as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s downsizing. But the latest layoff has left him feeling as if the administration has reneged on its pledge to protect veterans, treating him and others as pawns in the political fight over how best to fund the government.
The Trump administration pulled the trigger on layoffs across seven federal agencies on Friday, dismissing employees who handle a wide range of topics — from IRS matters like those Jackson works on to housing grants, special education programs and defending the country against cyberattacks.
The layoffs came after the White House warned for several weeks that it would use the government shutdown as an opportunity to continue culling the federal workforce. Another wave of RIFs could be on their way, the administration said in a court filing.
The White House Office of Management and Budget advised agencies in late September that the shutdown would provide an opportunity to cut programs that are deemed “not consistent” with Trump’s priorities. And although the idea did not sit well with many congressional Republicans, the administration opted to proceed.
Trump doubled down late Friday afternoon, saying that he plans to fire “a lot” of federal workers in retaliation for the government shutdown, vowing to target those deemed to be aligned with the Democratic Party. He did not elaborate on what he meant.
Vice President JD Vance said Sunday that layoffs during the government shutdown are needed to continue critical federal assistance programs, including the WIC nutrition assistance program, and to pay the military.
“We have to lay off some federal workers in the midst of this shutdown to preserve the essential benefits for the American people that the government does provide,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” blaming Democrats for the reductions.
However, budget experts pointed to several reasons why Vance’s statement wasn’t true. Among them, many federal workers aren’t being paid during the shutdown, so laying them off wouldn’t free up any funds — plus, if they were being paid, the money wouldn’t be available for 60 days, when most must actually leave their jobs, said Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the left-leaning Center for American Progress and a former OMB official during the Biden administration. Also, the Trump administration last week said it will extend WIC’s funding using tariff revenue.
What’s more, any funds saved by laying off several thousand federal employees would be only a tiny fraction of what’s needed to fund WIC and the military, said Michael Linden, a former senior OMB official during the Biden administration who is now a senior policy fellow at the left-leaning Washington Center for Equitable Growth.
Meanwhile, AFGE, along with another union representing federal workers, filed a lawsuit in a California federal court seeking to stop the Trump administration from initiating the mass layoffs, calling them illegal.
The unions pressed District Court Judge Susan Illston on Friday to immediately halt the RIFs now that the administration had started carrying them out. The Friday filing from the government revealing the number of people affected followed unions’ request last week for a temporary restraining order to block the administration from carrying out its threat. She has yet to rule on the request.
Jackson also questioned the legality of the layoffs.
“It’s retaliatory, it’s retribution,” he said. “It creates uncertainty for everyone affected, and I don’t know how this stands up in court.”
Here’s what we know about the layoffs:
Internal Revenue Service
At least 1,300 IRS employees received RIF notices last week, according to a source familiar with the matter. The layoffs affected staff like Jackson in the agency’s Large Business and International (LB&I) Division, which handles tax administration for domestic and foreign corporations, as well as in the Information Technology Division and the Office of Privacy, Governmental Liaison and Disclosure (PGLD), a key office that had raised internal legal concerns about certain taxpayer data-sharing initiatives between the IRS and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The cuts also reached IRS University, the agency’s centralized training organization, according to the source. IRS University was established to modernize and streamline employee training and ensure consistent skill development across the agency. The source familiar with the program told CNN, “This was our organization within HR looking at improving and modernizing our training.”
Department of Energy
Staff in the department’s Office of Minority Economic Impact were informed on Friday of plans for a major reorganization. The division “contains programs, projects or activities that are inconsistent with the Administration’s priorities,” according to a memo obtained by CNN.
The letter added that, as a result, the office “will be undergoing a major reorganization, and your position may be reassigned to another organization, transferred to another function, or abolished.” The office is responsible for assessing how the department’s energy programs, policies and regulations affect minority communities.
Department of Housing and Urban Development
HUD’s Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD), which oversees grants to support low-income communities, housing and homelessness programs, also faces workforce reductions.
The agency said the cuts followed “determinations made by identifying programs not in alignment with the President’s management agenda or the Administration’s priorities,” according to a memo from HUD Deputy Secretary Andrew Hughes to union officials, which CNN obtained.
Department of Homeland Security
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) at DHS, which is responsible for defending against cyberattacks and safeguarding the nation’s critical infrastructure, is among the offices affected by the layoffs. CISA’s mission includes improving emergency communications, assessing risks to vital systems and strengthening public-private partnerships to bolster national resilience.
“During the last administration, CISA was focused on censorship, branding, and electioneering. This is part of getting CISA back on mission,” an agency spokeswoman told CNN.
Environmental Protection Agency
Employees at the EPA’s Office of Land and Emergency Management received intent to RIF notices on Friday. The division focuses on hazardous waste cleanup and responding to hazardous waste sites, including overseeing the Brownfields program that helps states clean up and reuse previously contaminated sites.
“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,” Justin Chen, president of AFGE Council 238 said in a Friday statement.
Workers who had been laid off included employees who oversaw battery recycling and safety, plastics reduction, data collection on national solid waste data collection and recycling grants, Chen said.
Reached for comment on Friday, an EPA spokesperson said, “It’s unfortunate that Democrats have chosen to shut down the government and brought about this outcome. If they want to reopen the government, they can choose to do so at any time.”
Department of Education
The Education Department has cut nearly all of its staff that handles special education, multiple sources within the agency tell CNN.
The layoffs largely hit the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), with the exception of a small contingent of mainly top officials, the sources told CNN.
The office supports programs that serve millions of children, youth and adults with disabilities nationwide.
“Despite extensive efforts to minimize impact on employees and programs during the ongoing government shutdown, the continued lapse in funding has made it necessary to implement the RIF (reduction in force),” the letter sent to some employees being laid off said.
It is not clear how many of the 466 people laid off at the agency are in the OSERS office.
A Department of Education spokesperson told CNN that “some” of the office’s employees will be impacted but would not answer specifics about how many would be affected overall.
Department of Health and Human Services
Around 1,300 workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention received layoff notices late Friday night, but approximately 700 were reinstated on Saturday, according to AFGE. That leaves about 600 who remain laid off.
Staff at CDC’s Washington office, in its Violence Prevention programs, and in the Office of the Director of the Injury Center, remain separated from the agency.
Among reinstated employees are staff that publish the agency’s flagship journal, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report; the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; the Global Health Center; and the Public Health Infrastructure Center, which manages more than $3 billion in grants to 107 state and local governments to help build local public health workforces. Also, staff and officers at the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service who were able to check their emails received notices that their firings were in error.
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