White House Starts Firing Workers During Shutdown

Watch White House Starts Firing Workers During Shutdown - Bloomberg on Dailymotion

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00:00Let's start with the layoffs. Bloomberg reporting thousands. Do we have any idea

00:04what will that number will look like and what agencies will feel the impact?

00:10Well, Joe, that's going to be one of the biggest questions moving forward. We did get this

00:14confirmation in this post on X, as you mentioned, from the OMB director, Russ Vogt, saying that the

00:18reductions in force had begun. That is the technical term that the OMB had asked agencies

00:24to make plans for during this memo that we saw circulated in recent weeks. And that memo

00:29had asked these agencies to identify those workers whose activities are not paid for

00:34via mandatory funds or newly allocated funds from the one big, beautiful bill. They had

00:39also directed agencies to identify those programs that priorities might not align with President

00:45Trump. So we're going to be looking for details like that on which of these federal workers

00:50could ultimately be impacted. There is reporting that it is going to be widespread but might

00:55not hit every government agency here in Washington. It's good context to keep in mind that this is

01:00going to be a nationwide issue. Only about 20 percent of the federal workforce is here in

01:05the nation's capital. An estimated 750,000 federal workers are expected to be furloughed. We're going

01:11to have to see how many of those turn into permanent firings. Joe and Michelle, I'll leave you with one

01:16other statistic from our analysts at Bloomberg Economics that say that if this shutdown goes into a

01:21third week, which it does look like it's headed to considering that they are adjourned until

01:25Tuesday, the unemployment rate could tick up to 4.7 percent as furloughed workers are counted

01:31as temporarily unemployed. That could now all be impacted because of this announcement from Russ

01:36Vote. So Tyler, as Joe mentioned, we're marking day 10 now. We've been talking for the duration of

01:43this shutdown about how unique it is that both sides feel they have the upper hand. Is something like

01:48this move today going to break the logjam for better or worse? Well, at this point, that's really

01:54what we're waiting to see. It is ramping up that pressure. There's a few, of course, other deadlines

01:58that are ramping up the pressure here too. Today marks the first missed federal paycheck for many

02:04federal workers since the Senate is going to be out until Tuesday. That is one day before October 15th

02:09when members of the military might miss their paycheck. Also big questions here about whether or not

02:14back pay will be given. And it's all adding to this picture, this mounting pressure. And we

02:21really haven't seen either side let up. In fact, they're really digging in. Republicans and this

02:26White House saying that they are not going to negotiate until the government reopens. We heard

02:30from House Speaker Mike Johnson as well as Senate Majority Leader John Thune really reiterating that

02:35message as well.