Vice President J.D. Vance reportedly warned on Sunday that reductions to the federal workforce will intensify as the government shutdown stretches into its second week, placing responsibility squarely on Democrats for prolonging the impasse.
In an interview on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Vance told host Maria Bartiromo that the duration of the shutdown would directly determine the scale of the cuts. “The longer it goes on, Maria, the more significant they’re going to be,” he said. “If you remember, we went nine days before announcing any significant layoffs.”
The vice president emphasized that President Donald Trump had sought to avoid a prolonged shutdown, saying the administration made multiple attempts to reach an agreement with congressional Democrats. “The president of the United States wanted to reopen the government,” Vance said. “He was trying to work with Democrats in order to make that happen. But the longer this goes on, the deeper the cuts are going to be.”
Vance described the upcoming reductions as “painful” but necessary given the stalemate in Congress. He placed blame on Democrats for refusing to pass a Republican-backed plan that would reopen the government without tying it to unrelated spending priorities. “To be clear, some of these cuts are going to be painful,” Vance acknowledged. “This is not a situation that we relish. This is not something that we’re looking forward to, but the Democrats have dealt us a pretty difficult set of cards.”
The deadlock centers on enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies set to expire at the end of the year. Democrats have demanded a long-term extension of those subsidies before voting to approve a continuing resolution to fund the government.
Republicans, led by President Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson, have argued that the subsidies are fiscally unsustainable and that Democrats are holding federal workers hostage to protect what they view as an expensive and temporary political giveaway.
The effects of the shutdown have already rippled across the federal workforce. Hundreds of thousands of government employees have been furloughed since the funding lapse began at the start of the month, with many facing uncertainty about when—or if—they will return to work.
According to a court filing from the Trump administration on Friday, more than 4,000 federal employees are expected to be permanently terminated in the coming weeks if the shutdown continues.
The layoffs mark one of the largest reductions in force in decades, part of what administration officials have described as a broader effort to streamline government operations and eliminate what they consider bloated or duplicative programs.
[READ MORE: Firings Begin As Result Of Shutdown]
