Director of the United States Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought speaks in front of TV camera at White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 7, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
The Trump administration could slash more than 10,000 federal jobs during the government shutdown, White House budget director Russell Vought said Wednesday.
“We want to be very aggressive where we can be in shuttering the bureaucracy, not just the funding,” said Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget.
“We now have an opportunity to do that, and that’s where we’re going to be looking for our opportunities,” he said during an appearance on “The Charlie Kirk Show,” which was broadcasting from the White House.
The Trump administration has warned that the shutdown, which is now stretching into its third week with no end in sight, will lead to mass firings of federal workers.
The White House said it sent layoff announcements, known as reduction-in-force notices or RIFs, to around 4,200 federal employees on Friday. That number was revised slightly downward on Tuesday.
But Vought, in Wednesday’s podcast appearance, said he expects the number of RIFs to grow.
“It could grow higher,” he said. “I think we’ll probably end up being north of 10,000.”
The White House has shared its rolling RIF estimates in court documents as part of a federal lawsuit filed by unions representing government workers, who seek to block the Trump administration from carrying out the firings during the shutdown.
In a hearing in that case on Wednesday, a federal judge said she is inclined to grant that request for now.
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