Protesters rally outside of the Theodore Roosevelt Federal Building headquarters of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management on Feb. 5, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

This report has been updated.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration announced Friday it had begun mass layoffs of federal employees, a step not taken during previous government shutdowns and one that could significantly reshape the size and scope of government. 

White House budget director Russ Vought posted on social media mid-day that Reductions in Force, the technical name for layoffs, had started.

“The RIFs have begun,” Vought wrote.  

Vought didn’t share any other details on social media and a budget office spokesperson only said that the layoffs would be “substantial” after States Newsroom asked for information about how many federal workers and which departments would be impacted. 

The Trump administration outlined its current layoff plans later in the day in a filing required in a federal court case brought by labor unions.

• Commerce: 315 employees
• Education: 466 employees
• Energy: 187 employees
• Health and Human Services: between 1,100 and 1,200 employees
• Housing and Urban Development: 442 employees
• Homeland Security: 176 employees
• Treasury: 1,446 employees

The Environmental Protection Agency has sent 20 to 30 employees “intent to RIF” notices, though officials have “not made a final decision as to whether or when to issue RIF notices” to those employees, according to the court filing. 

Other federal agencies are considering whether to implement layoffs, but the court filing says “those assessments remain under deliberation and are not final.”

A ‘bloated bureaucracy’

Earlier in the day, spokespeople for the Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security and Treasury departments said some of their employees will be affected by layoffs, including at DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. 

“RIFs will be occurring at CISA. During the last administration CISA was focused on censorship, branding and electioneering,” a DHS spokesperson said. “This is part of getting CISA back on mission.” 

Andrew Nixon, communications director at HHS, said “employees across multiple divisions have received reduction-in-force notices as a direct consequence of the Democrat-led government shutdown. 

“HHS under the Biden administration became a bloated bureaucracy, growing its budget by 38% and its workforce by 17%,” Nixon wrote. “All HHS employees receiving reduction-in-force notices were designated non-essential by their respective divisions. HHS continues to close wasteful and duplicative entities, including those that are at odds with the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again agenda.”

The Education and Treasury Department spokespeople didn’t provide any additional details. 

The government shutdown began on Oct. 1 after Congress failed to pass a short-term spending bill and is expected to continue at least into next week, with the Senate not scheduled to return until Tuesday.

Unions react

Labor unions that represent federal workers indicated they plan to let the judicial system determine whether the layoffs are legal.

American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley wrote in a statement that it “is disgraceful that the Trump administration has used the government shutdown as an excuse to illegally fire thousands of workers who provide critical services to communities across the country.”

“In AFGE’s 93 years of existence under several presidential administrations – including during Trump’s first term – no president has ever decided to fire thousands of furloughed workers during a government shutdown,” Kelley wrote. “AFGE is currently challenging President Trump’s illegal, unprecedented, abuse of power and we will not stop fighting until every reduction-in-force notice is rescinded.”

AFGE represents about 820,000 federal and D.C. government workers.

The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, more commonly known as the AFL-CIO, posted on social media that “America’s unions will see you in court.”

Several labor unions — including AFGE; AFL-CIO; and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — filed a lawsuit in late September in the Northern District of California challenging the legality of any layoffs during a shutdown and later asking the judge for a temporary restraining order. 

Judge Susan Illston gave the Trump administration until the end of Friday to provide details of any planned or in-progress Reductions in Force, “including the earliest date that those RIF notices will go out.”

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, released a statement opposing “Vought’s attempt to permanently lay off federal workers who have been furloughed due to a completely unnecessary government shutdown caused by Senator Schumer.”  

“Regardless of whether federal employees have been working without pay or have been furloughed, their work is incredibly important to serving the public,” Collins wrote. “Arbitrary layoffs result in a lack of sufficient personnel needed to conduct the mission of the agency and to deliver essential programs, and cause harm to families in Maine and throughout our country.”

Layoffs, funding cuts, loss of back pay threatened

President Donald Trump has signaled for the last couple weeks that if Democrats didn’t help Republicans advance the stopgap funding bill in the Senate, he would take action. 

“I’ll be able to tell you that in four or five days if this keeps going on,” Trump said Tuesday. “If this keeps going on it’ll be substantial and a lot of those jobs will never come back.”

Trump said Thursday that he would cut funding approved by Congress for programs he believes are supported by or generally benefit Democrats, but he didn’t provide any more details during a Cabinet meeting. 

Trump has also floated the idea of not providing back pay for furloughed federal employees, though he hasn’t made any firm determinations about whether he may try to reinterpret a 2019 law that guarantees back pay for all federal workers after a shutdown ends. 

The Congressional Budget Office estimated before the shutdown began that some 750,000 federal employees would be furloughed. Others have continued working but without pay.

Thune blames ‘far-left activist base’ for shutdown

Vought’s announcement came just as House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., wrapped up a joint press conference on Capitol Hill, where they called on Democrats to vote to reopen the government. 

“We have a majority of United States senators — 55 out of 100 senators are voting to open up the government,” Thune said. “We need five bold, courageous Democrats with a backbone who are willing to take on their far-left activist base and join us in passing this.”

Thune largely rejected the idea floated by some Republican lawmakers that the chamber should get rid of the 60-vote threshold for advancing major legislation, which has so far blocked the House-passed stopgap spending bill from moving toward final passage. 

“There are folks out there that think that is the way we ought to do things around here, simple majority,” Thune said. “But I can tell you that the filibuster through the years has been something that has been a bulwark against a lot of bad things happening to the country.”

Thune added the legislative filibuster, which is different from the talking filibuster that most people are familiar with, is necessary to protect the rights of the minority political party and give it a voice in running the government. 

Johnson nixes vote again on military pay

Johnson, R-La., remained consistent during an earlier press conference that he will not bring the House back into session to vote on a bill to ensure on-time pay for military members during the shutdown. He’s repeatedly said the best way to avoid delayed paychecks for federal workers is for Democrats to advance the House-passed stopgap spending bill. 

The stalemate over government funding largely revolves around whether congressional leaders will be able to find bipartisan compromise and enact legislation to extend enhanced tax credits for people who buy their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace, which are set to expire at the end of the year.

Democrats argue lawmakers need to broker an agreement now, before open enrollment begins on Nov. 1. Republican leaders contend they’re willing to talk after the government reopens, but they haven’t provided any commitments and have been tight-lipped about what they’d be willing to consider. 

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said during a morning press conference before the layoff announcement that Republicans must compromise on health care. 

“What we’ve said to our Republican colleagues is we have to address the health care crisis that they’ve created decisively — that means legislatively and that means right now,” Jeffries said.

Energy projects canceled

Trump’s action to block funding for projects in the states has drawn objections from Democrats.

Thirty-seven Democrats sent a letter to Energy Secretary Chris Wright Thursday rebuking the administration for “unlawfully cancelling $8 billion in federal investments in 223 energy projects.”

“For the 21 states with impacted projects, your cancellations will mean thousands of lost jobs for Americans, many of whom had every reason to rely on the stability of their jobs before these cancellations and all of whom will face uncertain job markets in our increasingly slowing economy,” they wrote.

The letter was signed by Democratic Sens. Angela Alsobrooks and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Lisa Blunt Rochester and Chris Coons of Delaware, Cory Booker and Andy Kim of New Jersey, Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray of Washington, Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin of Illinois, Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly of Arizona, Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer of New York, Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, Mazie Hirono and Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith of Minnesota, Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden of Oregon, Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff of California, Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch of Vermont and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

 Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report. 

President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Oct. 9, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Thursday he’s prepared to cancel funding approved by Congress that he believes is going toward programs supported by Democrats, though he didn’t share any additional details during a Cabinet meeting. 

“We’ll be cutting some very popular Democratic programs that aren’t popular with Republicans,” he said. “They wanted to do this, so we’ll give them a little taste of their own medicine.” 

Meanwhile, on day nine of the government shutdown, members of the U.S. Senate for the seventh time failed to advance either a Democratic or Republican stopgap spending bill, and House Speaker Mike Johnson said partisan tensions in his chamber are so intense he is reluctant to bring members back until a resolution is found. 

“This gets personal. Emotions are high. People are upset. I’m upset,” Johnson told reporters at a morning press conference.

Layoffs, denial of back pay also threatened

Trump has signaled throughout the shutdown he wants to unilaterally cancel funding approved by Congress, lay off federal workers by the thousands and may try to reinterpret a 2019 law that requires back pay for furloughed federal employees after the funding lapse ends. 

He has yet to give any real details on those plans or say exactly when he’ll try to take those steps, which would likely result in additional lawsuits. 

Trump said during the hour-long public portion of the Cabinet meeting that Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought would be able to share more details, but Vought never spoke and Trump didn’t call on him. 

“The shutdown has been, you know, pretty damaging. I mean, not yet, because it’s early. But it gets a little bit worse as it goes along,” Trump said. “And we’ll be making cuts that will be permanent and we’re only going to cut Democrat programs. I hate to tell you. I guess that makes sense, but we’re only cutting Democratic programs. But we’re going to start that and we have Russell, who can talk to you about it if he wants to.”

The president is generally required to faithfully execute the laws that Congress approves, including the government funding bills. 

The White House budget office has frozen or canceled funding several times this year without going to lawmakers for approval, which is required under a 1970s law. 

That has led to a slew of lawsuits and the Government Accountability Office repeatedly citing the administration for illegally impounding funds. 

No progress on votes

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers remained deadlocked over how to advance a stopgap bill to fund the government for a few weeks. 

The Senate voted 54-45 on the House-passed bill that would fund federal programs through Nov. 21 and 47-50 on Democrats’ counterproposal that would provide spending authority through Oct. 31 and make substantial changes to health care policy. 

The tally for the seventh vote to advance those two proposals wasn’t much different from the previous ones. Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, both Democrats, as well as Maine independent Sen. Angus King voted with Republicans to advance their bill. Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul voted no.

Legislation needs the support of at least 60 senators to advance under that chamber’s legislative filibuster rule. 

The vote came shortly after Speaker Johnson, R-La., made disparaging remarks about Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer during his press conference, with the two increasingly blaming each other for the funding impasse.  

“There is one thing that Chuck Schumer cares about more than anything else and that is his Senate seat,” Johnson said. “The guy has been in Congress for 44 years. He doesn’t know how to live life outside this building and so he will do anything to make sure that he keeps that seat.”

Johnson, asked about the increasing tensions between Republicans and Democrats over the funding lapse and health care policy, said it is likely better to keep lawmakers in that chamber separated until a resolution is reached. 

“I’m a very patient man, but I am very angry right now because this is dangerous stuff,” Johnson said. “And so, is it better for them, probably, to be physically separated right now? Yeah, it probably is, frankly. 

“I wish that weren’t the case. But we do have to turn the volume down. The best way to turn the volume down is to turn the lights back on and get the government open for the people.”

Shutdown pay for members of the military 

Johnson reiterated that he does not intend to bring the House back from an extended recess to vote on a stand-alone bill to provide on-time paychecks to military members during the shutdown. 

Johnson stuck to his position that the best way to ensure pay for U.S. troops is for Democrats to pass the GOP stopgap spending bill, despite Trump breaking with Johnson on that particular issue. 

Trump, asked Wednesday about the upcoming Oct. 15 payday for military members, said “that probably will happen” and that the “military is always going to be taken care of.”

But, Johnson said during his Thursday press conference the only way out is through the Republican stopgap bill that remains stalled in the Senate. 

“We have already voted to pay the troops. We did it three weeks ago. We put that bill on the floor, and the Republicans voted to pay the troops, TSA agents, border patrol, air traffic control and everybody else,” Johnson said. “So coming back here and doing it and having a duplicative vote to do the same thing they already did would accomplish nothing.”

Schumer, D-N.Y., said during a floor speech the shutdown will not end until after Republicans and Democrats find a way to extend tax credits for people who buy their health insurance from the Affordable Care Act Marketplace past the end of the year. 

Schumer also rebuked Johnson for the House schedule, which has only had members in Washington, D.C., for 12 days since the end of July. 

“If you’re someone who works two jobs or weekends or overtime to make ends meet, what on Earth are you supposed to think when House Republicans can’t even be bothered to show up to reopen the government?” Schumer said. 

New England senators initiate talks

Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she has been speaking with New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen about possible solutions to the impasse. 

“I have been in very close contact with Sen. Shaheen, who is very constructive, and is trying to find a path forward,” Collins said.  

“The ACA issue is important to a lot of us, not just to Democrats,” she added. “The tax subsidies were enhanced during COVID. They do need to be reformed, but they do need to be extended as well. They expire at the end of the year. We need to open up government today before more harm is done, before people in the military don’t have their paychecks.”

 Ariana Figueroa and Shauneen Miranda contributed to this report. 

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., joined by President Donald Trump, delivers an announcement on “significant medical and scientific findings for America’s children” in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Sept. 22, 2025 in Washington, D.C. Federal health officials suggested a link between the use of acetaminophen during pregnancy as a risk for autism, although many health agencies have noted inconclusive results in the research. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A majority of Americans disapprove of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s job performance and the federal government’s evolving vaccine policy, according to a poll released Thursday by the nonpartisan health organization KFF.

In addition, the vast majority of those surveyed have heard the unproven claims made by President Donald Trump, Kennedy and others in late September that taking acetaminophen, also known as Tylenol, during pregnancy could be one possible environmental factor in a child later being diagnosed with autism.

A total of 77% of the people KFF polled said they knew of the statements, though whether people believe the claims, which have yet to be established by the medical community, varied.

Only 4% of those surveyed said it is “definitely true” that taking Tylenol during pregnancy increases the risk of the child developing autism, and 35% said the claim is “definitely false.” Thirty percent said it is “probably true” and 30% said it is “probably false.”

Combined, 65% said it’s either probably or definitely false to say that taking acetaminophen during pregnancy increases the chance of a child developing autism, a complex disorder that experts believe is the result of both genetic and environmental factors.

When broken down by political party, 86% of Democrats, 67% of independents and 43% of Republicans said the claims were either probably or definitely false.

The survey shows 59% somewhat or strongly disapprove of how Kennedy is handling his new role at the top of the country’s public health infrastructure.

The level of support changes considerably depending on political party affiliation, with 86% of Democrats, 64% of independents and 26% of Republicans disapproving.

A slightly higher number, 62%, either somewhat or strongly disapprove of the United States’ vaccine policy.A similar trend emerged when those polled were broken up by political parties. Eighty-eight percent of Democrats, 67% of independents and 31% of Republicans somewhat or strongly disapproved of vaccine policy.

The survey shows a declining share of Americans have faith in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to provide trusted information about vaccines, compared with previous KFF polls in September 2023 and earlier this year.

A total of 63% of respondents two years ago trusted the CDC on vaccines, but that has declined to 50%.

Democrats’ faith in the CDC’s vaccine recommendations has dropped from 88% two years ago to 64%, independents have gone from 61% to 47% and Republicans have remained relatively steady, only going from 40% to 39%.

Across political parties, a person’s own doctor as well as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association remain broadly trusted for vaccine information.Eighty-three percent said they trust their doctor or health care provider, 69% believed information from the American Academy of Pediatrics and 64% had faith in the AMA.

The poll of 1,334 adults took place from Sept. 23 to Sept. 29 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points for the full survey. Questions broken down by a person’s political ideology had a margin of error of plus or minus 6 percentage points.

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U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks with reporters in the U.S Senate press gallery on Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

This report has been updated.

WASHINGTON — Congress has just one week to break the stalemate and fund the government before active duty military members miss their first paycheck of the shutdown. 

That would be followed later in the month by absent wages for federal civilian employees and the staffers who work for lawmakers — benchmarks that would traditionally increase pressure on Democrats and Republicans to negotiate a deal.

But both sides remained dug in Wednesday, as the Senate failed to pass Republicans’ short-term government funding bill for the sixth time and Democrats were unable to get the support needed to advance their counterproposal. 

The 54-45 vote on the GOP bill and the 47-52 vote on Democrats’ legislation didn’t reach the 60 votes needed to advance under Senate rules.

Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, both Democrats, as well as Maine independent Sen. Angus King voted with Republicans to advance their multi-week funding bill. Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul voted no.

The shutdown began on Oct. 1, the start of the federal government’s 2026 fiscal year.

Trump warms up to idea of separate bill on military pay

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., rejected the idea of voting on a stand-alone bill to provide paychecks to active duty military members during the shutdown, saying that if Democrats wanted to ensure salaries for federal workers, they should vote to advance the stopgap spending bill. 

“They live with that vote. They made that decision. The House is done,” Johnson said at a morning press conference. “The ball is now in the Senate’s court. It does us no good to be here dithering on show votes. We did it. We sent the product over.”

Trump, speaking from the White House later in the afternoon, broke with GOP leaders in Congress on passing a stand-alone bill to provide pay for military members during the shutdown. 

“Yeah, that probably will happen. We don’t have to worry about it yet. That’s a long time,” Trump said. “You know what one week is for me? An eternity. One week for me is a long time. We’ll take care of it. Our military is always going to be taken care of.”

Johnson also appeared to fully reject an idea floated by the Trump administration not to provide back pay for furloughed federal employees, which is required by a 2019 law. 

“It’s my understanding that the law is that they would be paid. There is some other legal analysis that’s floating around. I haven’t yet had time to dig into and read that,” Johnson said. “But it has always been the case, it is tradition and I think it is statutory law that federal employees be paid. And that’s my position. I think they should be.”

Trump muddied the waters on that issue during his afternoon appearance, blaming Democrats for how his administration plans to handle back pay for furloughed federal workers. 

“We’re going to see. Most of them are going to get back pay and we’re going to try to make sure of that,” Trump said. “But some of them are being hurt very badly by the Democrats and they therefore won’t qualify.”

The shutdown will likely only end after congressional leaders begin talking with each other about core policy issues, including how to address enhanced tax credits for people who buy their own health insurance from the Affordable Care Act Marketplace. The credits are set to expire at the end of the year, spurring huge increases in health insurance costs.

Democrats say a deal must be reached before they’ll vote to advance the GOP stopgap spending bill that would fund the government through Nov. 21. Republican leaders maintain they won’t negotiate until after Democrats vote to open the government.

‘You can’t take the federal government hostage’

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he and other GOP lawmakers are willing to talk with Democrats about the tax credits, but only after the government reopens. 

“They have other issues that they want to bring up, which I said before we’re happy to discuss, and yes, there are some things that I think there’s interest on both sides in trying to address when it comes to health care in this country,” Thune said. “But you can’t take the federal government hostage and expect to have a reasonable conversation on those issues.”

Thune said the stopgap funding bill is needed to give both chambers more time to work out a final agreement on the dozen full-year government funding bills, which were supposed to become law by the start of the fiscal year.

“What this does is provide a short-term extension in order for all that to happen,” he said. “That’s all that we’re talking about.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Republicans are divided on health care issues and want to avoid a public debate over the Affordable Care Act tax credits. 

Schumer then read part of a social media post by Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in which she said she was “absolutely disgusted” that health premiums will double by the end of the year without action.

“More Republicans should listen to her because, on this issue, she’s right on the money,” Schumer said. “Meanwhile, Democrats’ position hasn’t changed. We urge our Republican colleagues to join us in a serious negotiation to reopen the government and extend ACA premiums.”

Trump threats

The shutdown’s ramifications will continue to get worse the longer lawmakers remain intransigent, especially given President Donald Trump’s efforts to differentiate this funding lapse from those in the past.

Trump has said he’ll lay off federal workers by the thousands, cancel funding approved by Congress for projects in Democratic regions of the country and may not provide back pay for the hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal employees.

Trump and administration officials have been vague about when and how they’d implement layoffs, but a federal judge hearing arguments in a suit brought by a federal employee labor union has ordered government attorneys to file a brief later this week detailing its plans and its timeline.  

Northern District of California Judge Susan Illston has given the Trump administration until the end of Friday to share details of any planned or in-progress Reduction in Force plans, “including the earliest date that those RIF notices will go out.”

Illston, who was nominated by former President Bill Clinton, also told the Trump administration to detail what agencies anticipate implementing layoffs and how many employees that would impact. 

Illston set Oct. 16 for oral arguments between the American Federation of Government Employees and federal government attorneys over AFGE’s request for a temporary restraining order to block the Trump administration from implementing layoffs during the shutdown.

Murkowski reports informal talks

Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, part of a bipartisan group that has begun informal talks, said during a brief interview Wednesday that the government must reopen before real steps can be taken on the ACA tax credits. 

“I think the leadership has made very, very clear that the way to open up the government is, let’s pass a bill that will allow us to open up the government, and then there’s a lot of good conversations that can go on,” Murkowski said. “It doesn’t mean that we wait until then to start conversations, and that’s what we’re doing. We’re talking but we’re talking outside of the range of your microphones.”

She said, “There are not a lot of guarantees around this place, are there?” when asked by a reporter whether Republicans could provide Democrats with assurances on floor votes on ACA tax credit extensions if they vote for the stopgap spending bill. 

North Carolina GOP Sen. Thom Tillis said he expects the shutdown to last for at least a couple more weeks and urged Democratic senators to vote to reopen the government. 

“Go take a look at the list of Democrats who are either not running for reelection or not up until ‘28 or ‘30,” Tillis said. “There are plenty of them to walk the plank like I have multiple times to get the government funded and then the discussions start.”

Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin said that talks between Democrats and Republicans are “stalled” but “we’re having conversations with everybody.” 

South Dakota GOP Sen. Mike Rounds said that lawmakers have had bipartisan “visits” though no real conversations. 

“There’s no framework,” Rounds said. “There’s just a matter of a clarification about how important it is to get the shutdown over with. And once we get that shutdown over with, we’ll go back to bipartisan work in the Senate.”

Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report.

A sign advising that the Capitol Visitors Center in the U.S. Capitol is closed, in Washington, D.C., is pictured on Oct. 1, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

This report has been updated.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration may try to interpret a law enacted during his first term in office differently than it did following the last government shutdown, potentially denying back pay to hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal workers. 

The change in stance, outlined in a memo from the Office of Management and Budget that was first reported by Axios on Tuesday and confirmed to States Newsroom by a White House official, would drastically change the stakes of the ongoing funding lapse, which began Oct. 1. 

President Donald Trump didn’t clearly say how he personally views the law during an afternoon press conference in the Oval Office, though he indicated he doesn’t intend to provide back pay to all federal workers. 

“I would say it depends on who we’re talking about,” Trump said. “I can tell you this: the Democrats have put a lot of people in great risk and jeopardy. But it really depends on who you’re talking about. But for the most part we’re going to take care of our people. There are some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of and we’ll take care of them in a different way.”

Trump said he will likely announce mass layoffs of federal employees in the next week and opened the door to canceling funding approved by Congress if the shutdown persists. 

“I’ll be able to tell you that in four or five days if this keeps going on,” Trump said. “If this keeps going on it’ll be substantial and a lot of those jobs will never come back.”

OPM earlier said workers would receive back pay

Reinterpreting the law would go against guidance the Office of Personnel Management released in late September, which stated that after “the lapse in appropriations has ended, employees who were furloughed as the result of the lapse will receive retroactive pay for those furlough periods.”

During the 35-day shutdown during Trump’s first term, Congress approved a bill titled the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 that guaranteed back pay for both exempt and furloughed federal workers. Trump signed the legislation into law himself. 

Before the law, Congress typically voted following each funding lapse to ensure back pay for all federal employees. 

The Congressional Budget Office projected 750,000 federal workers would be furloughed in the current shutdown. 

Democrats on Capitol Hill rebuffed the memo on Tuesday, arguing it is another example of Trump attempting to circumvent the law. 

“The letter of the law is as plain as can be—federal workers, including furloughed workers, are entitled to their backpay following a shutdown,” Senate Appropriations ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., wrote on social media. “Another baseless attempt to try and scare & intimidate workers by an administration run by crooks and cowards.”

Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who represents a considerable number of federal workers, said during a brief interview he doesn’t believe lawmakers need to clarify the law in any way, calling it “crystal clear.” 

“This is a bill that (former) Senator (Ben) Cardin and I introduced back during that shutdown,” Van Hollen said. “And I looked at it again today after the White House comments, and they’re blowing smoke. This is part of their effort to scare. So this is all part of their fearmongering. That’s what it’s about.” 

‘That should turn up the urgency’

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., asked about the memo during a morning press conference, said he hadn’t seen it or spoken with anyone in the White House, but he didn’t seem to take issue with its change of course. 

“I’m sure there will be a lot of discussion about that. But there are legal analysts who think that is not something that government should do,” Johnson said. “If that is true, that should turn up the urgency and the necessity of the Democrats doing the right thing here.” 

Pressed by another reporter about the principle involved with possibly not adhering to the law, Johnson said he hopes that furloughed federal workers do receive their back pay.

“I can tell you the president believes that as well. He and I have talked about this personally. He doesn’t want people to go without back pay,” Johnson said. “And that’s why he pleaded with Chuck Schumer to do the right thing and vote to keep the government open. We don’t want this to happen.” 

Johnson didn’t clarify why — if Trump believes furloughed workers should receive back pay consistent with the 2019 law — the White House budget office prepared a memo stating the opposite.

Johnson’s official House website explains that during a shutdown “federal employees will either be furloughed, or in some cases required to work without pay. Under federal law, employees are entitled to back pay upon the government reopening.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said during an afternoon press conference he expects furloughed workers will receive their back pay once the shutdown ends. 

“I haven’t looked at the memo specifically yet. My assumption is that furloughed workers will get back pay,” Thune said. “But that being said, this is very simple — open up the government and this is a nonissue.”

The Senate has deadlocked five times on a stopgap government funding bill that passed the House in mid-September. The upper chamber is expected to vote at least one more time this week.

Democrats call for negotiations on shutdown

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said during a morning floor speech that Johnson “has become a massive roadblock to progress,” though he didn’t address the possibility of no back pay for furloughed workers. 

“Ending this shutdown will require Donald Trump to step in and push Speaker Johnson to negotiate because without the president’s involvement, Speaker Johnson and MAGA Republicans in the House are increasingly dug in,” Schumer said. 

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries,  a New York Democrat, said during a morning press conference the White House was incorrect in its new interpretation. 

“The law is clear — every single furloughed employee is entitled to pay back. Period. Full stop,” Jeffries said. “The law is clear and we will make sure that that law is followed.”

American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley wrote in a statement the “frivolous argument that federal employees are not guaranteed backpay under the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act is an obvious misinterpretation of the law. 

“It is also inconsistent with the Trump administration’s own guidance from mere days ago, which clearly and correctly states that furloughed employees will receive retroactive pay for the time they were out of work as quickly as possible once the shutdown is over.”

 Shauneen Miranda and Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump speaks to the media in the Oval Office at the White House on Sept. 2, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump sent mixed messages Monday about whether he would negotiate a deal with Democrats to extend the enhanced tax credits for people who get their health insurance from the Affordable Care Act Marketplace, one of the main issues that led to the government shutdown. 

His comments came shortly before the Senate deadlocked for a fifth time on short-term government funding bills, voting 45-50 on Democrats’ proposal and 52-42 on a House-passed Republican stopgap spending bill. Both needed at least 60 votes to advance.

Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, both Democrats, as well as Maine independent Sen. Angus King voted with Republicans to advance their multi-week funding bill. Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul voted no.

Trump said during a press conference “some very good things could happen with respect to health care” and that “if we made the right deal, I’d make a deal, sure,” before sharply criticizing the 2010 health care law, also called Obamacare. 

“That’s the problem with Obamacare. The subsidies are so much — billions and billions of dollars is being wasted,” Trump said. “And we could have much better health care than we have right now. And we’re talking to them. I’m not saying that’s going to happen.”

Trump centered much of his 2016 campaign for the presidency around repealing and replacing the health care law, but Republicans were unable to do so with unified control of government during the first half of his first term.  

After Democrats swept in the 2020 elections, they enhanced the tax credits for people who buy their health insurance through the ACA Marketplace in a coronavirus relief law. Those enhanced subsidies are set to expire at the end of December. 

Democratic leaders for weeks have called on Republicans to negotiate a bipartisan agreement to extend those enhanced tax credits ahead of open enrollment beginning on Nov. 1. 

That didn’t happen and Democrats have largely voted against advancing a stopgap spending bill written by Republicans that was needed to fund the government past the end of September. 

‘On another planet’

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said during a floor speech shortly before Trump spoke from the Oval Office that the president and GOP leaders seem “to be on another planet.”

“Instead of trying to solve this shutdown crisis, Donald Trump spent the weekend golfing and posting memes and deepfakes on the internet,” Schumer said. “He seems to think this shutdown is some big joke. He’s wrong.”

Schumer released a statement following Trump’s press conference, saying the two sides aren’t negotiating, despite the president saying “we are speaking with the Democrats.” 

“For months, Democrats have been calling on Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans to come to the table and work with us to deliver lower costs and better healthcare for the American people,” Schumer wrote. “If President Trump and Republicans are finally ready to sit down and get something done on healthcare for American families, Democrats will be there — ready to make it happen.”

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said during a morning press conference he will only negotiate with Democrats on the enhanced ACA Marketplace tax credits after the shutdown ends. 

But Johnson did indicate he believes the expiring expansion likely needs a resolution before open enrollment begins next month.

“They’ve been saying that some of the insurance companies will be sending out notices in early November. The last time I checked, it’s Oct. 6. We have the entire month of October,” Johnson said. “We’ll stay here around the clock to work through all these things, but we have to get government open again to do it.”

Discussion about passing bills

The House has been in recess since mid-September and Johnson has refused to bring representatives back until after the Senate approves a bill to reopen the government. 

Johnson revealed during the press conference that he had a “fruitful conversation” a few days ago with Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., about the annual government funding process, which lawmakers were supposed to complete by the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1.

Johnson said he gave Murray assurances that he would hold floor votes on the final bipartisan versions of the dozen full-year bills after the Democrats and Republicans in charge of each subcommittee worked out an agreement.

“I’m ready to go,” Johnson said. “But we’ve got to open government up so that they can move to that next level, so that the conference committee can get that work done. That is small-d democracy at its best; you get Rs and Ds, everybody in the room, and they hash it out, and whatever that final product is, we will move through the process.”

The House has passed three of the full-year government funding bills along party-line votes and the Senate has approved three with a broadly bipartisan vote. 

Congress’ failure to approve all of the bills on time, combined with its inability to approve a stopgap spending bill to keep funding on autopilot while lawmakers work out a final full-year agreement, is why a shutdown began.

Dems say bipartisan talks needed to end shutdown

Murray posted later in the day on social media that bipartisan talks between the congressional leaders are the best option to end the shutdown.

“I’ll reiterate now what I told @SpeakerJohnson: the only path forward begins with him & @LeaderJohnThune talking with Leaders Schumer & Jeffries,” Murray wrote. “Premium hikes are going out THIS MONTH. We need a deal that reopens the government & stops premiums from doubling.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during an afternoon briefing before Trump spoke that he “is definitely committed to fixing and improving our health care system,” though she declined to say if he supports extending the enhanced ACA tax credits as they exist. 

Leavitt also opted not to fully answer questions about when the administration will begin laying off federal workers by the thousands, saying the White House budget office continues to consult with Cabinet secretaries to determine which workers may lose their jobs. 

“We’ll see how the vote goes tonight,” Leavitt said, referring to the Senate’s Monday evening vote on the stopgap spending bills. 

Rural air service, air traffic controllers

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said during a press conference at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey that the shutdown means there are only a few days left of funding for the Essential Air Service program, which provides federal “subsidies to airlines to service” rural communities. 

“That money runs out this Sunday, so there are many small communities across the country that will now no longer have the resources to make sure they have air service in their community,” Duffy said.  

Alaska will be the most affected by that particular funding lapse, he said. 

Duffy said there has been a “slight” increase in the number of air traffic controllers calling out sick during the shutdown but added it hadn’t caused any safety challenges yet. That will all change if transportation officials feel the staffing isn’t adequate for the number of flights. 

“If we see there are issues in the tower that are affecting the controllers’ ability to effectively control the airspace, we’ll reduce the rate and you’ll see more delays or you might see a cancellation,” Duffy said. “I’m willing to do that before we’re willing to risk anyone’s life in the air.”

Duffy, a former Republican congressman from Wisconsin, said he had spoken earlier in the day with air traffic controllers who were thinking about taking on jobs at ride-sharing companies to pay the bills, since they will not be paid until after the shutdown ends. 

He said the effects of the funding lapse, including air traffic controllers worrying how they’ll make ends meet, are problematic, especially if they’re distracted by it while on shift or exhausted from working other jobs.  

“I don’t want them finding a second job to pay the bills,” Duffy said. “I want them to get paid for the work they’re doing today, keeping our planes in the air and our skies safe.”

Duffy also reiterated the Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, which screens people entering airports, is housed within the Department of Homeland Security, not DOT. 

 Shauneen Miranda contributed to this report. 

White House budget director Russ Vought, who is depicted as the Grim Reaper in a video posted by President Donald Trump during the shutdown in October 2025,  speaks with reporters inside the U.S. Capitol building on July 15, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Trump administration officials on Friday defended the decision to cancel federal projects in regions of the country that have voted for Democrats, saying the move isn’t political but an effort to reduce the size and scope of government during the shutdown.

Republican leaders in Congress also backed the White House’s decision to punish Democratic voters by unilaterally canceling funding that lawmakers approved on a bipartisan basis. Democrats, however, said it’s an unacceptable escalation that further erodes Congress’ constitutional authority over spending.

“The president and (White House budget director) Russ Vought were not given any additional authority under a shutdown, and they shouldn’t pretend they have it and they shouldn’t act like it and they certainly should not be threatening people,” Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., said on a call with reporters.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., gave a bit of a mixed message during a morning press conference, saying that while decisions about which projects to cancel are “tough,” President Donald Trump and other officials “are having fun with” the shutdown on social media.

“Are they taking great pleasure in that? No,” Johnson said, referring to the actual governing. “Is he trolling the Democrats? Yes, because that’s what President Trump does and people are having fun with this.”

Later in the day, Johnson opted to further delay bringing the House back into session, canceling a second week of floor votes, which means the earliest that chamber will return to Capitol Hill is Oct. 14. 

Shutdown ‘is not a joke’

Trump has posted frequently on social media during the shutdown, including a video that depicted House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries wearing a sombrero and a video that appeared to be created by artificial intelligence depicting Vought as the Grim Reaper.

Murray said on the call with reporters that Republicans posting the videos show they are treating the shutdown “as a joke.” 

“This is not a joke. This is real,” Murray said. “They need to stop the taunting. They need to stop the childish behavior. They need to stop hurting people and they need to come and work with us to solve a serious problem in front of our country.”

Jeffries, asked about the social media videos during a press conference, said it shows Republicans are on “defense” over their policies on health care and other issues. 

“Donald Trump has behaved in a deeply unserious and deeply unhinged manner and it’s evidence of the fact that Republicans have a weak argument, so they’ve resorted to deepfake videos and to lying about the nature of the policy decisions,” Jeffries said.

Projects axed in Chicago, New York, blue states

Johnson said he spoke earlier this week with Vought — one of the authors of Project 2025 who said previously he wanted “bureaucrats to be traumatically affected” — and that Vought “takes no pleasure in this.”

“Russ wants to see a smaller, more efficient, more lean, effective federal government, as we do. But he doesn’t want people to lose jobs. He doesn’t want to do that,” Johnson said. “But that’s his responsibility. So he’s very carefully, methodically, very deliberately looking through that to see which decisions can be made in the best interest of the American people. That’s his obligation and that’s his real desire.”

Typically during a government shutdown, federal employees are categorized as exempt, meaning they keep working without pay, or are placed on furlough. Both categories receive back pay once Congress votes to approve a stopgap spending bill.

But Vought has indicated he wants to use the shutdown as an excuse to lay off federal workers en masse, a step not taken during past funding lapses. He’s also taken to social media several times to announce canceled or halted projects in areas of the country that don’t regularly vote for Republicans.

Vought wrote in a post on Wednesday, shortly after the shutdown began, that $18 billion in Transportation Department funding for the Hudson Tunnel Project and the Second Ave Subway in New York City was put “on hold.” Both are in Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Jeffries’ home state.

Vought then said the Energy Department would cancel $8 billion in climate funding that was slated to go to projects in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.

The Washington State Standard reported some of the funding would have gone toward the Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Hub and Source New Mexico posted an article detailing a few impacted projects, including funds to the “New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology for the third phase of a project … to develop a storage hub at a commercial scale within (the) San Juan basin.”

Additionally, Vought on Friday froze $2.1 billion in Transportation Department funding for the “Red Line Extension and the Red and Purple Modernization Project” in Chicago, writing it was “put on hold to ensure funding is not flowing via race-based contracting.”

Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin represents Illinois, and the state’s governor, JB Pritzker, has been in a public back-and-forth with Trump over immigration enforcement, which the administration has heightened in Chicago. Pritzker has repeatedly rebuffed Trump’s requests to bring in the National Guard.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said during the press conference with Speaker Johnson that it makes sense the Trump administration would implement the shutdown through a political lens.

“I think they’re going to make decisions that are consistent with their priorities,” Thune said. “And yes, they’re going to have a different political view of the world than the Democrats might have.”

Hatch Act questions

The actions of Trump administration officials have raised questions about whether they could be in violation of the Hatch Act, a 1939 law that “limits certain political activities of federal employees.” 

The Office of Special Counsel writes on its website the law is meant to “ensure that federal programs are administered in a nonpartisan fashion, to protect federal employees from political coercion in the workplace, and to ensure that federal employees are advanced based on merit and not based on political affiliation.”

Any federal employee found to have violated the law can face removal from service or a fine of up to $1,000, among other possible repercussions. 

Public Citizen has filed numerous complaints against the Trump administration, alleging that banners and messages posted on government websites about the shutdown violate the Hatch Act. 

“Even for an administration that flouts ethics guidelines regularly, these messages are a particularly egregious and clear-cut sign that Trump and his cabinet see themselves as above the law,” Craig Holman, a government ethics expert with Public Citizen, wrote in a statement. 

As with many of the Trump administration’s actions, any new precedent set by the Republican administration could be used by a future Democratic president in a way that would very likely be harmful to Republican voters and regions of the country that consistently support GOP policies.

Layoffs still threatened

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during an afternoon briefing that administration officials are trying to determine where to make additional spending cuts and layoffs during the shutdown. 

“The Office of Management and Budget is in constant communication and contact right now with our Cabinet secretaries and agencies across the board to identify, unfortunately, where layoffs have to be made and where cuts have to happen,” Leavitt said. “But again, the Democrats have an opportunity to prevent this if they vote to reopen the government.”

Leavitt declined to say whether the administration would back away from plans to lay off federal workers by the thousands or cancel funding for projects in Democratic areas if Republicans and Democrats in Congress strike a deal to reopen government. 

Leavitt said the “blueprint” for shrinking the size and scope of the federal government is whatever the president and administration officials come up with, after being asked by a Fox News reporter about Trump writing in a social media post earlier this week that Vought was “of PROJECT 2025 Fame,” after the president repeatedly distanced himself from the document on the campaign trail.

The U.S. Capitol on the evening of Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025, just hours before a federal government shutdown. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The vast majority of Americans, including Republicans and those who identify as strong supporters of President Donald Trump, want Congress to renew the enhanced tax credits for people who buy their health insurance from the Affordable Care Act Marketplace, according to a poll released Friday. 

More than 78% of people surveyed by the nonpartisan health organization KFF in late September said they want lawmakers to keep the enhanced credits. Their extension has become a major linchpin in debate about the government shutdown. 

When broken down by political party, 92% of Democrats, 82% of independents and 59% of Republicans supported renewing the credits.

Within the Republican Party, 57% of people who identified as supporting Trump’s Make America Great Again policies and 70% of GOP voters who identified as non-MAGA supporters want to see the tax credits extended, according to the poll.  

Spending bill held up over tax credit debate

The ACA tax credit expansion was created by Democrats in a coronavirus relief bill approved during the Biden administration and set to expire at the end of the year. 

Democrats have repeatedly called on Republicans to negotiate an extension of the enhanced tax credits and have held up a stopgap spending bill to force those talks to happen now, rather than later in the year. 

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Thursday the discussion should happen during the next few months and that GOP lawmakers will press for “major reform.” 

“That’s not a simple issue. That’s going to take weeks to deliberate and discuss and debate, but that’s the beauty of the process. We have three months to do that. That is not an issue for today,” Johnson said. “Today the only issue is whether they’re going to vote to keep the government operating for the people.”

Democrats strongly disagree, saying a bipartisan accord must be struck before the open enrollment period for ACA plans begins on Nov. 1, when consumers will see large cost increases for next year. 

“We can’t accept an empty promise, which is, ‘Oh, we’ll deal with this later,’” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said on a call with reporters Thursday. “The fact is that this crisis is in front of us now. People are getting this month their premium increases if the Senate does not act.”

Murray said she finds it “ironic” that Republican leaders are saying they’ll negotiate with Democrats on health care once the government reopens after they “refused to negotiate with us during that entire time when government was open.”

The House voted mostly along party lines in mid-September to approve a seven-week stopgap spending bill that has since stalled in the Senate, leading to the shutdown.

The upper chamber, where major legislation needs at least 60 votes to advance, is set to vote again Friday to try to advance Republicans’ short-term government funding bill, though it’s unlikely to move forward amid the stalemate.  

Many of those polled knew little about shutdown debate 

The KFF poll looked at public knowledge and understanding about the enhanced tax credits for ACA Marketplace health insurance plans, finding 61% of respondents knew nothing or only a little about the issue. 

Another 32% of those surveyed said they know some about the policy debate and 7% said they know a lot. 

The poll of 1,334 adults took place Sept. 23 to Sept. 29 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points for a full survey. Each political affiliation question has a margin of error of plus or minus 6 percentage points.

The government shutdown began on Oct. 1, just after the poll wrapped. 

Concern about the ramifications of letting the enhanced tax credits expire fluctuated when KFF asked the question in different ways, though those who said they were “very concerned” never dipped below a majority. 

Fifty-six percent were very concerned and 30% were somewhat concerned when told “health insurance would be unaffordable for many people who buy their own coverage” if the enhanced tax credits weren’t extended. 

The number of people who would be very or somewhat concerned was high among Republicans, 78%, and MAGA supporters, 76%. 

Respondents who were very concerned rose to 60% when told “about 4 million people will lose their health insurance coverage” if they do not keep receiving the enhanced credits. An additional 26% said they were somewhat concerned and 10% said they were not too concerned, with the rest of those polled saying they were not concerned at all. 

When broken down by political party, the number of people very or somewhat concerned remained high, with 76% of Republicans and 73% of MAGA supporters citing worry. 

Small business staff, self-employed people

Fifty-one percent of those polled said they were very concerned when told “millions of people who work at small businesses or who are self-employed would be directly impacted as many of them rely on the ACA marketplace.”

Another 33% said they were somewhat concerned, 11% said they were not too concerned and the remainder said they were not concerned at all. 

Seventy-five percent of Republicans and 72% of MAGA supporters responded they would be very or somewhat concerned when asked that question. 

The poll showed that Congress extending the enhanced tax credits as they exist now comes with some trepidation about the price tag. 

When asked how concerned people would be if they heard “it would require significant federal spending that would be largely paid for by taxpayers,” 27% said they would be very concerned, 36% somewhat concerned, 28% not too concerned and 8% not at all concerned. 

Forty-one percent of Republicans said they would be very concerned, with another 41% responding they would be somewhat concerned. An additional 15% said they would be not too concerned with the rest saying they were not concerned at all.

A sign on the entrance to the U.S. National Arboretum says it is closed due to the federal government shut down on Oct.  1, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The first federal government shutdown in seven years has left hundreds of thousands of workers furloughed and members of the public struggling to understand what’s open, what’s closed and what might be delayed.

States Newsroom’s Washington, D.C. Bureau scoured agency plans published by the Trump administration and the courts, and produced this guide to help you understand what’s going on:

Agriculture Department 

The USDA plans to furlough about half, 42,300, of its nearly 86,000 employees, though workers at several programs for farm communities and rural areas will keep working without pay.

Operations will continue on some farm loans, certain natural resource and conservation programs, essential food safety operations related to public health and wildland firefighting activities. 

Agriculture Department employees working on animal and plant health emergency programs — including African swine fever, highly pathogenic avian influenza, exotic fruit flies, new world screwworm and rabies — are exempt from furloughs.  

But dozens of USDA programs addressing everything from disaster assistance processing to trade negotiations to long-term research on animal diseases will cease until Congress reaches a funding deal. 

Employees working on those programs will be furloughed until the government is once again funded, but both working and non-working federal employees in all agencies are required to receive back pay under the law. 

Agencies housed within the USDA have varying levels of furloughs. The Food and Nutrition Service, Office of the Inspector General and Natural Resources Conservation Service are among those with higher numbers of furloughed workers.

Commerce Department

The Department of Commerce will retain just over 19% of its nearly 43,000 employees during the shutdown, and most will have to stay on without pay, as outlined in its government funding lapse plan. 

The department oversees a wide range of federal government activities — weather forecasting, issuing patents and trademarks, regulating fisheries, enforcing export laws, managing government-owned and -controlled spectrum frequencies, and collecting demographics and other population data.

Notably, the department houses the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and will continue providing “weather, water and climate observations, prediction, forecasting, warning and related support.” But research activities will largely stop.

The U.S. Census Bureau, also part of the department, will cease most operations, including providing monthly economic indicators and updated data about disaster-impacted areas. Certain preparations for the 2030 Census will stop, as will any data collection for the American Community Survey.

Funding outside of annual appropriations may keep some U.S. Patent and Trademark Office units open, but the timelines will be variable, according to the department. When funding runs out, the office will continue “a bare minimum set of activities necessary to protect against the actual loss of intellectual property (IP) rights.”

Defense Department 

The Defense Department’s contingency plan calls for the nearly 2.1 million military personnel to keep working as normal and says 406,500 of its roughly 741,000 civilian employees will work without pay, while the others will be furloughed.  

The plan says the Defense Department believes operations to secure the U.S. southern border, Middle East operations, Golden Dome for America defense system, depot maintenance, shipbuilding and critical munitions are the “highest priorities” in the event of a shutdown. 

Medical and dental services, including private sector care under the TRICARE health care program, would largely continue at the Defense Department, though “(e)lective surgery and other routine/elective procedures in DoW medical and dental facilities are generally not excepted activities, unless the deferral or delay of such procedures would impact personnel readiness or deployability.”

Education Department 

The Department of Education said it would furlough roughly 95% of employees outside its federal student aid unit. 

The agency will continue disbursing Federal Direct Loans as well as Pell Grants, which help low-income students pay for college. 

Borrowers still have to make payments toward their student loan debt during the shutdown. 

Title I and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, grant funding would continue to be available as usual, according to the department. Title I provides funding for low-income school districts, while IDEA guarantees a free public education for students with disabilities. 

But the agency is ceasing several operations, including any new grantmaking activities. Still, the department said the majority of its grant programs “typically make awards over the summer and therefore there would be limited impact on the Department’s grantmaking.”

The agency’s Office for Civil Rights also has to pause investigations of any civil rights complaints. 

Energy Department 

The Energy Department will furlough a little over 8,100 of its 13,800 federal workers – nearly 60% of its workforce, according to its contingency plan. 

The National Nuclear Security Administration would continue maintenance and safeguarding of nuclear weapons. 

Some programs, like the medical isotope program, will require DOE to “produce additional isotopes in order to protect human life.” 

“The need to do this will depend on the length of the lapse and the stockpile of individual isotopes,” according to DOE. 

Certain programs are self-funded, such as the Bonneville Power Administration, which provides hydropower in the Columbia River Basin of the Pacific Northwest.

Environmental Protection Agency 

EPA, according to its contingency plan, will have the biggest percentage of federal employees furloughed. Nearly 90% of its workforce, or 13,400 out of 15,000, will be furloughed. 

Only agency activities that revolve around protecting human life, such as monitoring some Superfund sites and responding to emergency environmental disasters, will continue. 

Some EPA functions that will halt include issuing of new grants, publishing new research, pausing of cleanup of Superfund sites that don’t pose an imminent threat to human life, enforcement inspections and issuing of permits.

Health and Human Services Department 

The department, one of the larger ones within the executive branch that houses many of the country’s best-known public health agencies, has furloughed about 32,500 of its nearly 80,000 employees, according to its contingency plan.

Many of HHS’ activities fall under the life and property or even the national security exceptions during a funding lapse, though dozens of programs will still be affected.

HHS officials plan to ensure “minimal readiness” at the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response for “all hazards, including pandemic flu and hurricane responses.”

Certain employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will keep working, albeit without pay, to monitor for any disease outbreaks. But the contingency plan says the CDC’s “communication to the American public about health-related information will be hampered.”

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services plans to keep 3,300, or about 53%, of its employees during the shutdown in order to keep running core programs.

Since many of the country’s major health care programs are funded outside of the annual government funding process, they shouldn’t be affected by the shutdown, even though the employees who run the programs often rely on full-year or stopgap spending bills for their salaries.

CMS’ contingency plan says “the Medicare Program will continue during a lapse in appropriations” and that it has “sufficient funding for Medicaid to fund the first quarter of FY 2026,” which includes October, November and December.  

Additionally, it “will maintain the staff necessary to make payments to eligible states for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).”

Department of Housing and Urban Development 

The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s website opens with a message that reads: “The Radical Left in Congress shut down the government. HUD will use available resources to help Americans in need.”

The department says the majority of its annual grant programs, including those that provide for emergency housing for people experiencing homelessness and people living with HIV/AIDS, “continue to operate in States and local communities across the country when such grant funding has already been obligated.” 

The agency also said many of its programs “addressing imminent threats to the health and welfare of HUD tenants and children will continue where such grant funding has already been obligated before the lapse occurs.”  

For as long as the funding remains available, “monthly subsidy programs such as the public housing operating subsidies, housing choice voucher subsidies, and multifamily assistance contracts will continue to operate,” according to the department.  

However, the agency said nearly all of its “fair housing activities” will halt during the shutdown. 

Internal Revenue Service 

The Internal Revenue Service will continue normal operations using supplemental funding enacted under the Democrats’ 2022 budget reconciliation law, known as the Inflation Reduction Act.

The IRS will retain its 74,299 employees, according to the latest available shutdown contingency plan. 

The Trump administration has shrunk the IRS significantly this year, down from its roughly 95,000 employees, and has turned over the agency’s top leadership six times.

The agency processes about 180 million income tax returns each year.

The body that independently oversees the IRS will not operate at full capacity during the shutdown. Only 40% of employees in the department’s Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration will remain on, with a small fraction required to stay without pay if necessary, according to the agency’s plan.

As of Thursday afternoon Eastern time, the home page for that agency, tigta.gov, was blank except for the message “Due to a lack of apportionment of funds, this website is currently unavailable.”

Interior Department

A little more than half of the federal workforce for the Interior Department will be furloughed – 31,000 out of 58,600 employees – according to its contingency plan.

Some services within the agency will continue, such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ wildland fire management, but programs that provide social services to foster children and residential adults will pause.

As for national parks, the trails, open memorials and overlooks will generally remain open. The National Park Service will retain minimal staff to allow for visitors. But general maintenance, trash pick-up and educational programs, will cease during the shutdown. 

Hunters or people seeking access to public lands will not be able to have their permits processed by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services. 

Justice Department

The Justice Department will keep a majority of its federal workers during the shutdown, according to its contingency plan. Out of roughly 110,000 employees, nearly 13,000 will be furloughed. 

Because the judicial branch will continue to function, the Justice Department will retain most of its attorneys for criminal and civil litigation. Federal law enforcement agencies and their agents will continue to work, such as the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. 

A shutdown typically means that immigration cases would be rescheduled and courts not located in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center will be shut down. But the Trump administration has prioritized the Executive Office for Immigration Review, housed within the Department of Justice, as essential. 

The contingency plan points to the president’s national emergency, “citing the threat to the national security and economy of the United States caused by illegal migration.”

Labor Department 

More than 75% of the Department of Labor’s employees will be furloughed, according to the agency’s contingency plan. 

Several units will come to a halt, such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Veterans’ Employment and Training Service, Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, Office of Disability Employment Policy, Women’s Bureau, Office of Administrative Law Judges, Administrative Review Board, and Benefits Review Board, as well as the Employees’ Compensation Appeals Board.

The agency said it will continue to support states and other agencies when it comes to administering and paying unemployment insurance benefits. 

The department notes that “unless excepted or exempt, agencies’ technical assistance, compliance assistance, regulatory, policy, research, advisories, responding to inquiries, most oversight, hearing preparation, and cooperative activities will cease.”

Job Corps centers that house students “will remain in operation while funds remain available,” and “federal oversight of those centers related to safety and property will continue,” per the department. 

Homeland Security Department 

Homeland Security will retain most of its workforce without pay. About 14,000 employees will be furloughed among its nearly 272,000 workforce, according to its contingency plan. 

That means ports of entry will remain open for inspections from Customs and Border Protection, but there could be delays in paperwork at U.S. borders. 

Most federal workers responsible for security at airports across the country – more than 61,000 Transportation Security Administration employees – would be required to work without pay. 

Another agency within DHS that will remain most of its workforce is the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA. About 21,000 employees out of 24,000 will continue to work. 

The office involved in departmental oversight, the Office of Inspector General, will pause its work on reports and investigations. 

And the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown will continue, with nearly all employees from Immigration and Customs Enforcement considered non-exempt, about 19,600 out of 21,000.

Several agencies within the Department of Homeland Security will remain running because they are fee-based, such as U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Some visa programs within USCIS are tied to appropriations funding, so those programs will be suspended. 

That includes E-Verify, which verifies immigration status; visas for foreign doctors; and visas for non-minister religious workers. 

State Department 

A little more than half the employees in the State Department will be furloughed, about 16,600 out of its nearly 27,000-employee workforce, according to its contingency plan.

Because visa and passport services are fee-funded, they will likely not be impacted. Consular operations will be affected and diplomatic visas will only be issued in “life or death” emergencies.

Social Security Administration 

The program for America’s seniors and some people with disabilities is largely funded outside of the annual government spending process, which makes it mostly exempt from shutdowns. 

One big caveat is that the federal workers who administer the program are paid through one of the 12 congressional appropriations bills, which can cause issues during a funding lapse. 

SSA’s contingency plan says it will furlough about 6,200 of its nearly 52,000 employees until the government is fully operational again. 

The agency plans to continue “accurate and timely payment of benefits” as well as taking applications, requests for appeal, issuing and replacing Social Security cards and fraud prevention activities, among others. 

The SSA during the lapse will not conduct certain activities, including benefits verification, replacement of Medicare cards, or addressing overpayments processing during the funding lapse. 

Transportation Department

Slightly more than 11,000 of the department’s nearly 45,000 employees will be furloughed for the remainder of the government shutdown, but its leaders plan to keep several activities essential for the traveling public going during a shutdown, according to its contingency plan.

Air traffic control services and hiring, hazardous materials safety inspections, airport inspections and much more will continue, though many activities will cease. 

Some agencies within the Transportation Department will see little impact on their staffing, even though workers will not be paid until the shutdown ends. 

For example, no one at the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Federal Transit Administration, or the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation will be furloughed. 

Treasury Department 

The department has individual contingency plans for its various components, including departmental offices, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the Internal Revenue Service, the Office of the Inspector General and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

Treasury officials expect to keep about 1,850 of its more than 2,700 employees working in the departmental offices without pay during the shutdown, in part to “support the president” with “market and economic updates, economic policy options and recommendations, including those related to national security incidents.”

The Office of Inspector General, which oversees officials’ actions for waste, fraud and abuse, will keep about 30 of its roughly 150 employees working throughout the shutdown and furlough the rest. 

Department of Veterans Affairs

Large parts of the Department of Veterans Affairs, including the processing and payout of benefits, are funded outside of the annual appropriations process and will continue through the shutdown.

The department projects 97% of its staff will continue to work, and most will be paid, according to its latest publicly available shutdown contingency plan. 

Health care will continue uninterrupted at VA medical centers and outpatient clinics, and vets will still receive benefits, including compensation, pension, education and housing.

Veterans suicide prevention and homelessness programs will remain in operation, and the Veterans Crisis Line will continue to answer calls. The crisis line can be reached by dialing 988 followed by pressing 1, or by texting 838255.

The MyVA411 and PACT Act call centers will operate “as necessary to prevent disruption to mandatory VA benefit programs,” according to the department’s guide.

The National Cemetery Administration will continue to inter veterans and eligible family members, as well as schedule burials, determine eligibility and process headstone applications. However, headstone and marker installation and groundskeeping will cease, and the application assistance unit call center will be closed.

All Transition Assistance Programs, including career and financial counseling, are suspended, and the GI Bill hotline is not taking calls. 

The department’s whistleblower program is also not accepting or investigating complaints. 

Executive Office of the President

The first Trump administration posted a contingency plan in March 2018, though it doesn’t appear there is a current one and the White House did not respond to a request from States Newsroom about how it’s implementing the shutdown. 

The earlier three-page plan said the president planned to place “1068 of the 1759 EOP staff in furlough status (“Non-Excepted Staff’), while an estimated 691 EOP staff would continue to report to duty.”

President Donald Trump continues to be paid during a shutdown, as are members of Congress, under the law.

Judicial branch 

The Supreme Court will remain functioning during the shutdown, as well as the federal courts. 

By using court fees, the judiciary branch can continue with paid operations until Oct. 17, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Most proceedings and deadlines set in cases will continue, but if Department of Justice attorneys representing the executive branch are furloughed, then those cases will be rescheduled. 

Supreme Court judges and federal judges will continue to be paid due to Article III of the U.S. Constitution that specifies judge’s compensation “shall not be diminished” during their term. 

A closed sign is seen on the Washington Monument on Oct. 1, 2025 in Washington, D.C. The federal government shut down many operations overnight after Congress failed to pass a stopgap funding bill. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday the administration is looking for ways to get a handful of additional U.S. Senate Democrats to vote for Republicans’ stopgap spending bill to reopen government. 

But, in the meantime, White House officials plan to lay off federal workers en masse, a dramatic and unsettling step that’s not traditionally been taken during past shutdowns. 

“We’re going to have to take extraordinary measures to ensure the people’s government operates — again not perfectly because it’s not going to operate perfectly in the midst of a shutdown — but operates as well as it possibly can,” Vance said.

Any Democrats concerned about the impacts of layoffs on federal programs or people’s lives, Vance said, should vote to advance a seven-week stopgap spending bill that has stalled in the Senate.  Senate and House Democrats say they will not support a GOP path to reopen the government unless Republicans agree to negotiate on rising health care costs. 

Typically during a shutdown, some federal employees are categorized as exempt, meaning they work throughout the funding lapse. Others are furloughed. All receive back pay once Congress funds the government, under a 2019 law.  

Widescale layoffs were not part of the 2013 shutdown or the 2018-2019 shutdown that took place during the first Trump administration. 

Vance during the White House briefing placed blame for the shutdown on Democrats, as the Trump administration ramped up similar rhetoric, including on government agency websites that said the “radical left in Congress” is at fault.

“Three moderate Democrats joined 52 Republicans last night. We need five more in order to reopen the government and that’s really where we’re going to focus, is how to get those five additional Democrats,” Vance said. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during the same briefing that layoffs for federal employees are “imminent” but declined to say what percentage of workers would be let go or share any other details. 

Leavitt indicated that White House budget director Russ Vought would release those details “soon,” saying she didn’t want to get ahead of that office.  

“These (Reductions in Force) are unfortunately going to have to happen very soon,” Leavitt said. 

Effects on key programs

The administration expects several programs will be impacted by the shutdown, including new enrollees in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC. 

Leavitt said the funding lapse means “1.3 million active duty troops will work now without pay; critical food assistance for low-income women, infants and children will now lapse, no new mothers or children are allowed to join this critical program because of the Democrats’ decision to shut down the government; telehealth services for seniors and in-home treatment options for Medicare patients will now come to an end; nearly 50,000 members of the United States Coast Guard are going to have to work unpaid; over 13,000 air traffic controllers will work without pay as well as TSA agents, which will very likely create flight disruptions; and pay will now stop for over 150,000 federal law enforcement officers. 

“These are not just numbers and statistics, these are real Americans who have families at home. And I saw some Democrat members today saying they’re still going to accept their paychecks because they have three kids at home and they have mouths to feed. Well, so do these federal workers.”

Members of Congress, the president and federal judges must receive their salary under various provisions in the Constitution. While some lawmakers have publicly asked for their paychecks to be withheld until the government reopens, that’s not a legal option. 

They could, however, donate their salaries to charity, which they can do regardless of whether the government is shut down.  

‘Mafia-style threat’

The threat to fire federal workers en masse has already prompted a lawsuit in a Northern California district court, arguing the executive branch has no statutory authority to fire federal workers during a government shutdown.

There were roughly 2.2 million federal workers throughout the country as of July 1, with large portions of them living in California, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Texas and Virginia. Roughly 30% of the workforce is made up of veterans. 

Maryland’s Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen told States Newsroom on Wednesday morning that his office has not heard of any federal workers in his state being fired, and even if it were the case, “it’s illegal.” 

“The president has no additional authority, in a shutdown, to fire people,” Van Hollen said. “This is just a mafia-style threat and blackmail.”

He didn’t detail what plans Democrats have to prevent those potential firings, but called them unlawful and pointed to the lawsuit filed in California by labor unions representing more than 1 million federal employees. Those unions are the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner made similar remarks, saying “the president has no enhanced powers during the shutdown so his ability to randomly and arbitrarily fire is not enhanced.”

North Dakota Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer said Democrats “don’t have the high ground in this situation” and need to pass the GOP stopgap bill so that the government can reopen. 

But Cramer said he’s concerned the White House budget office will go too far in implementing a shutdown, including mass layoffs, and could create challenges for Republican lawmakers. 

“I worry a little bit that they could be counterproductive for us politically in the long run, because other things are going to require 60 votes again,” Cramer said.

Legislation needs the support of at least 60 senators to advance toward final passage, a rule that typically leads to compromise and bipartisanship in that chamber. 

Sen. Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, said he hopes lawmakers can strike a deal to prevent the Trump administration from firing more federal workers. He said Congress has specifically carved out protections for federal workers, such as in 2019 when lawmakers included a provision to give back pay to furloughed federal workers.  

“So it used to be we had to fight about back pay after the shutdown,” he said. “Now everybody’s guaranteed back pay, so they have that as a backstop that they can count (on).”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said during a press conference Wednesday President Donald Trump’s administration “has been engaging in” the mass firings of federal workers since Trump took office on Jan 20.

“The Trump administration has been killing jobs,” the New York Democrat said. “This is a job-killing administration. Job creation is down, but you know what’s up? Costs. They promised to lower costs on day one. Costs aren’t going down. Costs are going up.” 

Here are department shutdown plans

The Trump administration has been steadily posting its plans for how many federal workers in each department will keep working without pay during a shutdown and which employees will be furloughed. 

The plans, listed below, also detail which programs the Trump administration believes it can legally continue during a funding lapse without violating federal law. 

They do not explain how many federal workers could be laid off and the White House declined to provide additional details about those plans or whether they’ll be posted publicly following the briefing, 

• Agriculture Department contingency plan
• Commerce Department contingency plan
• Defense Department contingency plan
• Education Department contingency plan
• Energy Department contingency plan
• Health and Human Services contingency plan
• Homeland Security Department contingency plan
• Housing and Urban Development contingency plan
• Interior Department contingency plan
• Labor Department contingency plan
• Justice Department contingency plan
• State Department contingency plan
• Social Security Administration contingency plan
• Transportation Department contingency plan
• Treasury Department contingency plan
• Veterans Affairs Department contingency plan

Attack banners

The Trump administration has taken a new approach to letting people visiting their websites know about the shutdown, adding banners laying the blame at Democrats’ feet. 

The Agriculture Department’s website states that “(d)ue to the Radical Left Democrat shutdown, this government website will not be updated during the funding lapse. President Trump has made it clear he wants to keep the government open and support those who feed, fuel, and clothe the American people.”

The website for the Department of Housing and Urban Development includes a pop-up and a banner on the homepage that reads, “The Radical Left in Congress shut down the government. HUD will use available resources to help Americans in need.”

The Defense Department had a more measured message: “The most recent appropriations for the Department of War expired at 11:59 p.m. EDT on Sept. 30, 2025. Military personnel will continue in a normal duty status, without pay, until such time as a continuing resolution or appropriations are passed by Congress and signed into law. Civilian personnel not engaged in excepted activities will be placed in a non-work, non-pay status.”

The message posted by the Department of Health and Human Services was similar. 

“Mission-critical activities of HHS will continue during the Democrat-led government shutdown. Please use this site as a resource as the Trump Administration works to reopen the government for the American people.”

The messages could be in violation of a longstanding rider in federal spending law that states “(n)o part of any funds appropriated in this or any other Act shall be used by an agency of the executive branch … to support or defeat legislation pending before the Congress, except in presentation to the Congress itself.” 

Shauneen Miranda contributed to this report.

The U.S. Capitol on the evening of Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025, just hours before a federal government shutdown. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Democrats and Republicans remained at a stalemate Wednesday as government offices closed and hundreds of thousands of federal workers faced furloughs on the first day of a government shutdown that showed no sign of ending.

Proposals from each side of the aisle to fund and reopen the government failed again during morning Senate votes, mirroring the same vote breakdowns as Tuesday evening, when lawmakers could not reach a deal hours before the government ran out of money.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected up to 750,000 federal workers could be furloughed, leading to a $400 million per day impact on the economy.

Locked in their positions, Republicans failed to pick up enough Democrats to reach the 60 votes needed to advance their plan to fund the government until Nov. 21. 

Senators will break Thursday to observe Yom Kippur but will return Friday to again vote on the funding proposals.

Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, along with independent Angus King of Maine, again joined Republicans in the 55-45 vote for the House-passed stopgap spending bill. GOP Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky voted no.

Democrats also failed to find support to move forward their bill to fund the government through Oct. 31, roll back GOP cuts on Medicaid and permanently extend subsidies that tie the cost of Affordable  Care Act health insurance premiums to an enrollee’s income level. 

The Democrats failed to advance their plan in a party-line 47-53 vote. King, who caucuses with Democrats, voted in favor.

Shutdown tied to health care tax credits

Senate and House Democrats say they will not support a GOP path to reopen the government unless Republicans agree to negotiate on rising health care costs. 

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said at a press conference that Democrats are “ready to sit down with anyone at any time and at any place in order now to reopen the government, to enact a spending agreement that meets the needs of the American people and to address the devastating Republican health care crisis that has caused extraordinary harm on people all across the country.”

The New York Democrat pointed to harms in “rural America, working class America, urban America, small-town America, the heartland of America and Black and brown communities throughout America.” 

Democratic leaders blitzed Capitol Hill with their message on health care, holding press conferences and attending an evening rally Tuesday on the lawn outside the U.S. House. 

They pointed to new data published this week showing annual insurance premiums could double on average in 2026 if the subsidies expire at year’s end, according to an analysis from the nonprofit health policy research organization KFF. 

Open enrollment for next year’s ACA health insurance plans opens Nov. 1 in most states, and Oct. 15 in Idaho.

Uptake of ACA health insurance plans has more than doubled to over 24 million, up from 11 million, since the introduction of the subsidies in 2021, according to KFF. 

During their own budget reconciliation deal in 2022, Democrats extended the insurance premium tax credits until the end of 2025. The majority of ACA enrollees currently rely on the credits.

Democrats also want assurances that the White House and Senate Republicans will not cancel any more funds that have already been approved by Congress, as was the case this year when the administration and GOP lawmakers stripped funding for medical research, foreign aid and public broadcasting, among other areas.

‘This can all end today’

GOP leaders in the House and Senate continued to blame Senate Democrats for the government shutdown at the expense of furloughed federal workers and Americans who rely on their services. 

At a Wednesday morning press conference, House Speaker Mike Johnson said “troops and border patrol agents will have to go to work, but they’ll be working without pay.”

Johnson also claimed at the press conference that veterans benefits would stop. The claim is false, as Veterans Administration medical care will continue uninterrupted and vets will also continue to receive benefits, including compensation, pension, education and housing.

“As we speak here this morning, there are hundreds of thousands of federal workers who are getting their furlough notices. Nearly half of our civilian workforce is being sent home — these are hard-working Americans who work for our federal government,” the Louisiana Republican said, flanked by fellow GOP leaders on the Upper West Terrace of the U.S. Capitol overlooking the National Mall. 

Johnson decided in late September the House will be out until Oct. 6, canceling this week’s votes. 

The speaker said he will bring House members back next week, even if the government is still shut down.

“They would be here this week, except that we did our work — we passed the bill almost two weeks ago out of the House, sent it to the Senate,” Johnson said. “The ball is literally in (Senate Minority Leader) Chuck Schumer’s court, so he determines that.” 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said “this can all end today” and “needs to end today.”

The South Dakota Republican said the funding lapse can cease when Senate Democrats vote for the GOP’s “clean” short-term funding bill. 

“We will continue to work together with our House counterparts, with the president of the United States, to get this government open again on behalf of the American people,” Thune said. 

Bipartisan deal and Trump

Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said later in the day that a bipartisan group huddled on the floor during votes to talk about a possible path forward on “health care fixes” and ensuring that if a bipartisan deal is brokered, the Trump administration will stick to it. 

Republican senators, he said, could give Democrats assurances they won’t vote for any more rescissions requests from the White House, which ask Congress to cancel already approved government spending. But other issues, like laying off federal workers by the hundreds or thousands, have to be a promise from the president. 

“If I find a deal, should Congress have to follow it? Yes. Should the president have to follow it? Yes. Well, what if the president won’t follow it? Oh, yeah, you got a problem,” Kaine said. “So you know, rescission, impoundment, those are Senate words. But a deal is a deal — people get that.”

Kaine also emphasized that it’s not a “clean” stopgap funding bill if the Trump administration unilaterally cancels some of the spending. 

“In the past, we voted for clean (continuing resolutions), but the president has shown that he’ll take the money back,” Kaine said, referring to the technical name for a short-term funding bill. “I mean, just in Virginia, canceling $400 million to our public health, $40 million economic projects just pulled off the table, firing more Virginians than any president. 

“So we just want you to agree, if we do a deal, then you’ll honor the deal,” Kaine said. “It’s not that much to ask.”

‘People are suffering’

North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said he doesn’t expect the shutdown will have long-term ramifications for senators’ ability to negotiate bipartisan deals — a necessity in the upper chamber, which has a 60-vote threshold to advance legislation. 

“It’s all transactional,” Tillis said. “I think there’s going to be opportunities for some bipartisan work, but none of that happens, you can’t even really consider it when you’re in a shutdown posture.”

Cortez Masto, who voted to advance Republicans’ seven-week stopgap bill, said the GOP “created this crisis” on health care and “need to address it.”

“They have no moral standing — no moral standing —- to say that this is all on the Democrats. They are in control. They’ve created this crisis,” Cortez Masto said. “People are suffering and they need to come to the table.” 

Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, who was sworn in for the first time during the last shutdown, said he worries about longer-term effects. 

“My concern is it’s going to poison the well on negotiations going forward on a lot of things,” Hawley said. “I can’t speak for anybody but myself, but I would just say that these tactics are very destructive. And it’s destructive, not just for relationships, but for real people.”

Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., speaks to the media at the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 30, 2025 in Washington, D.C. Thune was joined by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., and Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

This report has been updated.

WASHINGTON — The federal government started shutting down early Wednesday after Congress failed to approve a funding bill before the beginning of the new fiscal year — resulting in widespread ramifications for hundreds of programs and giving the Trump administration an avenue to fire federal workers en masse.

The U.S. Senate was unable to advance two short-term government funding bills Tuesday when Democrats and Republicans deadlocked for the second time this month, with just hours to go before the midnight Tuesday shutdown deadline.

Senators voted 55-45 on Republicans’ bill that would fund the government for seven weeks and 47-53 on a Democratic stopgap proposal that would keep the lights on for a month and included several health care provisions that they said were needed for their support. Neither had the 60 votes needed to advance. 

Nevada Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman and Maine independent Sen. Angus King voted with GOP senators on their stopgap bill. Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul voted against it.

White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought said in a memo to departments and agencies Tuesday night after the Senate vote that “affected agencies should now execute their plans for an orderly shutdown.” Vought said federal employees should report for their next regularly scheduled tour of duty to undertake shutdown activities.

The consequences of a shutdown will be sweeping in the nation’s capital and across the country, where states are bracing for the impact. About 750,000 federal workers could be furloughed, leading to a $400 million impact a day, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported. All federal employees would go unpaid until the shutdown is over.

Additionally, the Trump administration plans to lay off thousands of federal employees, which would reshape the federal workforce. President Donald Trump again vowed Tuesday to undertake layoffs and a major government employee union filed suit in federal court in advance of such a move.

More votes on GOP bill planned

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said hours before the votes there wouldn’t be any talks with Democrats during a shutdown. 

“The negotiation happens when the government is open. So let’s keep the government open and then we will have the negotiations,” Thune said. 

“We’re happy to sit down and talk about these issues that they’re interested in,” he said. “But it should not have anything to do with whether or not for a seven-week period we keep the government open, so that this government can continue to do its work and that we can do our work through the regular appropriations process to fund the government.” 

After the votes failed, Thune expressed his frustration with Democrats during a press conference. 

“This is so unnecessary and uncalled for,” he said. 

Thune said he plans to bring up a vote on the continuing resolution again. He said as soon as Wednesday the federal government can be funded if five Democrats voted with Republicans. 

“Democrats may have chosen to shut down the government, but we can reopen it tomorrow,” Thune said. 

Republican Whip John Barrasso of Wyoming said the “cracks in the Democrats are already showing,” noting that three Democrats voted with Republicans Tuesday night. 

“There is bipartisan support for keeping the government open,” Barrasso said. “We’re happy to see that the Democrats are already starting to break from (Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer) and we’re going to continue to offer a clean (continuing resolution) on the floor of the Senate to open the government for the next seven weeks.”

Health care tax credits at center of standoff

The disagreement isn’t entirely about GOP lawmakers writing their short-term funding bill behind closed doors and then expecting Democrats to help advance it in the Senate, where bipartisanship is required for major legislation.

Democratic leaders have raised concerns for weeks about the end-of-year sunset of enhanced tax credits for people who buy their health insurance on the Affordable Care Act Marketplace, arguing a solution is needed now ahead of the open enrollment period starting on Nov. 1. 

Democrats have also grown increasingly frustrated with the White House budget office’s unilateral actions on spending, arguing Vought is significantly eroding Congress’ constitutional power of the purse. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the Republican chairwoman of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, said Tuesday the Government Accountability Office should sue the Trump administration over its efforts to freeze or unilaterally cancel spending approved by Congress. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats need an agreement with Republicans to extend the enhanced tax credits. 

Schumer said people will begin getting notices in October telling them how much the cost of their ACA plans will increase during the next year, which he expects will ratchet up pressure on Republican leaders to broker a bipartisan agreement. 

“We’re going to be right there explaining to them it’s because the Republicans wouldn’t negotiate with us,” Schumer said, referring to consumers. “We’re ready to do it anytime. And there will be huge heat on (Republicans) on this issue.”

People who buy health insurance on the ACA marketplace and receive subsidies through enhanced ACA tax credits could expect to pay on average more than double for annual premiums in 2026 if the credits expire as scheduled at the end of this year, according to an analysis released Tuesday by the nonprofit health policy research organization KFF. 

The analysis found premiums could increase from an average of $888 this year to $1,904 in 2026.

Claims about immigrants 

Schumer also rebuffed GOP leaders saying that Democrats want to include people without legal immigration status in federal health care programs. 

“They say that undocumented people are going to get these credits. That is absolutely false. That is one of the big lies they tell, so they don’t have to discuss the issues,” Schumer said. “The federal government by law that we passed does not fund health insurance for undocumented immigrants in Medicaid, nor the ACA nor Medicare. Undocumented immigrants do not get federal health insurance premiums.” 

Immigrants in the country without legal authorization are not eligible for Medicaid, and neither are most immigrants with legal status, such as those with student visas or enrollment in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA. 

Only immigrants with a “qualified status,” such as legal permanent residents, asylees and refugees, are able to get Medicaid benefits, and they usually have to wait five years before their coverage can even begin. 

Democrats explain why they voted with GOP 

Cortez Masto of Nevada wrote in a statement explaining her vote to advance the GOP stopgap bill that she could not support “a costly shutdown that would hurt Nevada families and hand even more power to this reckless administration.”

“We need a bipartisan solution to address this impending health care crisis, but we should not be swapping the pain of one group of Americans for another,” she added. “I remain focused on protecting health care for working families, and I call on my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to work together to tackle this problem.”

Pennsylvania’s Fetterman wrote in a statement of his own that his vote on the Republican bill “was for our country over my party.

“Together, we must find a better way forward.”

Collins said during a brief interview before the vote she is worried about the broad authority the White House holds during a shutdown and how the Office of Management and Budget has indicated it will use that power. 

“I’m much more concerned about OMB sending signals that there should be mass firings of federal employees who have the misfortune to be designated as non-essential, when in fact they’re performing very essential work, they’re just not being paid,” Collins said.  

North Dakota Republican Sen. John Hoeven, chairman of the Agriculture spending subcommittee, said lawmakers will have to sort through how various departments implement their contingency plans as well as the possibility of mass layoffs during a shutdown. 

“We’ll have to work through those things and figure out how we do keep things going as best we can during this Democrat shutdown,” Hoeven said.

West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said Republicans are “unified in the belief that this is an easy choice” to fund the government with a stopgap bill that doesn’t include any contentious or political provisions. 

Capito — who chairs the Appropriations subcommittee that funds the departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Labor — said there are several programs that will be “missed” during a shutdown. 

“And that’s concerning. So I think the option is to keep the government open so we can avoid this pain,” Capito said. 

‘I’m not optimistic that we’re going to get a path forward’

Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley said he is worried about the possible impacts of a shutdown on his home state and that keeping the government open is the only way to avoid that.  

“I’m sure the administration will do everything they can,” Hawley said. “But the solution is to not shut the government down. I mean, why would you punish working people because you’re not getting what you want on any issue, whatever it is.”

South Dakota Republican Sen. Mike Rounds said he doesn’t expect a shutdown will end until after Democrats have sent a message to their voters. 

“I’m not optimistic that we’re going to get a path forward until they’ve had a shutdown,” he said. 

Rounds, who negotiated a handshake agreement with the White House budget director this summer to preserve some funding for rural tribal radio stations after Congress eliminated funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, said that deal could be affected by a shutdown. 

“They’re putting the administration in a position where they can pick and choose what they’re going to do, and a shutdown is not going to be beneficial to these Native American radio stations,” Rounds said. 

Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan said she wants Democrats and Republicans to negotiate on health care provisions.

“I’ve been making the case constantly, that (it) is literally my obligation to try and fight for health care, and I’m willing to talk to anyone,” she said. “I’m willing to accept that I certainly will not get everything I want.”

Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois said that while Democrats agreed to help advance what’s known as a continuing resolution in March, they can’t now because of “what President Trump is doing to this country, particularly when it comes to health care costs for families.”  

The shutdown will significantly affect the operations of the federal government as lawmakers have not passed any of the dozen full-year appropriations bills that finance agency operations. Oct. 1 is the beginning of the new fiscal year for the federal government.

Shutdown plan for national parks

Departments began releasing updated contingency plans this weekend, detailing how many of their employees would work during a government shutdown and how many would be furloughed.

The Interior Department, which includes the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service, posted its updated plans late Tuesday. 

The National Park Service plans to furlough 9,300 of its 14,500 workers. 

The Trump administration will allow several activities necessary for the protection of life or property to continue, including fire suppression for active fires, permitting and monitoring First Amendment activities, border and coastal protection and surveillance, and law enforcement and emergency response.

The contingency plan says that roads, lookouts, trails, and open-air memorials will generally remain accessible to visitors,” but it adds that if “access becomes a safety, health or resource protection issue … the area must be closed.”

Union files suit

In anticipation of layoffs by the Trump administration, labor unions representing more than 1 million federal workers filed a lawsuit in the Northern District of California on Tuesday to block the Trump administration from carrying out mass firings. The suit argues that there is no statutory authority to fire federal employees during a government shutdown.

“These actions are contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious, and the cynical use of federal employees as a pawn in Congressional deliberations should be declared unlawful and enjoined by this Court,” according to the suit filed by the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Ashley Murray and Shauneen Miranda contributed to this report. 

U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, speaks with reporters inside the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., on Monday, Sept. 29, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The chairwoman of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee said Tuesday the Government Accountability Office should sue the Trump administration over its efforts to freeze or unilaterally cancel spending approved by Congress. 

“I believe that GAO, which is empowered under the Impoundment and Budget Control Act of 1974 to sue in cases, should do so,” Sen. Susan Collins said. “The GAO has found seven instances in which the (impoundments) violate the act and it has standing to sue.”

Collins, R-Maine, also told reporters that she doesn’t agree with the Supreme Court’s decision last week on its emergency docket that allows the Trump administration to cancel $4 billion in foreign aid. 

“I disagree with the Supreme Court’s temporary decision, but it was not a decision that delved into the merits of the case,” Collins said. “That’s yet to come.”

Collins, one of the more vocal members of her party over preserving Congress’ constitutional power of the purse, said “Well, let’s see,” when asked if she expects the GAO, a government watchdog agency, would win a lawsuit over the Trump administration impounding funds. 

The GAO and White House budget office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Funds frozen for libraries, medical research, FEMA

Republicans in Congress have been either supportive or relatively quiet about the Trump administration’s efforts to freeze or cancel funding approved by Congress. 

The GAO has cited the Trump administration for illegally impounding funding for electric vehicle charging, museums and libraries, Head Start, energy efficiency upgrades in K-12 schools, funding for medical research at the National Institutes of Health and funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. 

Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., released a statement earlier this week rebuking the Trump administration’s actions after the GAO released its seventh impoundment decision. 

“Today, we have another stark reminder of how President Trump’s lawless assault on our spending laws is hurting real people in every part of the country—as funding is held up to address homelessness, prepare for disasters, and much more,” Murray wrote. “It is time for Republicans to join us in insisting that every last penny that is owed to the American people gets out to the American people.”

The U.S. Capitol is seen behind a barricade on Sept. 30, 2025 in Washington, DC. If lawmakers fail to reach a bipartisan compromise on the funding bill, the federal government shutdown will begin at midnight. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A government shutdown could have significant economic consequences, though an analysis released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said it’s difficult to pinpoint ramifications without knowing the length of a funding lapse or how exactly the Trump administration will try to reshape the federal workforce. 

Director Phillip L. Swagel wrote in a four-page letter the agency projects about 750,000 federal workers would be furloughed, leading to a $400 million impact per day. 

“The number of furloughed employees could vary by the day because some agencies might furlough more employees the longer a shutdown persists and others might recall some initially furloughed employees,” Swagel wrote. 

New plans from the Trump administration to lay off federal employees en masse, he wrote, could significantly change those calculations. 

The economic impacts and ramifications for business activity are hard to predict, he wrote, because it’s not yet clear how exactly the Trump administration will handle a shutdown or how long it will take congressional leaders to broker a stopgap funding agreement. 

The partial government shutdown that began in December 2018 and lasted through January 2019 led to a loss of about $3 billion in gross domestic product that couldn’t be recovered, according to a prior CBO analysis that was referenced in the letter. 

That represented about 0.02% of annual GDP in 2019. 

Swagel wrote the “effects of a government shutdown on business activity are uncertain, and their magnitude would depend on the duration of a shutdown and on decisions made by the Administration. 

“CBO expects that if a government shutdown persisted for several weeks, some private-sector entities would never recover all of the income they lost as a result of the suspension of federal activity.”

CBO conducted the analysis after receiving a request from Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst. 

Thune, Schumer debate shutdown on Senate floor

A government shutdown will begin Wednesday unless congressional leaders broker a stopgap funding agreement before the new fiscal year starts. 

That seemed like a long shot early Tuesday afternoon as Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., engaged in a brief debate on the floor, a rarity. 

Thune said Democrats would have the same leverage on health care issues they have now in mid-November, when the stopgap spending bill that passed the House but stalled in the Senate would expire. 

“They will have another funding cliff they can take advantage of come November the 21st,” Thune said. “This funds the government and protects federal workers and the American people from the hostage-taking that has become, evidently, now the Democratic norm. Even though it’s something they decried not that many years ago.”

Thune told reporters afterward the chamber would likely be out of session for Yom Kippur, which begins shortly before sunset on Wednesday and continues until Thursday night, but would otherwise hold votes during a shutdown.

“We will observe the Jewish holiday, but I would expect additional votes throughout the week,” Thune said. “I mean, we filed last night on a whole new bunch of (nominees) and I would expect additional votes on funding the government.”

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., canceled the House’s schedule for this week and doesn’t plan for that chamber to go back into session until Oct. 6 at the earliest.

Meeting breaks up with no deal

Congressional leaders, including Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, met with President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday, but were unable to make progress toward a stopgap funding agreement.

Schumer said on the Senate floor Tuesday that Democrats need a deal with GOP leaders to extend the enhanced tax credits for people who buy their health insurance on the Affordable Care Act Marketplace, which are set to expire at the end of the year. 

“In a day or two, millions of Americans — millions — are going to get notices that their insurance premiums will rise an average of $400 a month, $5,000 a year,” Schumer said. “A middle-class family can’t afford that. We want to renew those credits, among other things in health care. But renew those credits so that people won’t pay that horrible increase.”

Schumer called Republican assertions that Democrats want immigrants without legal status to have access to federal health care programs, like Medicare and Medicaid, “utter bull.”

“There is no money, not a penny of federal dollars that are going there. So why do they bring this up? Because they’re afraid to talk about the real issue, which is health care for American citizens, health care for people who need the health care and can’t afford these premiums,” Schumer said.

Without a new funding law before the start of the fiscal year at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, the government will begin shutting down.

The ramifications will be significantly broader than the 35-day shutdown that took place during Trump’s first term, when five of the dozen full-year government spending bills had become law.

That isn’t the case this time around and a shutdown is expected to affect every department and agency to varying degrees.

‘They’re taking a risk’

White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought has also called on Trump administration officials to implement mass layoffs during a prolonged funding lapse.

Trump said during a press conference in the Oval Office on Tuesday that he didn’t want a shutdown but that his administration might take sweeping action to restructure the federal government if one does begin. 

“We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them and irreversible by them, like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like,” Trump said, referring to Democrats. “So they’re taking a risk by having a shutdown, because because of the shutdown, we can do things medically and other ways, including benefits.”

A U.S. Department of Education employee leaves the building with their belongings on March 20, 2025 in Washington, D.C., amid mass layoffs.  (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration began posting plans over the weekend that detail how hundreds of thousands of federal workers will be furloughed during a government shutdown, while others will keep working without being paid. 

The updated guidance gives the clearest picture yet into how President Donald Trump and White House budget director Russ Vought hope to reduce the size and scope of government when given increased authority over the federal workforce during a funding lapse. 

A shutdown will begin Wednesday unless Republicans and Democrats in Congress reach agreement on a stopgap spending bill. Congressional leaders were set to meet Monday afternoon with Trump, but it was unclear if any agreement would result that would avert a shutdown.

The Defense Department’s plan shows it would keep about 406,500 of its 741,500 civilian employees working without pay during the shutdown, with the remaining going on furlough. 

The nearly 2.1 million military personnel housed within the department would continue to work throughout a shutdown but would not be paid until after it ends. 

The plan says the Defense Department believes operations to secure the U.S. southern border, Middle East operations, Golden Dome for America defense system, depot maintenance, shipbuilding and critical munitions are the “highest priorities” in the event of a shutdown. 

Medical and dental services, including private sector care under the TRICARE health care program, would largely continue at the Defense Department, though “(e)lective surgery and other routine/elective procedures in DoW medical and dental facilities are generally not excepted activities, unless the deferral or delay of such procedures would impact personnel readiness or deployability.”

Thousands of workers to be sent home from HHS

The Health and Human Services Department plans to furlough about 32,500 of its nearly 80,000 employees during a shutdown. 

The various components of HHS — including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Food and Drug Administration, and National Institutes of Health — have individual plans for a shutdown. 

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services plans to retain 3,311, or 53%, of its employees during a shutdown and “will maintain the staff necessary to make payments to eligible states for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).”

The CDC plans to have 4,891, or 35.88%, of its employees as well as those at the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry keep working. 

The contingency plans says that “(r)esponses to urgent disease outbreaks and continuing efforts to support the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), World Trade Center (WTC) Health Program, the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA), and the Vaccines for Children (VFC) program” would continue during a shutdown. 

The CDC would not be able to undertake several other activities, including providing “guidance to state and local health departments implementing programs to protect the public’s health (e.g., opioid overdose prevention, HIV prevention, diabetes prevention).”

Departments with plans

Here is a list of the departments that have posted updated contingency plans in September:

• Defense Department contingency plan
• Education Department contingency plan
• Health and Human Services contingency plan
• Homeland Security Department contingency plan
• Labor Department contingency plan
• Justice Department contingency plan
• Social Security Administration contingency plan
• Treasury Department contingency plan

Here is a list of the departments that hadn’t posted updated contingency plans as of Monday afternoon:

• Agriculture Department contingency plan
• Commerce Department contingency plan
• Energy Department contingency plan
• Housing and Urban Development contingency plan
• Interior Department contingency plan
• State Department contingency plan
• Transportation Department contingency plan
• Veterans Affairs Department contingency plan

States Newsroom’s Washington, D.C. Bureau reached out to the  departments that didn’t have contingency plans posted to ask when those might become public.

A spokesperson for the USDA wrote in an email the department “is prepared for all contingencies regarding Department operations, including critical services and supports.” 

A State Department spokesperson said leadership “is undergoing all necessary planning efforts to sustain critical missions.”

Federal employees who work  without pay will be paid after the shutdown concludes. 

According to the Office of Personnel Management — the executive branch’s chief human resources agency — “after the lapse in appropriations has ended, employees who were furloughed as the result of the lapse will receive retroactive pay for those furlough periods.” 

The Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 requires furloughed government employees to receive back pay as a result of a government shutdown. 

That law does not apply to federal contractors, who face uncertainty in getting paid during a shutdown. 

Ashley Murray, Ariana Figueroa, Shauneen Miranda and Jacob Fischler contributed to this report.

The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., is pictured on Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Congress’ failure to pass a short-term government funding bill before midnight Tuesday will lead to the first shutdown in nearly seven years and give President Donald Trump broad authority to determine what federal operations keep running — which will have a huge impact on the government, its employees, states and Americans. 

A funding lapse this year would have a considerably wider effect than the 35-day one that took place during Trump’s first term and could last longer, given heightened political tensions. 

The last shutdown didn’t affect the departments of Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Labor and Veterans Affairs, since Congress had approved those agencies’ full-year funding bills.

Lawmakers had also enacted the Legislative Branch appropriations bill, exempting Capitol Hill from any repercussions. 

That isn’t the case this time around since none of the dozen government spending bills have become law. That means nearly every corner of the federal government will feel the pain in some way if a compromise isn’t reached by the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1. 

States Newsroom’s Washington, D.C. Bureau offers you a quick guide to what could happen if Republicans and Democrats don’t broker an agreement in time.

How does the White House budget office determine what government operations are essential during a shutdown?

Generally, federal programs that include the preservation of life or property as well as those addressing national security continue during a shutdown, while all other activities are supposed to cease until a funding bill becomes law. 

But the president holds expansive power to determine what activities within the executive branch are essential and which aren’t, making the effects of a shutdown hard to pinpoint unless the Trump administration shares that information publicly. 

Presidential administrations have traditionally posted contingency plans on the White House budget office’s website, detailing how each agency would shut down — explaining which employees are exempt and need to keep working, and which are furloughed. 

That appears to have changed this year. The web page that would normally host dozens of contingency plans remained blank until late September, when the White House budget office posted that a 940-page document released in August calls for the plans to be “hosted solely on each agency’s website.”

Only a few departments had plans from this year posted on their websites as of Friday afternoon.

The White House budget office expects agencies to develop Reduction in Force plans as part of their shutdown preparation, signaling a prolonged funding lapse will include mass firings and layoffs.

While the two-page memo doesn’t detail which agencies would be most affected, it says layoffs will apply to programs, projects, or activities that are “not consistent with the President’s priorities.”

Trump will be paid during a shutdown since Article II, Section 1, Clause 7 of the Constitution prevents the president’s salary from being increased or decreased during the current term.

No one else in the executive branch — including Cabinet secretaries, more than 2 million civilian employees and over 1 million active duty military personnel — will receive their paycheck until after the shutdown ends. 

Are federal courts exempt from a shutdown since they’re a separate branch of government?

The Supreme Court will continue to conduct normal operations in the event of a shutdown, according to its Public Information Office. 

The office said the court “will rely on permanent funds not subject to annual approval, as it has in the past, to maintain operations through the duration of short-term lapses of annual appropriations,” in a statement shared with States Newsroom. 

As for any impact on lower federal courts, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said the federal judiciary was still assessing the fiscal 2026 outlook and had no comment. 

The office serves as the central support arm of the federal judiciary. 

During the last government shutdown from late 2018 into early 2019, federal courts remained open using court fee balances and “no-year” funds, which are available for an indefinite period. 

The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts has said that if those funds run out, they would operate under the terms of the Anti-Deficiency Act, which “allows work to continue during a lapse in appropriations if it is necessary to support the exercise of Article III judicial powers.” 

Supreme Court justices and appointed federal judges continue to get paid during a government shutdown, as Article III of the Constitution says the judges’ compensation “shall not be diminished” during their term.

What happens to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid?

The three programs exist largely outside of the annual appropriations process, since lawmakers categorized them as “mandatory spending.” 

This means Social Security checks as well as reimbursements to health care providers for Medicare and Medicaid services should continue as normal.

One possible hitch is the salaries for people who run those programs are covered by annual appropriations bills, so there could be some staffing problems for the Social Security Administration and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, depending on their contingency plans. 

The first Trump administration’s shutdown guidance for the Social Security Administration showed 54,000 of 63,000 employees at that agency would have kept working. The CMS plan from 2020 shows that it intended to keep about 50% of its employees working in the event of a shutdown. Neither had a current plan as of Friday.

Will the Department of Veterans Affairs be able to keep providing health care and benefits?

Veterans can expect health care to continue uninterrupted at VA medical centers and outpatient clinics in the event of a shutdown. Vets would also continue to receive benefits, including compensation, pension, education and housing, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs contingency planning for a funding lapse that is currently published on the department’s website. It’s unclear if the plan will be the one the Trump administration puts into action.

But a shutdown would affect other VA services. For example, the GI Bill hotline would close, and all in-person and virtual career counseling and transition assistance services would be unavailable.

Additionally, all regional VA benefits offices would shutter until Congress agreed to fund the government. The closures would include the Manila Regional Office in the Philippines that serves veterans in the Pacific region.

All department public outreach to veterans would also cease.

Will Hubbard, spokesperson for Veterans Education Success, said his advocacy organization is bracing for increased phone calls and emails from veterans who would normally call the GI Bill hotline.

“Questions are going to come up, veterans are going to be looking for answers, and they’re not going to be able to call like they would be able to normally, that’s going to be a big problem,” Hubbard said.

“Most of the benefits that people are going to be most concerned about will not be affected, but the ones that do get affected, for the people that that hits, I mean, it’s going to matter a lot to them. It’s going to change the direction of their planning, and potentially the direction of their life,” Hubbard said.

The Department of Veterans Affairs and the Office of Management and Budget did not respond to a request for current VA shutdown guidance.

What happens to immigration enforcement and immigration courts? 

As the Trump administration continues with its aggressive immigration tactics in cities with high immigrant populations, that enforcement is likely to continue during a government shutdown, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s March guidance for operating in a government shutdown.

Immigration-related fees will continue, such as for processing visas and applications from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. 

And DHS expects nearly all of its U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees to be exempt — 17,500 out of 20,500 — and continue working without pay amid a government shutdown. 

That means that ICE officers will continue to arrest, detain and remove from the country immigrants without legal status. DHS is currently concentrating immigration enforcement efforts in Chicago, known as “Operation Midway Blitz.”

Other employees within DHS, such as those in Transportation Security Administration, will also be retained during a government shutdown. There are about 58,000 TSA employees that would be exempt and continue to work without pay in airports across the country.  

DHS did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for a contingency plan if there is a government shutdown.

Separately, a shutdown would also burden the overwhelmed immigration court system that is housed within the Department of Justice. It would lead to canceling or rescheduling court cases, when there is already a backlog of 3.4 million cases.

The only exceptions are immigration courts that are located within Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, detention centers, but most cases would need to be rescheduled. The partial government shutdown that began in December 2018 caused nearly 43,000 court cases to be canceled, according to a report by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC.

And 28 states have an immigration court, requiring some immigrants to travel hundreds, or thousands, of miles for their appointment. 

States that do not have an immigration court include Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Will people be able to visit national parks or use public lands during a shutdown? 

Probably, but that may be bad for parks’ long-term health.

During the 2018-2019 shutdown, the first Trump administration kept parks open, with skeleton staffs across the country struggling to maintain National Park Service facilities.

Theresa Pierno, the president and CEO of the advocacy group National Parks Conservation Association, said in a Sept. 23 statement the last shutdown devastated areas of some parks.

“Americans watched helplessly as Joshua Trees were cut down, park buildings were vandalized, prehistoric petroglyphs were defaced, trash overflowed leading to wildlife impacts, and human waste piled up,” she wrote. “Visitor safety and irreplaceable natural and cultural resources were put at serious risk. We cannot allow this to happen again.”

The National Park Service’s latest contingency plan was published in March 2024, during President Joe Biden’s administration. It calls for at least some closures during a shutdown, though the document says the response will differ from park to park. 

Restricting access to parks is difficult due to their physical characteristics, the document said, adding that staffing would generally be maintained at a minimum to allow visitors. However, some areas that are regularly closed could be locked up for the duration of a shutdown.

But that contingency plan is likely to change before Tuesday, spokespeople for the Park Service and the Interior Department, which oversees NPS, said Sept. 25.

“The lapse in funding plans on our website are from 2024,” an email from the NPS office of public affairs said. “They are currently being reviewed and updated.”

Hunters and others seeking to use public lands maintained by Interior’s Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service, which is overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, will likely be able to continue to do so, though they may have to make alternative plans if they’d planned to use facilities such as campgrounds. 

Land Tawney, the co-chair of the advocacy group American Hunters and Anglers, said campgrounds, toilets and facilities that require staffing would be inaccessible, but most public lands would remain available.

“Those lands are kind of open and they’re just unmanned, I would say, and that’s not really gonna change much,” he said. “If you’re staying in a campground, you’ve got to figure something else out.”

As with national parks, access to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refuges and other hunting and fishing sites will differ from site to site, Tawney said. The Fish and Wildlife Service doesn’t require permits for hunting on its lands, but access to some refuges is determined by a staff-run lottery drawing. If those drawings can’t be held, access to those sites will be limited, Tawney said.

What happens to the Internal Revenue Service?

How the Internal Revenue Service would operate during a government shutdown remains unclear. 

When Congress teetered on letting funding run out in March, the nation’s revenue collection agency released a contingency plan to continue full operations during the height of tax filing season. 

The IRS planned to use funds allocated in the 2022 budget reconciliation law to keep its roughly 95,000 employees processing returns and refunds, answering the phones, and pursuing audits. 

Ultimately Congress agreed on a stopgap funding bill to avoid a March shutdown, but much has changed since then.

The new tax and spending law, signed by Trump on July 4 and often referred to as the “one big beautiful bill,” made major changes to the U.S. tax code. 

Additionally, the agency, which processes roughly 180 million income tax returns per year, has lost about a quarter of its workforce since January. Top leadership has also turned over six times in 2025.

Rachel Snyderman, of the Bipartisan Policy Center, said workforce reductions combined with a string of leadership changes could factor into how the agency would operate during a funding lapse.

“It’s really difficult to understand both what the status of the agency would be if the government were to shut down in less than a week, and also the impacts that a prolonged shutdown could have on taxpayer services and taxpayers at large,” said Snyderman, the think tank’s managing director of economic policy.

Do federal employees get back pay after a shutdown ends?

According to the Office of Personnel Management — the executive branch’s chief human resources agency — “after the lapse in appropriations has ended, employees who were furloughed as the result of the lapse will receive retroactive pay for those furlough periods.” 

The Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 requires furloughed government employees to receive back pay as a result of a government shutdown. 

That law does not apply to federal contractors, who face uncertainty in getting paid during a shutdown. 

What role does Congress have during a shutdown?

The House and Senate must approve a stopgap spending bill or all dozen full-year appropriations bills to end a shutdown, a feat that requires the support of at least some Democrats to get past the upper chamber’s 60-vote legislative filibuster. 

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., control their respective chambers’ calendars as well as the floor schedule, so they could keep holding votes on the stopgap bill Democrats have already rejected or try to pass individual bills to alleviate the impacts on certain agencies.   

Neither Johnson nor Thune has yet to suggest bipartisan negotiations with Democratic leaders about funding the government. And while they are open to discussions about extending the enhanced tax credits for people who buy their health insurance from the Affordable Care Act Marketplace, they don’t want that decision connected to the funding debate.  

Democratic leaders have said repeatedly that Republicans shouldn’t expect them to vote for legislation they had no say in drafting, especially with a health care cliff for millions of Americans coming at the end of the year. 

Members of Congress will receive their paychecks regardless of how long a shutdown lasts, but the people who work for them would only receive their salaries after it ends. 

Lawmakers must be paid under language in Article I, Section 6, Clause 1 of the Constitution as well as the 27th Amendment, which bars members of Congress from changing their salaries during the current session. 

Lawmakers have discretion to decide which of their staff members continue working during a shutdown and which are furloughed.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Capitol Police, which is tasked with protecting members amid a sharp rise in political violence, said a shutdown “would not affect the security of the Capitol Complex.” 

“Our officers, and the professional staff who perform or support emergency functions, would still report to work,” the spokesperson said. “Employees who are not required for emergency functions would be furloughed until funding is available.”

The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 9, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday reaffirmed its ruling from earlier this month that the Trump administration can withhold $4 billion in foreign aid, though the order notes the decision “should not be read as a final determination on the merits” of the case.

White House budget director Russ Vought wrote on social media shortly after the order from the emergency docket was released that it represented a “Major victory.”

The new nine-page order doesn’t provide any additional details about why a majority of the Supreme Court is allowing the Trump administration to rescind the funding without congressional approval. 

But it does include a dissent written by Justice Elena Kagan that was supported by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, highlighting the stakes in the case. 

“This emergency application raises novel issues fundamental to the relationship between the President and Congress,” Kagan wrote. “It arises from the refusal of the President and his officers to obligate and spend billions of dollars that Congress appropriated for foreign aid.”

The case, she wrote, brings up an issue the Supreme Court has never addressed.

“Deciding the question presented thus requires the Court to work in uncharted territory,” Kagan wrote. “And, to repeat, the stakes are high: At issue is the allocation of power between the Executive and Congress over the expenditure of public monies.”

Kagan noted that since the case came to the justices on the emergency docket, they had less than three weeks to consider it. 

“In a few weeks’ time—when we turn to our regular docket—we will decide cases of far less import with far more process and reflection,” Kagan wrote.

She goes on to disagree with the majority of the justices, saying the Supreme Court “should have denied this application, allowed the lower courts to go forward, and ensured that the weighty question presented here receives the consideration it deserves.”

Trump administration actions found illegal by watchdog

The ruling the Supreme Court posted Friday is similar to the one it released in mid-September when Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. overturned a district court ruling that would have required the Trump administration to spend the money. 

The case now largely revolves around whether the White House budget office has the authority to send Congress a rescissions request during the last 45 days of the fiscal year, a maneuver the Government Accountability Office has called illegal. 

When the White House asks Congress to cancel previously approved spending through a rescission, lawmakers are supposed to have 45 days to approve, modify, or ignore the request. 

But Vought believes that any rescissions request sent up during those 45 days allows the White House to unilaterally cancel the funding, regardless of whether lawmakers agree or not. 

The Trump administration asked lawmakers to eliminate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and various foreign aid programs this summer through a rescissions request.

Lawmakers mostly approved that proposal after preserving full funding for the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

The White House budget office then sent lawmakers a second rescissions request in late August, proposing they claw back billions of additional foreign aid dollars. 

Neither the House nor the Senate has yet to vote on that proposal. But the Supreme Court’s ruling allows the White House budget office to withhold the funding anyway. 

Democratic members of Congress react

House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., issued a joint statement after the court’s ruling calling on their GOP colleagues to protect the institution’s power over spending decisions. 

“Congress can—and absolutely should—promptly reject President Trump and Russ Vought’s illegal effort to do an end run around the people’s elected representatives by passing a bill like the one we introduced last week,” they wrote. “Republicans should join Democrats to stand up for our power of the purse, rather than allow a president and an unelected bureaucrat who do not respect Congress or the Constitution to continue attacking our power to fight for the people back home that we represent.”

People in New York City look at a sign informing them that the Statue of Liberty is closed on Oct. 1, 2013, due to a government shutdown.  (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The White House has sent guidance to departments and agencies, telling them that if a shutdown begins Wednesday, they’re expected to institute mass firings and layoffs. 

The two-page memo, shared with States Newsroom by a Trump administration official, says any programs that received funding in the “big, beautiful” law will “continue uninterrupted.”

But the vast majority of federal departments and agencies need Congress to approve an annual funding bill or a stopgap spending bill before the start of the new fiscal year to keep running. 

The memo says the employees who run those programs may receive a Reduction in Force notice if lawmakers don’t broker an agreement before the Oct. 1 deadline.  

Those reductions will apply to programs, projects, or activities that are “not consistent with the President’s priorities,” according to the memo.  

“RIF notices will be in addition to any furlough notices provided due to the lapse in appropriation,” the memo states. “RIF notices should be issued to all employees working on the relevant (programs, projects, or activities), regardless of whether the employee is excepted or furloughed during the lapse in appropriations.”

Once lawmakers reach a deal and the government reopens, the memo says agencies should rework their reduction in force plans “to retain the minimal number of employees necessary to carry out statutory functions.”

Employee union urges compromise

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote in a statement the memo represents “an attempt at intimidation.”

“Donald Trump has been firing federal workers since day one—not to govern, but to scare. This is nothing new and has nothing to do with funding the government,” Schumer wrote. “These unnecessary firings will either be overturned in court or the administration will end up hiring the workers back, just like they did as recently as today.”

American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley wrote in a statement the memo shows that White House budget director Russ Vought intends “to pursue another DOGE-like round of illegal mass firings in the event of a shutdown, adding to the chaos.” 

“The truth is simple: Republicans cannot fund the government without Democratic votes. That means the only path forward is compromise,” Kelley wrote. “The president and congressional leaders must sit down and negotiate in good faith to keep the lights on for the American people. Nothing less is acceptable.”

Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen wrote in a statement that “Trump is engaged in mafia-style blackmail, with his threats ultimately harming the American people.” 

“He is threatening to double down on the failed actions of Elon Musk and his chainsaw — going after patriotic civil servants that provide Americans with critical services — despite having to rehire many of these workers after Americans experienced the negative impact of those cuts,” Van Hollen wrote. “These dedicated workers have nothing to do with the ongoing political and policy disputes that have brought us to the brink of a shutdown.”

House GOP departs until after Oct. 1

The House voted mostly along party lines to approve a seven-week stopgap spending bill last week before leaving town. GOP leaders were supposed to bring lawmakers in that chamber back to Capitol Hill on Monday, but extended their break and won’t return until after the shutdown deadline. 

The move was largely seen as a way to jam the Senate, specifically Democrats, with the short-term government funding bill that they largely oppose because GOP lawmakers wrote it behind closed doors without bipartisan negotiations. 

The Senate tried to advance the House-passed Republican stopgap bill but didn’t have the necessary 60 votes to move the legislation toward final passage. 

Democrats have maintained for weeks that if Republican leaders want their support on a short-term spending bill, they should have negotiated with party leaders on key issues, including an extension of the enhanced tax credits for people who buy their health insurance on the Affordable Care Act Marketplace.

Those tax credits are set to expire at the end of the year but Americans who rely on the marketplace for their health insurance will begin purchasing their plans for next year on Nov. 1. 

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has said he views negotiations on those tax credits as an issue for December, not this month, despite the open enrollment period ending on Dec. 15. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has said repeatedly he views the issue as separate from government funding.

Jeffries says Dems ‘ready, willing and able to have a conversation’

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said during a Thursday press conference that Democrats are “ready, willing and able to have a conversation to see if we can find common ground in a bipartisan way to reach a spending agreement that meets the needs of the American people.”

“Republicans have decided they don’t even want to have a conversation with Democrats to reach a bipartisan agreement. No one in America thinks that’s reasonable,” Jeffries said. “It’s an inherently unreasonable position — my way or the highway.”

Jeffries criticized Trump and Republicans for having unified control of government, but not taking action to lower costs for Americans, including on health care. 

“Donald Trump promised to lower costs on day one. Costs aren’t going down in America, they’re going up. Inflation is going up,” Jeffries said. “Life has become more expensive under Donald Trump and Republican policies and that includes health care premiums, which are about to skyrocket.”

It would be “foolish,” he said, for Democrats to trust the Republicans will negotiate on the enhanced ACA tax credits later in the year, given their actions so far on health care. 

Ashley Mathy and Cindy Bentley, who both identify as having autism, record a video for the Self Determination channel on YouTube, a project of the Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities (BPDD). States Newsroom spoke with three medical experts about the state of research as well as the complexity involved in understanding autism spectrum disorder. (Photo courtesy of the Wisconsin BPDD)

WASHINGTON — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stirred up major concerns and considerable speculation earlier this year when he announced the administration would release a report revealing the causes of autism by the end of September. 

Kennedy, an environmental lawyer with no medical degree, stood next to President Donald Trump on Sept. 22 as they presented the over-the-counter drug Tylenol as one potential driving factor behind autism diagnoses and pointed to folate, a B vitamin, as a possible treatment — both conclusions the medical community hasn’t yet reached. 

Kennedy throughout his tenure has also made overly broad and disparaging statements about people who have an autism diagnosis, often referring to traits exhibited in people with the most severe cases. For example, he claimed in April that children with autism would never function as independent adults, drawing intense criticism for making a generalization that would not apply to every person with a diagnosis.

The Trump-Kennedy announcement and Kennedy’s characterizations have raised questions about why someone would be diagnosed, what types of research have been done and what reputable science has found about causes. 

States Newsroom spoke with three experts before the announcement to gain a better understanding of autism spectrum disorder. Below are brief excerpts from those interviews. 

What is autism spectrum disorder? 

The two core characteristics of autism are challenges with social communication and the presence of restrictive and repetitive behavior, according to Autism Science Foundation Chief Science Officer Dr. Alycia Halladay. 

As understanding of the diagnosis has evolved, she explained, researchers and families have increasingly referred to it as autisms, plural, instead of autism, singular, in part, because there are so many different subtypes.

“It makes it more accurate when describing it — that autism is not just one entity of core autism features, that there is so much diversity across the spectrum, that it’s actually a group of developmental disorders,” Halladay said. 

The spectrum, she said, ranges from people who may speak rarely to those who are fluent in language, people with cognitive disabilities to those with IQs of more than 120 and people who can live independently to those who need round-the-clock care.

Dr. Michael Murray, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at the Penn State College of Medicine, described it as “a neurodevelopmental disorder, meaning that people are born with it and it’s lifelong and it can cause a variety of challenges for people.”

“The most common and significant and probably pervasive symptom across the spectrum is challenges in understanding and interpreting what we call neurotypical — meaning everyone who is non-autistic — social behavior,” Murray said. “So just understanding all the non-verbal parts of social communication, understanding nuance and non-literal use of language. All those things can be really difficult for autistic people.”

Approximately 1 in 31 children in the United States and 1 in 45 adults fall somewhere along the autism spectrum,  according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a paper published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. 

How is autism diagnosed?

Only an expert can diagnose an autism spectrum disorder using criteria in a guide used by health care professionals called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM. 

“You need someone who knows autism, who knows what to look for, who knows how to elicit behaviors or not elicit behaviors that are indicative of an autism diagnosis,” Halladay said. “So it’s really diagnosed by a psychiatrist, a psychologist, or somebody else who’s trained to understand what autism is and what it’s not.”

Murray said there are three social communication behaviors that doctors or other qualified medical professionals look for when considering whether to diagnose someone with autism. 

“It is difficulty in interpreting social information. It is difficulty giving social information through things like facial expression and tone of voice. And thirdly, is a difficulty maintaining appropriate peer relationships,” Murray said. “Now, once again, this is from a neurotypical description of peer relationships. There’s a lot of talk among neurodivergent individuals about whether that’s fair, that we rate social relationships based on how we think they should be. But nonetheless, that’s the criteria.”

Murray explained experts also observe the presence of restrictive and repetitive behaviors in assessing whether someone has autism. 

“And that captures things that are in the realm of interacting with the physical world around you,” Murray said. “So that need for sameness and inflexibility maintaining routines.”

Carissa Cascio, a senior scientist at the University of Kansas Life Span Institute and Kansas Center for Autism Research and Training, reinforced that autism is “strictly diagnosed based on behavior.”

“There are genes that have an association with autism that you can test for. There’s some genes that have a very strong association, and you can do a test for the presence of one of those genes,” Cascio said. “But for the diagnosis of autism itself, it’s strictly based on behavior.”

What do we know about the causes of autism?

While more scientific research is needed, a combination of genetics and environmental factors is responsible for the formation of autism spectrum disorders. 

“We know that one of the largest causes of autism is genetics. We know this because it runs in families,” Halladay said, adding there “are over 150 known genes associated with autism.”

“If there’s a variation in the gene, there’s a high likelihood of having an autism diagnosis,” she said. “And those genes are genes that tell cells in the brain where to go and how to connect, which seems to be a core biological feature of autism.”

Halladay emphasized that research has established the “most important part is the interaction between genetics and the environment.”

“Neither the gene nor the environmental factor is strong enough, but together, they increase the probability of having a child with autism,” Halladay explained. 

During the last 25 years, as Murray has advanced in his career, the medical community’s thinking about and understanding of autism spectrum disorders has “significantly increased.”

“We know right now that 80 to 90% of autism is accounted for by genetic differences …. It’s not just you got exposed to this thing in the environment, now you have autism. You have to have the genetic susceptibility first and then the environment might make it more likely, or maybe influence the expression of it,” Murray said.

Cascio said that when it comes to environmental factors, studies have shown pregnancy or the very early post-natal time frame are key. 

“We’re still parsing this out, but some of the environmental factors that seem to have more evidence behind them than others are older parental age, perinatal trauma, premature birth and low birth weight,” Cascio said. “And then there’s some maternal health factors that are gathering some evidence as well. So maternal infection and immune response, maternal exposure to medications or pollutants are sort of gathering some evidence.” 

While much more research is needed on the many potential environmental factors, Cascio said scientists know vaccines are not a component. 

“The things that we definitely can rule out are things that have been studied in great depth and not really produced much association. So you know, the idea that vaccines cause autism is a common belief. There have been dozens and dozens of studies that have all failed to find any association between vaccines and autism,” Cascio said.

There’s also not yet a clear link with Tylenol, also called acetaminophen, as a possible environmental factor. 

“It is unlikely that this is the smoking gun that they’re hoping for,” Cascio said. “I think we all want to understand this better, but this is certainly not something that we feel has a strong weight of evidence behind it yet.”

A spokesperson for Kenvue, the company that manufactures Tylenol, wrote in a statement released in connection with the Trump-Kennedy press conference that “acetaminophen is the safest pain reliever option for pregnant women as needed throughout their entire pregnancy.  

“Without it, women face dangerous choices: suffer through conditions like fever that are potentially harmful to both mom and baby or use riskier alternatives. High fevers and pain are widely recognized as potential risks to a pregnancy if left untreated.”

Why have autism diagnoses increased over several decades? 

Health and Human Services Secretary Kennedy has repeatedly raised concerns with an increase in autism diagnoses over several decades, but experts say there are logical reasons for this. 

“In the early 1990s the CDC set up a system to collect and count the number of people with autism,” Halladay said. “So it definitely has increased since then, but one of the main reasons that’s been shown over and over again is access to services.”

Halladay believes most of the increase is due to greater knowledge and access, though she said, “there is room for some of the increase in autism to be a true increase in the number of people with autism due to something else.”

Murray explained that about 60% to 70% of people diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum are characterized as having “low-support needs, meaning that they clearly have the features of autism, but they are able to, with the appropriate level of supports, be in traditional schools or typical schools; they can, with job support, work and lead their lives the way they choose to.”

When Murray began his career, he said, those people never would have been diagnosed as having autism.  

“Secondly, we as a professional community are getting better and better at picking up these symptoms, particularly in kids who are quite young,” Murray said.

During the late 1980s and 1990s, Cascio said, a new version of the DSM and better tools helped medical professionals more accurately diagnose people along the entire autism spectrum. 

Additionally, Cascio said, there’s a similar concept called diagnostic substitution, where people who in the past may have been diagnosed with something else are now being correctly diagnosed with autism. 

How much research has been done on autism and over how many years?

Scientists have been researching autism for decades, building on past work to better understand how to diagnose and assist people across the spectrum, though experts said more is needed.

“The many, many scientific discoveries and funding into understanding autism has promoted scientists moving into the field,” Halladay said. “So there’s clearly an increased number over the past two decades of the number of people who are focused on studying autism.”

Murray said the first papers published in scientific journals regarding autism were in 1944. 

“So it is 80 years, at a minimum, of work,” Murray said.

Murray reiterated that autism spectrum disorders are not simple to study and said a “really important paper came out earlier this year talking about how there’s four genetically recognizable subtypes of autism. So it’s not a single autism. It is, at the very least, four autisms, and probably more.”

Cascio said addressing any aspect of autism is complicated.

“The behavior is complex. The genetics are complex. The brain is complex,” Cascio said. “And so this makes it a huge challenge for research. And there’s certainly no possibility that we would go from not fully understanding the causes of autism to having a definitive cause in five months.”

What are some of the biggest misconceptions about autism? 

The internet has led to misinformation, and in many cases disinformation, and health diagnoses are no exception.  

Halladay said people often try to simplify autism or believe an actor’s portrayal in a television show or movie is representative of everyone on the spectrum. 

“I think that because of the narrative of autism being oversimplified, that people are not understanding that it’s a more complex disorder,” she said. 

Murray said the autism spectrum may be pictured as a straight line and an expectation arises when someone is diagnosed that they are in just one spot. 

“That’s not really the way it is. There are needs or strengths that show up variably depending on the demands of the situation,” Murray said. “So for instance, someone who has a really exquisite sensitivity to sound, if they are attending a symphony, that may make that experience so much more rich for him or her versus the average person. 

“But if they are at a rock concert, it may be overwhelming. The same trait can be a source of vulnerability or a strength depending on the situation.”

Murray said there’s often a misconception that all people with autism are antisocial or don’t want to make and maintain friendships.  

“And that’s true for some people, right? They aren’t really interested in social interactions. It’s not their thing,” Murray said. “It’s also true for some neurotypical people that they’re really not interested in social interactions. But the vast, vast majority of autistic individuals just want a friend, and they want someone who they can count on and rely on. They want to be loved, just like everyone else in the world … They just need more supports or different situations to have that happen.”

Cascio said that people can form misconceptions after seeing actors portray people along the spectrum.

“I first became interested in autism after watching the movie ‘Rain Man,’” Cascio said. “And I think there’s a lot of people who see a depiction like that and think, ‘Okay, this is what autism looks like.’ And there’s just so much more complexity and variability from person to person and I would say that’s probably the biggest misconception.”

Cascio said it’s also human nature to want one clear answer to why someone develops autism or any other health diagnosis, but that oftentimes the best science shows a more complicated picture. 

“It’s uncomfortable for us to say, ‘This is really complex and we don’t understand it yet,’” she said. “And so when there is something that people hold up and say, ‘Here’s an explanation.’ I think it can be really tempting for people to just want to have it solved. And that’s a very natural reaction.”

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., joined by President Donald Trump, delivers an announcement on “significant medical and scientific findings for America’s children” in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Sept. 22, 2025 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced Monday that his administration believes it’s found one contributing factor of autism and a possible treatment, though experts have said such claims are inconclusive and not backed by scientific evidence.

Trump and officials from his administration said during a press conference the Food and Drug Administration will move to update the label on Tylenol, also called acetaminophen, to reflect their concerns that it could potentially be one of the environmental causes of autism. Numerous medical organizations and the manufacturer say there is no proven link.

The FDA will also publish a notice in the Federal Register to change the label on leucovorin, a pharmaceutical intended to counteract the negative effects of certain cancer medications, so that doctors can prescribe it as a potential treatment for autism. 

“They are strongly recommending that women limit Tylenol use during pregnancy unless medically necessary,” Trump said. “That’s, for instance, in cases of extremely high fever that you feel you can’t tough it out. You can’t do it. I guess there’s that.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the FDA “is responding to clinical and laboratory studies that suggest a potential association between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes, including later diagnosis for ADHD and autism.”

Kennedy noted, however, that the FDA recognizes that Tylenol “is often the only tool for fevers and pain in pregnancy, as other alternatives have well documented adverse effects. 

“HHS wants, therefore, to encourage clinicians to exercise their best judgment in the use of acetaminophen for fevers and pain in pregnancy by prescribing the lowest effective dose for the shortest necessary duration and only when treatment is required.”

Kennedy, an environmental lawyer with no medical or research training, said in April the department will shift its research into autism toward potential environmental causes, and pledged to have “some of the answers by September.”

‘Not a single reputable study’

Trump and Kennedy’s announcement was met with deep skepticism. 

Alison Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation, wrote in a statement released Monday that she’s “unsure why this announcement came today and how the conclusions were drawn.”

“No new data or scientific studies were presented or shared. No new studies have been published in the literature. No new presentations on this topic were made at scientific or medical conferences,” Singer wrote. “Instead, President Trump talked about what he thinks and feels without offering scientific evidence. He said ‘tough it out,’ meaning don’t take tylenol or give it to your child. It took me straight back to when moms were blamed for autism. If you can’t take the pain or deal with a fever, then it’s your fault if your child has autism. That was shocking. Simply shocking.”

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists President Dr. Steven J. Fleischman wrote in a statement the Trump administration’s claim about Tylenol is “not backed by the full body of scientific evidence and dangerously simplifies the many and complex causes of neurologic challenges in children.”

“In more than two decades of research on the use of acetaminophen in pregnancy, not a single reputable study has successfully concluded that the use of acetaminophen in any trimester of pregnancy causes neurodevelopmental disorders in children,” Fleischman wrote. “In fact, the two highest-quality studies on this subject—one of which was published in JAMA last year—found no significant associations between use of acetaminophen during pregnancy and children’s risk of autism, ADHD, or intellectual disability.”

ACOG writes on its website that women who experience headaches during pregnancy can use over-the-counter medications like Advil, also called ibuprofen, and Aleve, also known as naproxen, “for migraines that don’t get better with acetaminophen, but only in the second trimester and only for 48 hours or less at a time. It’s not clear if NSAIDs are safe for a fetus during the first trimester. Taking NSAIDs during the third trimester may lead to birth defects.”

Oz wants state Medicaid programs to cover prescriptions

At the press conference, FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary said leucovorin could possibly help alleviate low folate levels, which may be one potential factor in autism. 

“Autism may also be due to an autoimmune reaction to a folate receptor on the brain not allowing that important vitamin to get into the brain cells,” Makary said. “We have a duty to let doctors and the public know we are going to change the label to make it available. Hundreds of thousands of kids, in my opinion, will benefit.”

Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Dr. Mehmet Oz said the agency will try to ensure anyone on a government health program can have a prescription for leucovorin covered. 

“Over half of American children are covered by Medicaid and CHIP,” Oz said. “Upon this label change, state Medicaid programs in partnership with CMS will cover prescription leucovorin around the country. It’s yours, but you have to go to a doctor to get a prescription, because they know your child, they know you and they know the medication.”

Oz said he believed that “private insurance companies will rapidly follow our lead if they have not already done so.”

CMS, he said, is also contacting state governments to aid the Trump administration in studying the use of leucovorin as a possible treatment for autism. 

“Collecting real-world data, which is what many of you have been asking us to do in the community, is fast, it is life-saving and we’ll get answers based on what happens over the next few months with this approach,” Oz said. 

NIH research projects picked

Director of the National Institutes of Health Jay Bhattacharya said his agency has selected 13 projects to receive a share of $50 million to look for autism’s root causes and therapies. 

“The studies feature a new kind of science called exposomics, where scientists consider environmental and medical factors, nutrition, events during pregnancy in combination with biology and genetics to answer vital questions about autism,” Bhattacharya said.

Bhattacharya also gave a brief description of autism spectrum disorder, noting it “encompasses a very wide range of symptoms, ranging from mild difficulties in social interactions to profoundly autistic children who experience severe disabilities in speech and behavior.

“Given this wide range of symptoms across the spectrum, it seems certain that there will be a wide range of biological contributors to explaining the cause.”

‘Findings are not entirely consistent’

The Autism Science Foundation wrote in a statement released earlier this month that “low maternal folate levels during early pregnancy have been linked in several studies to an increased risk of autism in children, though findings are not entirely consistent.”

“Data suggesting that leucovorin may be effective come from four small randomized controlled trials, all using different doses and different outcomes, and in one case, reliant on a specific genetic variant,” the Autism Science Foundation notes. “This science is still in very early stages, and more studies are necessary before a definitive conclusion can be reached.”

As for Tylenol, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine released a statement earlier this month that it “continues to advise physicians and patients that acetaminophen is an appropriate medication to treat pain and fever during pregnancy.”

“At this time, the weight of scientific evidence that acetaminophen use during pregnancy causes an increased risk for autism or ADHD is simply inconclusive,” SMFM President Sindhu K. Srinivas wrote in the statement. “In maternal-fetal medicine, as in all of medicine, our recommendations are based on an evaluation of rigorous research and data, clinical expertise, and our patients’ values and preferences.” 

The statement goes on to say that “untreated fever and pain during pregnancy carry significant maternal and infant health risks. Untreated fever, particularly in the first trimester, increases the risk of miscarriage, birth defects, and premature birth, and untreated pain can lead to maternal depression, anxiety, and high blood pressure.” 

Former Chief Medical Officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Debra Houry, who resigned from the agency earlier this year, said on a call with reporters before the announcement that she was concerned the conclusions will be premature and not based on solid science. 

“As of three weeks ago, we hadn’t seen evidence that acetaminophen was linked with autism, so it’s curious to know how quickly that was developed,” Houry said. 

Tylenol has information on its website rebutting the assertion that its product has been conclusively linked as a contributor to autism diagnoses. 

“Credible, independent scientific data continues to show no proven link between taking acetaminophen and autism,” its website states. 

The company adds that the best advice is for people to talk “to your healthcare professional before taking or administering acetaminophen.”