Videos: 10,000 gov't jobs may be cut by Trump admin, top official warns

Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought announced on Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s administration is planning to cut over 10,000 federal jobs amid the ongoing government shutdown.

During a Wednesday interview on “The Charlie Kirk Show,” Vought explained that Trump’s administration wants to be “very aggressive” on “shuttering the bureaucracy,” including reducing or closing programs linked to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Department of Energy, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

“We’re gonna keep those rips rolling throughout this shutdown because we think it’s important to stay on offense for the American taxpayer and the American people in getting a government that, if there’s an opportunity to have less bureaucracy,” Vought stated during Wednesday’s interview. “Think of Green New Deal programs at the Department of Energy. Think [of] the minority business development agency at Commerce that divvies up business grants on the basis of race. Think environmental justice at EPA. Think about CISA. CISA was an area that we riffed which was participating in censorship [of] the American people.”

Vought added, “We want to be very aggressive where we can be in shuttering the bureaucracy, not just the funding but the bureaucracy, [so] that we now have an opportunity to do that, and that’s where we’re going to be looking for our opportunities.”

The Office of Management and Budget director warned that while court snapshots of the Trump administration’s plans to cut federal jobs show approximately 4,000 job cuts, the administration’s job cuts “could grow higher” amid the government shutdown. Vought suggested that the Trump administration’s job cuts will “probably end up being north of 10,000.”

Following Vought’s comments on Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston issued a temporary restraining order to block the Trump administration from moving forward with the planned layoffs of federal employees. The judge claimed that the firings were likely illegal and were politically motivated, according to The Associated Press.

“It’s very much ready, fire, aim on most of these programs, and it has a human cost,” Illston stated. “It’s a human cost that cannot be tolerated.”