Trump’s Layoff Threat Rattles Senate Democrats
27th September 2025
President Donald Trump’s threat to lay off federal employees during a potential shutdown is deepening divisions among Senate Democrats, who face mounting pressure over whether to hold firm against a House-passed short-term funding bill, The Hill reported.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York has insisted his caucus oppose the measure, signaling he will not back down even as some centrists seek a way out. Schumer, who faces the prospect of a primary challenge from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2028, dismissed Trump’s threat as an overreach that courts would likely strike down.
“This is nothing new and has nothing to do with funding the government. Their 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,” Schumer said Wednesday.
The traditional kabuki-dance that is played out in these shutdowns is that most ‘essential services’ are exempted, so nobody is going to feel any serious pain from such a shutdown, and government bureaucracies focus on shutting down things like national parks that will provide the worst possible ‘optics’ for whoever the Narrative Media decide is the responsible actor, in this case obviously Trump. And when it’s all over everybody who didn’t get paid gets paid what they would have gotten paid, so no bureaucrat is harmed in the making of this picture.
Trump has signaled that, no, if we can’t pay people, they will lose their jobs. That’s not what the Democrats signed up for. Once again, Trump isn’t following the Deep State playbook, which is why Democrats are feeling a bit of agita.
ATQUE: Shutdown hostage taking (Don Moynihan/Can We Still Govern?)