Trump Orders Pentagon to Use All Funds to Pay Troops During Shutdown

Trump's Directive to Ensure Military Pay Amid Government Shutdown

Donald Trump has instructed the US Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, to ensure that military personnel receive their regular paychecks despite the ongoing federal government shutdown. The president emphasized this directive on Saturday, stating that Hegseth must guarantee that troops do not miss out on their scheduled payment on 15 October. This comes as other government employees have already experienced partial pay withholding or have been laid off.

Trump expressed his frustration with the situation on his Truth Social platform, saying, "I will not allow the Democrats to hold our Military, and the entire Security of our Nation, HOSTAGE, with their dangerous Government Shutdown." The Republican and Democratic parties continue to blame each other for failing to agree on a spending plan to reopen the government.

The president's message specifically asks Hegseth to "use all available funds to get our Troops PAID" on 15 October, when military personnel would see their pay withheld for the first time since the shutdown began on 1 October. Many US military employees are considered "essential," meaning they must still report for duty without pay. Approximately 750,000 other federal employees—about 40%—have been furloughed, also without pay.

Furloughed employees are legally supposed to receive back-pay after a shutdown ends and they return to work, but the Trump administration has suggested this might not happen. Trump urged Democrats to "OPEN THE GOVERNMENT, and then we can work together to address Healthcare, and many other things that they want to destroy."

Democrats have refused to support a Republican spending plan that would reopen the government, arguing that any resolution must preserve expiring tax credits that reduce health insurance costs for millions of Americans and reverse Trump's cuts to Medicaid, the healthcare program for elderly and low-income people. Republicans, on the other hand, accuse Democrats of unnecessarily bringing the government to a halt and blame them for the resulting disruptions.

Finding a way to pay for military salaries could help reduce some of the political risks for congressional leaders if the shutdown continues.

Trump Administration Begins Laying Off Thousands of Workers

In an effort to pressure Democrats, the Trump administration has started laying off thousands of government workers, an unprecedented move during a government shutdown. "The RIFs have begun," White House Office of Management Director Russell Vought announced on X, referring to "reductions in force."

The administration disclosed that seven agencies had started firing more than 4,000 people, fulfilling the president's repeated threats to use the shutdown to achieve his goal of reducing the federal workforce. The reductions included dozens of employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), according to sources cited by CBS News. The agency's entire Washington DC office was laid off, with some employees working on critical projects such as the Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report, the Ebola response, and immunisations.

Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, stated that the laid-off workers were not essential and that "HHS continues to close wasteful and duplicative entities, including those that are at odds with the Trump administration's Make America Healthy Again agenda."

Employees at the Treasury Department and in the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in the Department of Homeland Security were also among those laid off on Friday, as confirmed by the respective agencies.

Two major unions representing federal workers, the American Federation of Government Employees and AFL-CIO, have filed a lawsuit in northern California, seeking a temporary block on the layoff orders. AFGE president Everett Kelley criticized the administration for using the shutdown as an excuse to illegally fire thousands of workers providing critical services.

A White House budget office spokesman told the chrisinfotainment.blogspot.com that the layoffs were just the beginning, stating, "More RIFs are coming." In a court filing opposing the unions' request for a temporary restraining order, the justice department revealed that additional staff cuts could occur in agencies such as the Departments of Education, Housing and Urban Development, Commerce, and Energy, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency.

The government lawyers argued that the unions failed to demonstrate that their members would face irreparable harm from the layoffs, which is necessary for the judge to grant the restraining order. However, they claimed that a restraining order would "irreparably harm the government."