Government shutdown 2025 live: Trump threatens ‘irreversible’ layoffs if Democrats block spending plan with midnight deadline – UK Times

As a government shutdown looms, President Donald Trump and Republicans have warned Democrats that if they vote against “clean” continuing resolution with no attachments, that thousands of federal workers have lost their jobs.

Trump told reporters earlier in the day that “we may do a lot and that’s only because of the Democrats.” It’s a tempting prospect because of the fact that the two states that border Washington–Maryland and Virginia–are solidly Democratic states with tons of federal workers who voted for the Democratic Party.

But Senate Democrats seem to call Trump’s bluff on this.

“These workers are not bargaining chips,” Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia told The Independent. If anything, they say that the Trump administration, Vought and the Department of Government Efficiency have cut the federal workforce to the bone, so this is an empty threat.

“But I hear from federal workers consistently, they they feel like they’ve been in a slow world shut down through this current administration, and they also want us to push back and, frankly, understand what it’s going to do to non federal contractors who buy their insurance.”

Speaking on the floor of the House Tuesday morning, Senator Chuck Schumer blasted Republicans who he said were “not serious” about avoiding a government shutdown.

“The Leader [John Thune] says it’s a clean bill. It’s a partisan bill,” he said.

“Not once were Democrats asked for what input should be in the bill. We were not told about it. We were not asked about it. Nor did Speaker Johnson talk to Hakeem Jeffries. You cannot pass legislation in the Senate when it comes to appropriations unless it is bipartisan. So, the Leader will say it’s clean. No, it’s not clean, because there was no discussion.”

He added: “We stand at the precipice of a government shutdown because Republicans are not serious about keeping the government open.”

Vice president JD Vance has placed the blame for the looming government shutdown at the feet of the Democrats.

“We have disagreements about health care policies, but you don’t shut the government down,” he said. “You don’t use your policy disagreements as leverage to not pay our troops, to not have essential services of government actually function.

“You don’t say the fact that you disagree about a particular tax provision is an excuse for shutting down the people’s government and all the essential services that come along with it.”

Democrats have demanded the reversal of cuts to Medicaid, set out earlier this year in Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful, Bill.” Republicans have falsely claimed that the Democrats are demanded funding for unauthorized immigrants in the U.S.

Donald Trump said that he was the “last person” who wants a government shutdown – warning that it could result in “irreversible” layoffs of federal workers.

“We’re not shutting it down. We don’t want it to shut down because we have the greatest period of time ever. I told you,” the president said Tuesday.

“We have $17 trillion being invested. So the last person that wants to shut down is us.

“Now, with that being said, we can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for [Democrats] and irreversible by them, like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like.”

Welcome to The Independent’s live coverage of the impending government shutdown, which will take place at midnight tonight if lawmakers on both sides cannot agree to a spending plan.

Donald Trump has blamed Democratic leaders for the looming government shutdown, warning that there will be “irreversible” layoffs of federal employees if no agreement can be reached.

Democrats have demanded the reversal of cuts to Medicaid, set out earlier this year in Trump’s “Big, Beautiful, Bill.” Republicans have falsely claimed that the Democrats are demanded funding for unauthorized immigrants in the U.S.

Senator Chuck Schumer said on Monday that there still remained “very large differences” between the two sides.