By Adam Cancryn, Tami Luhby

(CNN) — The White House budget office is telling federal agencies to prepare plans for mass firings in the event of a government shutdown – an apparent threat by the Trump administration amid a standoff with congressional Democrats over federal funding.

The directive, outlined in an Office of Management and Budget memo to agencies and obtained by CNN, represents a sharp break from the government’s handling of past shutdown scenarios.

In the memo, OMB directs agencies to identify programs whose funds will lapse if Congress fails to meet the September 30 funding deadline and that have no alternative source of funding. Those programs should then be targeted for sweeping reductions in force that could permanently eliminate jobs that are deemed “not consistent” with President Donald Trump’s priorities.

“We remain hopeful that Democrats in Congress will not trigger a shutdown and the steps outlined above will not be necessary,” OMB wrote in the memo.

An OMB spokesperson declined to comment. Politico first reported the details of the memo.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the memo “an attempt at intimidation.”

“Donald Trump has been firing federal workers since day one—not to govern, but to scare,” Schumer said in a statement Wednesday evening. “This is nothing new and has nothing to do with funding the government. 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.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries slammed OMB Director Russell Vought in a post on X.

“Listen Russ, you are a malignant political hack,” Jeffries wrote. “We will not be intimidated by your threat to engage in mass firings. Get lost.”

The threat of mass job losses across the government is likely to further intensify the partisan funding showdown over the next week, where Democrats have demanded a series of concessions in exchange for keeping the government open into November. Most notably, Democrats are insisting on an extension of the enhanced federal subsidies for Affordable Care Act coverage, which are set to lapse at year’s end.

The White House and congressional Republicans have so far refused, insisting on a so-called “clean” extension. Trump earlier this week canceled a planned meeting with Democratic leaders to discuss the funding impasse, issuing a blanket rejection of their demands.

The OMB memo on Wednesday doubled down on that stance, calling Democrats’ position “insane” and noting that it would continue to fund “core Trump Administration priorities” in the event of a shutdown.

The planning for mass firings in other areas of government, the office added, would proceed unless Democrats take up the administration’s position and pass a clean funding extension.

OMB makes clear in the memo that it sees the shutdown as an opportunity to further downsize the federal workforce. Typically in a shutdown, federal agencies determine what functions and employees are deemed essential and must continue during the impasse. These workers remain on the job, often without pay until Congress acts. Staffers not considered essential are furloughed until lawmakers pass a funding package. Federal employees receive back pay once the shutdown ends.

However, OMB is urging departments to issue “reduction in force” notices to employees – both those being furloughed and considered essential – in the programs whose funding has lapsed and aren’t consistent with the president’s priorities.

Once lawmakers pass a funding bill, “agencies should revise their RIFs as needed to retain the minimal number of employees necessary to carry out statutory functions,” the memo states.

Gutting the federal workforce

The memo is the latest – and perhaps furthest reaching – effort by the Trump administration to overhaul and shrink the size of the federal workforce. In February, Trump signed an executive order directing agencies to draw up plans for a large-scale reduction in force. The results were mixed, with some agencies letting go sizeable portions of their staffs, others walking back at least part of their layoffs and still others asking some employees who departed to return to their jobs. .

The current effort was foreshadowed in another memo that OMB and the Office of Personnel Management sent to agencies in late February concerning the executive order. The memo directed department leaders to identify by March 13 “all agency components and employees performing functions not mandated by statute or regulation who are not typically designated as essential during a lapse in appropriations.”

In another unusual move, OMB has opted not to provide a list of agencies’ shutdown contingency plans on its website. On Thursday, it posted a note that said the plans will be hosted solely on each agency’s website.

In its memo to agencies, OMB wrote that it had received updated lapse plans from “many, but not all” agencies to date. The plans detail which functions and employees the administration deems are essential during a shutdown.

Every government shutdown is different, but key services – including Social Security payments, law enforcement, air traffic control and border patrol – continue uninterrupted. Previous shutdowns have closed national parks and museums; stalled food inspections; canceled immigration hearings; and delayed some federal lending to homebuyers and small businesses, among other impacts.

In March, the last time a federal government shutdown loomed before being averted, more than 1.4 million employees were deemed essential and would have had to report to work, according to Rachel Snyderman, managing director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center. About 750,000 of them would have continued to be paid since their salaries were funded through other sources.

Another nearly 900,000 workers would have been furloughed without pay. (Snyderman noted that the estimates did not include the layoffs and departures that occurred in the early weeks of the Trump administration.)

The American Federation of Government Employees blasted Vought for saying he intends to pursue another round of “illegal mass firings,” similar to efforts by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency earlier this year. Such a move would add to the chaos of a shutdown, AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement Thursday.

“Federal employees are not bargaining chips. They are veterans, caregivers, law enforcement officers, and neighbors who serve their country and fellow Americans every day,” he said, urging lawmakers to come to a compromise and avert a shutdown. “They deserve stability and respect, not pink slips and political games.”

Federal employees will again be “collateral damage” as lawmakers play a “game of chicken,” Doreen Greenwald, national president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said in a statement.

“And this time even more so with the Administration’s latest illegal threat of mass layoffs if the government shuts down,” she said. “This needs to stop.”

Left-leaning advocates decried the idea of using a shutdown to gut the federal workforce.

“Setting aside the question of legality, this would be an action of enormous self-harm inflicted on the nation, needlessly ridding the country of talent and expertise,” said Bobby Kogan, a former OMB official in the Biden administration and senior director of federal budget policy for the Center for American Progress. “It’s also extortive. ‘Give us what we want in a funding fight, or we’ll hurt the country.’”

This story has been updated with additional information.

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