The federal government may have to lay off ‘thousands’ of employees if the government shutdown continues, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt warned Thursday.

Leavitt made the comments during a gaggle with reporters outside the White House, saying administration officials are already gaming out the layoffs.

‘Look, it’s likely going to be in the thousands. It’s a very good question. And that’s something that the Office of Management and Budget and the entire team at the White House here, again, is unfortunately having to work on today,’ Leavitt said.

‘These discussions and these conversations, these meetings would not be happening if the Democrats had voted to keep the government open,’ she added.

Leavitt went on to accuse Democrats of playing politics with the shutdown, arguing there is ‘zero good reason’ for Democrats to obstruct the process.

‘They are doing it for political reasons. They are doing it because they want to give taxpayer-funded health care benefits to illegal aliens, which is something that American people resoundingly rejected ahead of the election last year,’ she said.

President Donald Trump announced earlier Thursday that he is set to meet with Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought later Thursday to discuss which agencies ‘are a political SCAM.’

Vought is tasked with recommending which agencies should face cuts and whether those cuts should be temporary or permanent.

‘I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity,’ Trump wrote on social media. ‘They are not stupid people, so maybe this is their way of wanting to, quietly and quickly, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!’

The federal government entered a partial shutdown Wednesday after the midnight funding deadline passed, with Democrats and Republicans failing to agree on a funding bill.

Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday accused Democrats of forcing the shutdown over providing illegal immigrants with taxpayer-funded emergency healthcare and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., fearing a primary challenge from progressive ‘Squad’ member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.

Fox News’ Stephen Sorace contributed to this report

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., made clear on Thursday that House Republicans will not budge amid the ongoing standoff over government funding, as Democrats continue to insist on healthcare concessions.

‘Don’t ask the Republicans what we should be doing or what we should be negotiating. I don’t have anything to negotiate. I sent them, in good faith, exactly what they voted for before,’ Johnson told reporters during a press conference.

‘We did not put any Republican provisions in that, and we tried to make this very simple, in good faith, so the appropriations process of the people can continue.’

The government shutdown has entered into a second day as Democrats and Republicans remain at odds over how to proceed with federal funding past the end of fiscal year (FY) 2025, which concluded Sept. 30.

The House passed a measure to keep the current federal spending levels roughly flat through Nov. 21 to give Congress more time to reach a longer-term deal for FY 2026. That bill, called a continuing resolution (CR), advanced mostly along party lines.

But in the Senate, where at least several Democrats are needed to reach the 60-vote threshold to overcome a filibuster, progress has stalled. 

Democrats there have rejected the GOP plan three times, most recently on Wednesday afternoon.

House and Senate Democrats have insisted they will not vote for any funding deal that does not also extend enhanced subsidies in Obamacare, formally called the Affordable Care Act, which were hiked during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Those enhanced subsidies are set to expire at the end of this year without congressional action.

‘People say, ‘Why aren’t you negotiating with [Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.]?’ Because I quite literally have nothing to negotiate. There’s nothing I can pull out of the bill that was a Republican priority to say, ‘Oh, we won’t do that. Why don’t you guys vote for it now?’ I don’t have anything,’ Johnson said.

‘I didn’t put anything in it to send it over. I’m stunned. I’m stunned that they have decided to shut the government down and hurt people. It is on them 100%.’

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is warning that everyday Americans could be at risk in a prolonged government shutdown.

The top House Republican sat down for an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital on Wednesday, the first day of the ongoing government shutdown.

Asked how long he thought it would continue, Johnson said he was praying for a short ordeal.

‘My expectation is that I don’t know how it could go longer than a week or so, because so many people have been so adversely affected by this,’ Johnson said.

He pointed to two programs that he was concerned about in particular: The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

‘[Democrats are] talking about healthcare. Not only did their counter-proposal say they wanted to cut the rural hospital fund and do all these other things, but what’s happening right now in the shutdown is that the WIC program is now unfunded — women, infants and children nutrition. That’s not a small thing,’ Johnson said.

WIC provides free nutrition support to low-income pregnant women, new mothers, infants and children under age 5.

On a call with House Republicans held Wednesday, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought warned that WIC could run out of funding within days without a federal funding deal, Fox News Digital was previously told.

FEMA, however, is expected to continue operations through a government shutdown, as it has in the past. But its funding source, the Disaster Relief Fund, relies on a budget that’s allocated by Congress on an annual basis.

A failure to replenish the Disaster Relief Fund could make it more difficult for FEMA to respond in the event of a natural disaster.

The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is also in danger of lapsing, which could leave millions of Americans without financial help if a hurricane or other disaster hits, Johnson pointed out.

‘You have FEMA — I mean, I’m from a hurricane state. We’re in the middle of hurricane season. I’ve got two of them off the coast of the U.S. right now,’ Johnson, whose district is anchored in Shreveport, La., said.

‘If your flood insurance lapses right now, they’re shut down. Or if you go buy a new house, and you have to have flood insurance, none of that can be processed right now because they just shut the government down. I mean, this is real.’

He also expressed concern for the military members in his district who will have to work without getting paid until the shutdown is over.

‘The troops are working without pay … I have a big veterans community and active duty service member community because I have two major military installations in my district, Louisiana’s 4th Congressional [District],’ Johnson said. 

‘I think a lot about these young airmen and soldiers who are deployed right now for their country, and they left behind young wives who are pregnant and have small children. They’re not going to get a paycheck until [Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.] comes to his senses.’

The House passed a measure to keep the current federal spending levels roughly flat through Nov. 21 to give Congress more time to reach a longer-term deal for fiscal year (FY) 2026. That bill, called a continuing resolution (CR), advanced mostly along party lines.

But in the Senate, where at least several Democrats are needed to reach the 60-vote threshold to overcome a filibuster, progress has stalled. 

Senate Democrats are demanding concessions on healthcare, including an extension of COVID-19 pandemic-era Obamacare subsidies that are set to expire at the end of this year.

But Republicans have contended that their plan should remain free of any partisan policy riders.

The Senate is likely to hold another vote on the measure, its fourth in total, on Friday.

Office of Management and Budget (OMB) chief Russell Vought and President Donald Trump are in the midst of mapping out cuts to the federal government after lawmakers on Capitol Hill failed to reach a funding bill agreement early Wednesday morning. 

Trump set the stage in the lead-up to the shutdown that the federal government is set to likely see staffing and program cuts under the shutdown, adding in a Thursday message to Truth Social that many federal agencies are a ‘political SCAM.’ 

‘I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent,’ Trump posted. 

‘I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity. They are not stupid people, so maybe this is their way of wanting to, quietly and quickly, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!’ he added. 

Fox News Digital spoke with Heritage Foundation’s director of the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, Richard Stern, Thursday morning to discuss which agencies the OMB chief would likely target for staffing cuts and if such cuts would be permanent. 

How a shutdown enables cuts 

Stern explained to Fox Digital that there are a pair of overlapping issues that lead to the government’s staffing size: agencies are required by various laws to provide certain services to citizens. And, separately, appropriation bills set funding floors on how much money an agency has available to spend on staff payroll. 

During a shutdown, however, there is a lapse in funding, meaning agencies do not have ‘payroll floors from the funding bill,’ leaving the executive branch with discretion on how to continue providing required services to citizens, he explained.  

‘Because the funding bills set effective floors per salary spending, that tends to dictate how many people work for the agencies. In the event of a shutdown, the only requirement on the administration is to ensure that the agencies provide the services and whatnot that are required by law. But those laws don’t say you need, you know, 100 staffers to write a grant or only one staffer,’ Stern told Fox Digital in a phone interview. 

‘They simply say, you know, ‘There’s a grant program that has to go out the door under XYZ parameters.’ So in the event of a lapse in funding, it means that the administration … can lay out a plan saying, ‘Hey, look, you know, we think the Department of Education, for example, could do everything it is legally required to do, but do it with 10% of the workforce,’’ he continued. 

If the administration determines that an agency can fulfill its legally required services to citizens with fewer people, it will subsequently send reduction in force notices, known as RIFs, to staffers. 

‘If the funding was there, and if the funding law required those staff levels, then you wouldn’t be able to RIF,’ he said. ‘But in the lapse of funding, it gives the White House that opportunity.’ 

Permanent changes to the government are in a gray zone, however, as RIFs would not be able to take effect until after 60 days. 

‘Once the RIF notices go out, you … legally need to wait 60 days before the RIF notices can be enacted,’ Stern continued. ‘Really the shutdown would have to last 60 days, beyond that, to actually act on the RIFs.’ 

The Heritage Foundation expert, who also serves as the conservative think tank’s acting director of the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies, stressed that any staffing cuts are not an example of government ‘downsizing.’ 

‘It’s not downsizing the activities of agencies,’ he said. ‘It’s not reducing what they make available, what services they provide. It’s simply reducing the workforce that’s providing the same level and the same amount of services.’ 

What agencies could be targeted for cuts? 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told a gaggle of reporters Thursday that ‘thousands’ of federal employees could be laid off during the shutdown. 

‘Look, it’s likely going to be in the thousands. It’s a very good question. And that’s something that the Office of Management and Budget and the entire team at the White House here, again, is unfortunately having to work on today,’ Leavitt said.

Stern pointed to a handful of agencies that will likely be targeted for layoffs, citing agencies that have ‘mission creeped’ their original purview into regulatory issues, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, as well as other agencies, like the National Science Foundation, that handle grant writing for programs. 

‘Probably the Department of Ed is, is kind of the poster child on this one,’ he said. ‘They’ve been talking about, they quite literally only need 10% or so on the staff.’ 

He also noted the EPA, Department of the Interior and the Department of Labor could face cuts due to the various agencies’ ‘mission creep into a lot of regulations that are quite harmful to the economy, that are quite harmful to just American families.’

‘EPA over … a decade or so, has mission creeped its jurisdiction into more and more regulatory affairs, that just simply, the EPA doesn’t have under a statutory capacity,’ he said. ‘They’re regulating outside of the confines, the charge they were given by law, by Congress. So EPA is another one of those where that makes a lot of sense to cut a lot of the workforce there. Then, at HUD and Department of Labor you have similar things.’ 

Stern said the administration likely is also eyeing agencies such as the National Science Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities, and certain aspects of the Department of Housing and Urban Development that are charged with ‘running programs that write grants where there’s an enormous amount of legal discretion on who gets the grant money.’

‘These grants are not serving some critical, or frankly, constitutional role,’ he said, adding the grants often land in the hands of universities and promote ‘left-wing’ ideology on topics, such as transgenderism and climate change. 

What has Trump said on federal cuts?

Trump said during various public remarks Tuesday, as the deadline clock began to run dry, the shutdown presented him with the opportunity for the administration to carry out layoffs as part of a continued mission to slim down the federal government, and snuff out overspending and fraud. Trump, however, repeatedly has stressed he does not support the shutdown, pinning blame on Democrats. 

‘We don’t want it to shut down because we have the greatest period of time ever,’ Trump said from the Oval Office Tuesday. ‘I tell you, we have $17 trillion being invested. So the last person that wants it shut down is us.’

‘Now, with that being said, we can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them and irreversible by them, like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like,’ he continued. 

Republicans have pinned the shutdown blame on Democrats, arguing they refused to fund the budget as an attempt to reinstate taxpayer-funded medical benefits for illegal immigrants. Democrats have countered that claim as a ‘lie’ and cast blame for the shutdown on Republicans. 

‘A lot of good can come down from shutdowns,’ Trump added Tuesday. ‘We can get rid of a lot of things that we didn’t want, and they’d be Democrat things. But they want open borders. They want men playing in women’s sports. They want transgender for everybody. They never stop. They don’t learn. We won an election in a landslide.’ 

Trump’s second administration has spotlighted the size of the federal government as bloated since inauguration day, including the president launching the Department of Government Efficiency to weed out potential fraud, overspending and corruption, and offering federal employees voluntary buyouts in January to leave their posts before rolling out other RIF initiatives across various agencies. 

Fox News Digital reached out to OMB’s office for comment on the anticipated cuts but did not immediately receive a reply. 

Fox News Digital’s Elizabeth Elkind and Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.

Former FBI Director James Comey, who was indicted Friday on two federal charges alleging that he issued a false statement to Congress and obstructed justice, previously has called for those who lie under oath to face consequences. 

For example, Comey once railed against lifestyle icon Martha Stewart, who was convicted of misleading federal investigators, and said her case served as an example to deter others from lying to officials. 

‘The Stewart experience ­reminded me that the justice system is an honor system,’ Comey wrote in his book, ‘A Higher Loyalty,’ released in 2018. ‘We really can’t always tell when people are lying or hiding documents, so when we are able to prove it, we simply must do so as a message to everyone. People must fear the consequences of lying in the justice system or the system can’t work.’ 

‘There once was a time when most people worried about going to hell if they violated an oath taken in the name of God,’ Comey wrote. ‘That divine deterrence has slipped away from our modern cultures. In its place, people must fear going to jail…To protect the institution of justice, and reinforce a culture of truth-telling, she had to be prosecuted.’ 

Comey served as the lead prosecutor who indicted Stewart on charges of obstruction of justice and lying to the FBI in 2003, which stemmed from the FBI’s insider trading investigation into Stewart’s friend’s company, ImClone.

Stewart ultimately was convicted on four counts of obstructing justice and lying to investigators. She was sentenced to five months in prison. 

Comey’s statement in his book aligns with those he made at the time. After the charges were filed against Stewart in 2003, Comey said Stewart’s ‘case is about lying — lying to the FBI, lying to the SEC and investors.’

‘That is conduct that will not be tolerated. Martha Stewart is being prosecuted not because of who she is, but what she did,’ Comey said at a news conference in 2003. 

Stewart took a swipe at Comey in her Netflix documentary called ‘Martha,’ which was released October 2024. 

‘It was so horrifying to me that I had to go through that to be a trophy for these idiots in the U.S. Attorney’s office,’ Stewart said. 

Fox News Digital reached out to Comey for comment and has yet to receive a reply. 

Trump–Comey vendetta back in the spotlight 

Meanwhile, Comey’s feud with President Donald Trump is also back in the spotlight following Comey’s indictment. 

The two men have gone head-to-head against each other for years, dating back to Trump’s first administration amid the FBI’s investigation into whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election, and they have continued to trade barbs during Trump’s second term. 

While Trump has lobbed out terms like ‘sick person’ and ‘untruthful slime ball,’ Comey also has hurled criticism against the president and said he’s not fit for office. 

For example, Comey described Trump as someone who ‘lies constantly about matters big and small and insists the American people believe it,’ and questioned whether Trump embodied U.S. values during an interview in April 2018 with ABC News ahead of the release of his book, ‘A Higher Loyalty.’ 

‘I don’t think he’s medically unfit to be president — I think he’s morally unfit to be president … that’s not a policy statement,’ Comey told ABC News. ‘Again, I don’t care what your views are on guns, or immigration, or taxes. There is something more important than that, that should unite all of us, and that is our president must embody respect and adhere to the values that are at the core of this country, the most important being truth. This president is not able to do that.’ 

That same month Comey attracted the ire of Trump, who accused Comey of being a ‘terrible’ FBI director and that it was his ‘great honor’ to fire Comey. 

‘James Comey is a proven LEAKER & LIAR. Virtually everyone in Washington thought he should be fired for the terrible job he did-until he was, in fact, fired. He leaked CLASSIFIED information, for which he should be prosecuted. He lied to Congress under OATH,’ Trump said in a social media post in April 2018. 

‘He is a weak and untruthful slime ball who was, as time has proven, a terrible Director of the FBI…It was my great honor to fire James Comey!’ Trump said. 

Trump fired Comey in May 2017, just after Comey revealed in March 2017 before the House Intelligence Committee that the FBI had launched a criminal investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia during the 2016 election. 

At the time, Trump said that he had ousted Comey due to his handling of an investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.

Comey, who previously identified as a Republican, went on to endorse former President Joe Biden in the 2020 election. He also called for ‘everyone who cares about the rule of law and America’s indispensable role in the world’ to get behind former Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee during the 2024 election when she went up against Trump. 

‘Kamala Harris made me feel like it’s finally morning in America,’ Comey wrote in a post on X in August 2024. 

More recently, Comey and Trump sparred after the former FBI director posted a photo on Instagram in May depicting shells arranged on a beach to spell out ’86 47.’ The term ’86’ can mean getting rid of something or someone, and Trump is the 47th president. 

Following backlash from Trump allies who interpreted Comey’s post as a threat to remove Trump, Comey said that the thought hadn’t crossed his mind and he opposed ‘violence of any kind.’ 

Still, Trump didn’t buy Comey’s explanation. 

‘He knew exactly what that meant,’ Trump told Fox News. ‘A child knows what that meant. If you’re the FBI director and you don’t know what that meant, that meant assassination.’ 

Following Comey’s indictment, Trump said in a social media post Friday that Comey is ‘one of the worst human beings this country has ever been exposed to,’ and labeled the former FBI director a ‘DIRTY COP.’ 

The charges against Comey are tied to his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2020 regarding the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Meanwhile, Comey has denied the allegations leveled in the charges against him, and said that he is ‘not afraid.’ 

‘My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump, but we couldn’t imagine ourselves living any other way,’ Comey said in an Instagram video. ‘We will not live on our knees, and you shouldn’t either. Somebody that I love dearly recently said that fear is the tool of a tyrant, and she’s right.’

Fox News’ Audrey Conklin contributed to this report. 

A conservative watchdog says Trump’s much-hyped DOGE cuts are a drop in the bucket compared to America’s ballooning entitlement spending.

OpenTheBooks, a conservative fiscal watchdog group, released a report on Thursday showing that mandatory spending for Medicare and Social Security vastly outweigh any cuts to discretionary spending ushered in by the Trump administration.

The report was released as lawmakers clash over government funding, with the fight centered on Democratic plans to expand Obamacare.

‘Government shutdowns offer taxpayers a much-needed reality check on the massive scale of federal spending and our unsustainable debt and deficits,’ OpenTheBooks CEO John Hart said in a statement to Fox News Digital. ‘Policymakers need to wake up and take a much closer look at safety net spending, which is the largest share of our budget and is highly susceptible to fraud.’

Of the $6.9 trillion spent by the federal government in 2024, $912 billion went to Medicare, and $1.5 trillion went to Social Security, according to OpenTheBooks. 

Meanwhile, OpenTheBooks highlights the rescission package passed by Congress in July, which largely focused on cuts to the United States Agency for International Development, saved around $9 billion and DOGE cuts saved taxpayers around $150 billion. 

‘The amounts of disputed savings in 2025 pale in comparison to our spending on safety net programs,’ the OpenTheBooks report states. ‘If the flow of money in the federal government could be viewed from a jet cruising at 30,000 feet, Medicare would be the Mississippi River and Social Security would be the Columbia River while USAID and ‘woke’ spending programs would be barely visible, tiny streams.’

In particular, OpenTheBooks zeroed in on just one aspect of Medicare funds — those that are allocated for prescription drug coverage. The fiscal watchdog found that the top 1,000 providers in the system are linked to more spending in 2024 — $10.9 billion — than was saved by the July rescission package. According to OpenTheBooks’ findings, the top ten providers are associated with nearly the same amount of savings ushered in by the Trump administration’s $1.1 billion in cuts to PBS and NPR.   

‘We are not implying that any of these providers are engaging in anything other than lawful conduct on behalf of Medicare beneficiaries,’ the report asserts. ‘Yet, it is also true that healthcare spending in the United States is grossly inefficient and fraudulent at a large scale. In June, the Department of Justice charged 324 defendants for defrauding Medicare of $14.6 billion. Meanwhile, last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that insurers ‘pocketed $50 billion from Medicare for diseases no doctor treated.’’

OpenTheBooks’ report argues that if American taxpayers want to understand the costs, benefits, vulnerabilities and potential savings, related to federal government spending, then they must fight for transparency.

‘When taxpayers see where their money is flowing, especially in times of heated debates and shutdowns, they can hold policymakers accountable to better direct its flow,’ the report concludes. 

A federal judge appointed by Ronald Reagan has made headlines this year for penning some of the most blistering opinions against President Donald Trump’s executive orders — including in one case where he was criticized by two Supreme Court justices for failing to adhere to the high court’s emergency guidance. 

U.S. District Judge William Young, a Reagan appointee, has spent nearly four decades on the federal bench. He most recently authored a scathing, 161-page opinion on Tuesday in a case involving Trump’s attempts to deport and crack down on pro-Palestinian protesters and activists on college campuses.

Young said the Trump administration’s actions were illegal and an unconstitutional violation of free speech protections under the First Amendment. He also used the decision to criticize, at some length, Trump’s broader conduct, which he described as ‘bullying.’

Trump, Young argued, is a president who fundamentally misunderstands the country he was elected to serve. Young described Trump as focused largely on ‘hollow bragging’ and on ‘retribution’ at all costs.

‘Yet government retribution for speech (precisely what has happened here) is directly forbidden by the First Amendment,’ Young quipped.

It’s not the first time Young has raised eyebrows for his public dressing-down of the commander in chief. 

Young in June ruled that the Trump administration acted illegally when it slashed funding for research grants at the National Institutes of Health, siding with the grant recipients and ordering the funding be restored. He also used the opinion to describe the cuts as ‘appalling’ evidence of what he said was ‘racial discrimination’ and ‘discrimination against the LGBTQ community.’

‘That’s what this is,’ Young said at the time, adding that, in his decades on the federal bench, he had ‘never seen government racial discrimination like this.’

‘I would be blind not to call it out,’ he said, adding later, ‘Have we no shame?’

The Trump administration appealed Young’s injunction to the First Circuit Court of Appeals, which declined to stay the ruling while the case continued to play out.

However, the Supreme Court voted 5-4 in August to lift the injunction — and two justices took that opportunity to chastise Young, at least to some degree, for the manner in which he went about issuing the opinion.

Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh chastised Young for failing to adhere to an emergency ruling the court granted in April, which allowed Trump to follow through with slashing tens of millions of dollars in education grants for funding so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. 

 ‘When this Court issues a decision, it constitutes a precedent that commands respect in lower courts,’ Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh said in the August opinion.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in writing the dissent, appeared to sympathize with Young’s view, noting at one point: ‘Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules,’ she said. ‘We seem to have two: that one, and this administration always wins.’

Young, for his part, apologized for the error. But it appears to have done little to quell his desire to speak out on what he argued Tuesday is Trump’s apparent disregard for free speech protections. 

‘I fear President Trump believes the American people are so divided that today they will not stand up, fight for, and defend our most precious constitutional values so long as they are lulled into thinking their own personal interests are not affected,’ Young said Tuesday, before adding: ‘Is he correct?’