Shutdown Day 28: Judge nixes Trump admin's push to fire federal workers for now

A federal judge on Tuesday indefinitely halted President Donald Trump’s efforts to slash at least 4,000 employees from the federal workforce during the government shutdown. 

San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Susan Illston’s decision landed amid little progress in resolving the stalemate, which will move on Wednesday into its 29th day.

In her decision, Illston again agreed with federal employee unions that the Trump administration’s attempted layoffs must be blocked until a lawsuit moves forward challenging the moves. The order extended her previously issued injunction, due to expire Wednesday. How many of the approximately 31,000 federal workers who live on Long Island are targeted in the proposed firings has not been made available.

Tuesday's decision came as the Senate failed for a 13th time to advance a House GOP-passed funding bill to end the government shutdown. The final vote was 54-45, falling short of the 60 votes needed to move forward because no new Democrat votes were added in favor of advancing it.

Democrats continue to demand adding language to prevent federal health subsidies that lower the costs of Affordable Care Act coverage from expiring. But Republicans refuse.

The ongoing standoff also led Tuesday to sharper acrimony on a series of fronts, including over potentially more missed paychecks for federal workers and drying up of funding for government food, heating and other assistance.

Both sides blamed the other for what will be a cutoff Saturday in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, commonly known as SNAP. About 42 million Americans will be without the November benefits of the program previously known as food stamps. More than two dozen states, including New York, filed suit Wednesday against the Trump administration, arguing the law requires the government to provide the funds.

"It is a man-made Republican crisis because Donald Trump has decided that he wants to force millions of Americans, including possibly 16 million children, to experience hunger," said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn).

Jeffries and other Democrats said the administration has emergency reserve funds it should release to fill in for the SNAP funding lapse, but wants to weaponize the issue. Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans said those funds can’t be legally tapped as a solution to a shutdown impasse.

And the day also saw the public emergence of friction within the House Republican conference.

After seeing what she characterized as incomplete reports of her complaints during a GOP conference call Tuesday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) posted on X that she complained about Johnson keeping the House out of session for more than five weeks and not passing bills, and demanded to know from Johnson what the Republicans’ plans are for health care without the ACA tax credits.

Trump remained on his tour of Asia. But during a visit Tuesday to meet with Senate Republicans, Vice President JD Vance said the administration has found a way to pay the military again, when their paychecks come due on Friday.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) seemed exasperated by all the talk about separate, one-off bills to fill areas of government-lapsed funding or reallocating money for different uses. He called on moderate Democrats to "take on their left-wing" and vote to "open [the government] up and have everybody get their benefits now."