The White House is pledging to fire more federal workers, the next salvo in President Donald Trump’s push to pressure Democrats to sign onto the GOP’s continuing resolution and end the government shutdown.

“OMB is making every preparation to batten down the hatches and ride out the Democrats’ intransigence,” the White House Office of Management and Budget wrote Tuesday on X. “Pay the troops, pay law enforcement, continue the RIFs, and wait.”

Trump and Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought launched their long-threatened shutdown-related layoffs last Friday, with Republicans calling the reductions in force financially prudent and faulting Democrats for forcing the administration’s hand. But the day before, Trump said at a Cabinet meeting that his administration would only cut “Democrat programs” declaring that his own party’s priorities wouldn’t be affected by White House bean counters.

“That’s the way it works,” he said. “They wanted to do this so we will give them a little taste of their own medicine.”

The White House has also used the shutdown to cut billions in climate and infrastructure funding earmarked for states that voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in last year’s election.

Most Senate Democrats have withheld supporting the GOP continuing resolution to bring Republicans to the negotiating table over extending premium tax credits within the Affordable Care Act, with open enrollment set to tee off on November 1. But Republican leadership in both the White House and Congress is signaling the burden is on the holdout Democrats to act.

“We’re barreling toward one of the longest shutdowns in American history unless Democrats drop their partisan demands and passed a clean, no strings attached budget to reopen the government and pay our federal workers,” Speaker Mike Johnson said in a press briefing Monday.

The messaging battle is up for grabs. American voters are more likely to fault the GOP for the shutdown, but they still trust Republicans over Democrats on the economy, according to recent polling.

“Democrats decided to shut down the government because they think free health care for illegal aliens is more important than the American people,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told POLITICO in a statement. “Chuck Schumer may think every day of the shutdown ‘gets better’ for the radical left, but the American people disagree. President Trump is working hard to mitigate the pain caused by the Democrats by finding solutions to pay the military and fund other critical services that the Democrats couldn’t care less about.”

OMB did not immediately respond to a request for comment from POLITICO.

Two senior Republican senators said Tuesday they strongly support the Treasury Department’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund after the Trump administration moved to eviscerate the program by firing all of its staff.

The elimination of employees at the CDFI Fund on Friday was part of the larger reduction-in-force orchestrated by Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought. A letter to fired employees said their termination was necessary to implement the abolishment of the entire CDFI program, which enjoys strong bipartisan support.

Senate Community Development Finance Caucus co-chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) told POLITICO Tuesday that he “was discouraged to see the actions taken to [RIF] the employees, and I’m hopeful that we can get that turned around.”

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who’s consistently been vocal in his support of the fund, said he remains “fully supportive” of the CDFI Fund and that “the CDFIs do an excellent job in particular areas” and he’s “seen it firsthand in South Dakota.”

The fund awards federal dollars through a public-private partnership to CDFIs, which are community banks, credit unions and other financial institutions that lend and provide other types of capital to communities and markets traditionally underserved by the larger banking industry. The CDFI Fund was designed to increase the accessibility of financial services and products.

Rounds said the quickest way to fix the situation at the fund is to “get a continuing resolution in place and move forward” and re-open the government.

South Dakota CDFIs received $13.3 million from the fund in 2024, making the state a top recipient per capita.

Crapo would not comment whether he had spoken with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent or the White House on the matter but said that “Congress has a role anytime Congress chooses, it can take some action.” He added that he and his caucus co-chair, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), “are going to work together to try to get this fixed.”

Warner, on a press call Tuesday, said he’s working with Crapo to try to send a bipartisan letter from the caucus like they did in March after the initial executive order requesting the fund be eliminated to the fullest extent allowed under the law, to “show strong, bipartisan pushback.”

Additionally, Warner said he reached out to Bessent regarding the unexpected firings on the CDFI Fund’s entire staff and that he expected to hear a response back soon. Neither he nor Crapo saw the RIFs coming, Warner said.

“At least my office and Crapo’s office, the first reaction [to the CDFI Fund RIFs] was shock” and that “it appears maybe this didn’t come from Treasury, it appears that it came from the OMB. I think this goes against the law,” Warner said.

Senate Democrats voted once again Tuesday night to reject the GOP-led funding........

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