Vice-president falsely says Democrats calling for billions for ‘healthcare for illegal aliens’ as funding deadlock continues
JD Vance, the US vice-president, used false claims to blame Democrats for the government shutdown as the White House warned that worker layoffs were imminent.
Federal departments have been closing since midnight after a deadlocked Congress failed to pass a funding measure. The crisis has higher stakes than previous shutdowns, with Trump racing to slash government departments and threatening to turn furloughs into mass firings.
Making a rare appearance in the White House briefing room, Vance told reporters: “We are going to have to lay some people off if the shutdown continues. We don’t like that. We don’t necessarily want to do it, but we’re going to do what we have to do to keep the American people’s essential services continuing to run.”
Vance denied workers would be targeted because of their political allegiance but acknowledged there was still uncertainty over who might be laid off or furloughed. “We haven’t made any final decisions about what we’re going to do with certain workers,” he said. “What we’re saying is that we might have to take extraordinary steps, especially the longer this goes on.”
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