As the White House threatens mass layoffs of federal workers during the five-day-old government shutdown, White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said Sunday that threat will materialize if President Donald Trump decides government shutdown negotiations are stalled.
“If the president decides that the negotiations are absolutely going nowhere, that there, you know, there will start to be layoffs,” Hassett said when asked on CNN’s “State of the Union” when layoffs would occur.
“But I think that everybody is still hopeful that when we get a fresh start at the beginning of the week, that we can get the Democrats to see that it’s just common sense to avoid layoffs like that,” he added.
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Asked what constitutes a “Democratic agency” that Trump has threatened to cut, Hassett said it was a negotiating tactic to show Democrats who are refusing to vote to fund the government what impact a shutdown would have in their area. He added a Democratic agency would be “shorthand for the agencies that generally are the favorites of the Democrats.”
Mark Schiefelbein/AP – PHOTO: Kevin Hassett
“Senate Democrats are marching in unison towards like destruction, like letting us off a hill, off a cliff. And so I think that in the end, that it’s natural to put more pressure on the states where the senators are being intransigent, so the senators themselves see the costs that they’re imposing on the American people. I think that’s completely logical,” he said.
Meanwhile, neither of the top leaders in the Senate expressed much confidence that a vote to fund the government would pass anytime soon.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” that “there’s not a lot to negotiate,” saying the shutdown will last “as long as the Democrats want it to go on. Right now, we’re at a stalemate.”
“It’s just as long as the Democrats want it to go on. I mean, they’re the ones — they have the controlling card right now,” Thune said when asked how long he thought the shutdown would last.
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the two sides are stalled because Republicans refuse to negotiate.
Nathan Howard/Reuters – PHOTO: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer attends a press conference at the U.S. Capitol on the third day of a partial government shutdown, on Capitol Hill in Washington, October 3, 2025.
“In every case, we sat down and talked with the Republicans, and there was a give and take. And then both sides didn’t get everything they wanted, but we got it done,” Schumer said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” of his experience when he was Senate majority leader.
“They have refused to talk to us even once … we’ve tried to talk to them for months and months and months and they said, ‘No.’”
The top House leaders appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday and continued to criticize each other’s handling of negotiations, focusing more on behavior than the policy sticking points.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called Republicans behavior during the shutdown “unhinged.”
“Well, that behavior is outrageous, it’s unhinged, it’s unreasonable, and it speaks for itself. The American people deserve better than lies, than attacks, than deep fake videos and the president spending all of his time on the golf course. We need serious leadership.”
Jeffries again pushed back on false claims from Republicans that Democrats were attempting to give Medicaid to migrants without legal status.
“Well, unfortunately, Republicans are lying because they’re losing in the court of public opinion as it relates to what’s going on right now. We are standing up for the health care of hardworking American taxpayers, of working class Americans, of middle class Americans and everyday Americans,” Jeffries said. “Now, federal law clearly prohibits the expenditure of taxpayer dollars to provide health care to undocumented immigrants, period, full stop, and no Democrat on Capitol Hill is trying to change that law.”
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters – PHOTO: Senate Majority Leader John Thune speaks next to House Speaker Mike Johnson during a press conference on the third day of a partial shutdown of the federal government at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, October 3, 2025.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson appeared immediately after Jeffries on “Meet the Press” and argued that Democrats were trying to focus on health care because it was a distraction from the real issue.
“Literally, everything my friend just said there was unnecessary, because what he’s trying to talk about is a December funding issue, the health care provision, some of these Obamacare subsidies that expire December 31,” Johnson said. “He is looking over entirely the fact that we have to keep the government open in order to have those bipartisan debates and discussions that he just referenced.”
Schumer argued he didn’t believe Republicans were taking the shutdown seriously, highlighting Trump’s memes throughout the week and Johnson’s decision to send the House home next week.
“You actually need Johnson,” Schumer said. “If you’re going to negotiate any agreement, you need Johnson, Thune, Trump, Schumer and Jeffries, and the reason he sent them home is because he’s more interested in protecting the Epstein files than protecting the American people from the health care crisis,” Schumer argued.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images – PHOTO: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries holds a news conference at the U.S. Capitol Building on October 3, 2025 in Washington.
Asked about his decision to not call the House back in the session and whether it had to do with a pending vote on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files, Johnson continued to point the finger at Democrats.
“The reason the government is closed is because Chuck Schumer and 43 of his Democrat colleagues in the Senate have decided now to vote multiple times to keep the government closed. We need them to turn the lights back on so that everyone can do their work. The House did our work. We passed a bipartisan, clean continuing resolution to keep the government open,” Johnson said.
Hassett continued to put the onus on Democrats if they want to avoid threatened layoffs.
“What we want is we want the Democrats to come forward and to make a deal that’s a clean continuing resolution that gives us seven more weeks to talk about these things. But the bottom line is that with Republicans in control, Republicans have a lot more power over the outcome than the Democrats. And the Democrats need to show some leadership,” Hassett warned.
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