Democrats in Congress are not backing down despite President Trump’s latest threat to fire thousands of federal employees if the government shuts down next week. The opposition party — seeing this moment as their only point of leverage — seems prepared to block any clean funding extension without restorations to health care spending and new checks on Mr. Trump’s spending authority. 

Speaker Mike Johnson, Senator John Thune, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, and Senator Chuck Schumer have been trading barbs for days ever since Democrats blocked the Republican-authored funding bill on Friday, which would keep the government open through mid-November. Mr. Thune is already calling it a “Schumer Shutdown” as Democrats are trying to put healthcare at the center of the fight. 

Messrs. Johnson and Thune have so far refused Democrats’ numerous demands for extended health insurance subsidies and changes to the GOP’s Medicaid cuts that were instituted as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. 

The White House — which is refusing to hold a bipartisan meeting between Mr. Trump and congressional leaders — issued its latest threat on Wednesday night. The administration claims there will be mass firings if Senate Democrats block the funding agreement before the shutdown deadline on Tuesday. 

According to a two-page memo first reported by Politico on Wednesday, the White House Office of Management and Budget is directing the executive branch to prepare for layoffs next week. 

“We must continue our planning efforts in the event Democrats decide to shut down the Government,” the OMB wrote in its memo to political appointees in the administration. “With respect to those Federal programs whose funding would lapse and which are otherwise unfunded, such programs are no longer statutorily required to be carried out.”

The memo directs agencies and departments to reduce staff “to retain the minimal number of employees necessary to carry out statutory functions” even after the government is funded, regardless of whether that happens next week. 

If the Trump administration had hoped that its mass layoff memo would spook Democrats, it appears that the bet has not paid off. 

Within minutes, Mr. Jeffries not only refused to bend his knee to the clean funding extension, but went so far as to describe the potential firings as a possible political win for his party. He warned Virginia voters — who are going to the polls in less than six weeks to elect a new governor — to remember who is responsible for any firings. 

“Attention Virginia,” Mr. Jeffries wrote on X late Wednesday night. “Donald Trump and MAGA extremists are plotting mass firings of federal workers starting October 1. Their goal is to ruin your life and punish hardworking families already struggling with Trump Tariffs and inflation.”

“Remember in November,” the House minority leader wrote. 

In a separate social media post late Wednesday night, Mr. Jeffries took aim at the director of the OMB, Russ Vought.

“Listen Russ, you are a malignant political hack,” Mr. Jeffries wrote Wednesday. “We will not be intimidated by your threat to engage in mass firings. Get lost.”

One Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, Senator Chris Van Hollen, wrote on Thursday morning that not only is the OMB memo “mafia-style blackmail,” but any attempt at mass layoffs during a shutdown could also be illegal. 

“This is mafia-style blackmail, plain and simple. These workers have nothing to do with the ongoing disputes that have brought us to the brink of a shutdown,” Mr. Van Hollen wrote on X on Thursday. “It’s not only an attack on Americans’ services and benefits — it’s also likely illegal. We’ll be fighting back with all we’ve got.”

Some Democrats argue that they are unworried about Mr. Trump’s threats to shutter agencies or fire government employees in the midst of a shutdown because he has already taken such actions with a fully funded government. Senate Democrats are sticking by their message that their price for acquiescing to a funding deal is some kind of agreement on making the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies permanent, which could cost more than $300 billion over the next decade. 

“Instead of negotiating, the Trump [administration] is trying a different strategy: threaten to do something they’re already doing,” Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester wrote on X on Thursday. “While Republicans play games with federal workers’ lives, Democrats are fighting to restore health care for millions of Americans.”