CSPAN - Washington Journal Jory Heckman

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Oct. 15, 2025 18:05-18:15 - CSPAN

09:54

Washington Journal Jory Heckman

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mimi geerges

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mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Washington Journal, we're joined now by Jory Heckman.
		He's a senior reporter at Federal News Network talking about the government shutdown and federal workers.
		Jory, welcome to the program.
unidentified		Good morning.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, so first explain to us what RIF means as opposed to being furloughed.
unidentified		Right.
		So a RIF, a reduction in force, is a layoff.
		It is employees who, in a matter of typically 60 days, will no longer be with their agency.
		They will separate from the federal workforce.
		And that's different from a furlough, which during any shutdown, any lapse in congressional funding, hundreds of thousands of employees, they are temporarily sent home from their agencies.
		They are considered not essential to the operations of the agency for a temporary basis.
		And then once the shutdown ends, they come back to their jobs.
		They come back to their agencies.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And presumably they'll be paid that back pay that they had missed.
unidentified		That's how every shutdown has gone before.
		That has been guaranteed in legislation that President Donald Trump signed in 2019, ending the last government shutdown.
		This has never been a question before, but what we've seen from the Office of Management and Budget recently is they've circulated a memo saying that they are of a different legal opinion.
		They say that Congress, once they arrive at a stopgap spending bill, they will have to put that specifically in writing that they would give furloughed federal employees back pay.
		This has, again, never been a point of contention before, but this is what OMB is saying.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And how many people and what departments and agencies have been hit the most of these layoffs?
unidentified		Yeah, we've seen about a little more than half a dozen agencies go through the shutdown layoffs.
		I believe the Treasury Department and the IRS are the hardest impact by these layoffs.
		We've also seen the Department of Health and Human Services.
		We've seen parts of the Department of Homeland Security, their cybersecurity agency, CISA.
		We've seen the Education Department.
		We've seen the Energy Department.
		We've seen HUD impacted as well.
		We've heard that the Environmental Protection Agency has sent intent to riff notices to employees for a handful of employees.
		But it really is a little bit of every agency all over across the federal workforce here.
		And these are some agencies that we've already seen go through some pretty substantial cuts already this year that the HHS, they laid off 10,000 employees back in April, and now they are back again with layoffs.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So this notice for a riff, you get laid off.
		How does it actually work with the logistics of it?
		In other words, if people are already at home and they're not in the office and they get this notice, do they go back and get their stuff?
		Is it immediate?
		Do they have like a week notice or two weeks' notice?
		Talk about the logistics of that.
unidentified		Yeah, it's important to walk through all that.
		Typically, when you get a rift notice, the official separation from your agency happens months later.
		It's typically 60 days, although in some limited cases it can be shorter than that.
		But once you get that rift notice, that notice in your hands that you will eventually no longer have a job with this agency, you have 60 days.
		You're on administrative leave.
		You're paid to essentially not work for that period of time.
		And then what I've seen from the RIF notices recently is that December 9th is the date that a lot of employees are looking at when they will no longer have a job with the federal government.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And if they don't get their back pay, it doesn't really matter.
		They're not going to get anything up until December 9th.
		Because the government shut down.
		Or maybe if the government opens before December 9th, they'll get some pay.
unidentified		Yeah, typically the administrative leave part of things is not up for debate, but there's so much uncertainty right now as to what's going on.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, you mentioned the IRS.
		So a couple of things happening in the IRS.
		You have this article with the headline, IRS says shutdown exempt staff face furloughs if they take too much leave.
		And it says IRS employees were told that if they take more than eight hours of leave per pay period, they will be furloughed for the remainder of the pay period.
		Can you explain what's going on there?
unidentified		Right.
		So this was something we've heard recently from IRS employees.
		I should note that there has been no email or memo, anything written down communicating this policy, but I've heard from a number of employees and one even shared a recording of this conversation that their manager had with them that if they take more leave than the eight hours that you mentioned per pay period, which is two weeks, they would be furloughed.
		And these are employees that are at this point they are.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Furloughed or rift?
unidentified		Furloughed.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, so they would just be sent home.
unidentified		Correct.
		Yeah, so what's notable here is that we're talking about employees who are already exempt from the government shutdown.
		They've been deemed by the Treasury Department to be essential.
		They have to continue working.
		They have to continue being on the job, even though the IRS at this point, they've furloughed nearly half of their workforce already.
		So this remaining rough half that we're talking about, there are in some cases people who have planned vacations months ago.
		There are people who in some cases have been on paid paternal leave, paid family leave, and they have been told if they are exempt from the shutdown that they have to continue showing up to work or they could be furloughed.
		And as we've discussed, OMB is of the opinion that furloughed employees may not be guaranteed back pay, so it introduces this new level of stress for them.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And we've got Jory Heckman in the studio with us.
		If you'd like to ask him a question or make a comment about federal workers and the shutdown, you can start calling in now.
		The lines are Republicans 202748-8001, Democrats 202748, 8000, and Independents 202748-8002.
		And our line for federal workers is 202-748-8003.
		Speaking of which, at the IRS, here's another article that says IRS backtracks on back pay guarantee for furloughed employees.
		Talk about that.
unidentified		Yeah, we've seen some back and forth between what the White House has been saying about the shutdown, notably on the topic of back pay, and what agencies have been saying.
		We've talked about how OMB has circulated this legal opinion that back pay is not a guarantee, something that Congress would have to decide on their own about.
		But we've seen when the IRS was furloughing people, furloughing about half of its workforce, it sent out language saying, don't worry, back pay is guaranteed.
		There's legislation on the books.
		There's a law on the books that says that you will get back pay.
		And then about a day later, they rescinded that language saying, actually, we're going to defer to OMB on this one.
		They are the opinion that you should follow when it comes to the topic of back pay.
		And from what I've heard from some agencies, that initial notice was automatically deleted from their email inboxes.
		So that was a bit of confusion for them because they are hearing one thing from their agency and they're hearing another from the White House.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here is what OMB put on X.
		It says OMB is making every preparation to batten down the hatches and ride out the Democrats intransigence, pay the troops, pay law enforcement, continue the rifts and wait.
		Do we have any indication of what agencies or what kind of departments might be next on the rifts?
unidentified		It's really too soon to tell.
		It could be a deepening of cuts at the agencies we've already been talking about.
		It could be other agencies stepping in and introducing layoffs here.
		Too soon to tell.
		What we did hear from President Trump yesterday, he told reporters at the White House that we should see some more developments this Friday.
		He said that more programs, Democrat programs, could be on the cutting block, that more things could be cut.
		He said that a shutdown should have never happened, but that the administration is going to take this as an opportunity to shut down, close down programs that his administration doesn't believe in, doesn't believe supports his agenda.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, let's play a portion of President Trump on Air Force One when he was asked about it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Take a look.
unidentified		So, President Trump, what's harder?
unidentified		Peace in the Middle East or ending a government shutdown?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think the hardest is this.
unidentified		We're going to leave this, but you can continue watching on our website, c-span.org, as we take you now to a national journal preview of the upcoming 2026 midterm election live here on C-SPAN.

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