Trump and Russ Vought, his Office of Management and Budget director, have been threatening mass firings of federal workers amid the government shutdown. But that would be plainly illegal, Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) said Wednesday.
“As an appropriator, I know it’s illegal and unconstitutional what they’re talking about,” Levin said on a press call led by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.
“The law is very clear on this,” continued Levin, who is an attorney and a member of the House Appropriations Committee. “A shutdown triggers furloughs, temporary furloughs, so the government declares people as either essential or as non essential, and they either are sent home on furlough or they have to work without pay. But in no event does a shutdown give the legal ability for – particularly for the budget director – to just go firing a bunch of people.”
He noted a lawsuit was just filed Tuesday in a California district court aimed at preemptively preventing Vought from moving forward with plans for mass firings during the shutdown.
The suit, brought by the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, accuses OMB and Vought of planning for an unlawful abuse of power designed to punish workers and pressure Congress.
Levin called Vought’s threats nonsense.
“All they’ve got is intimidation and bullying and mean-spirited garbage on social media,” said the California congressman. “That’s all they got.”
Over the weekend, Trump posted and then deleted a fake Fox News clip of himself announcing a fantastical health care system using “medbeds” — an imaginary technology supposedly able to cure any ailment, regrow limbs or reverse aging. Conspiracy theorists posit that the technology exists but is being kept from the general public by a group of shadowy elites.
Asked what the president was trying to communicate, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt dodged.
“I think the president saw the video, and posted it, and then took it down,” Leavitt said. “He has the right to do that. It’s his social media.”
“I think it’s refreshing that we have a president who’s so open and honest, directly himself. Many a times on Truth [Social], you are hearing direct from the president of the United States,” she added.
JD Vance appeared baffled that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) would be offended by Trump posting an AI-generated picture of the top Democrat sporting a sombrero and exaggerated handlebar mustache.
Vance appeared before reporters at the White House on Wednesday, and was asked about the president’s trolling of Jeffries amid crunch talks to avert a government shutdown.
Jeffries called the video “racist,” and challenged Trump to “say it to my face.”
“On the sombrero thing,” Vance began. “Hakeem Jeffries said it was racist, and I know that he said that. But I honestly don’t even know what that means. Is he a Mexican-American that is offended by having a sombrero meme?”
Vance excused Trump for “having a little bit of fun.”
The allusion to Mexican stereotypes appears to be a way to highlight a misleading Republican talking point about health care and undocumented migrants