Government shutdown stay updates as dispute emerges over again pay for furloughed staff | USAEMALL.com

Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina criticized the Trump administration’s suggestion that furloughed employees may not be eligible to receive back pay. 

“I know there’s a lot of hard working people that are at home right now or not working because the Democrats refuse to continue the current spending levels. It’s all we ask that they do. I believe it’s a strategic mistake to now let those folks know or let them think that they could potentially not get back pay,” Tillis told reporters. 

Tillis said he would start looking for another job if he’s a furloughed worker because of the uncertainty of receiving back pay. 

“I don’t think that that is a helpful discussion right now,” he said of the back pay debate. “Let’s get out of the shutdown. Let’s negotiate the premium tax credits and not threaten or use this as a lever to actually create fear and uncertainty for people who are not making a paycheck in the next pay period.” 

Asked if he knows which federal programs he wants to eliminate permanently, the president said, “Oh, sure, sure.”

“We’ll be announcing it pretty soon,” Mr. Trump said of program eliminations. 

The president said Democrats have “handed” Republicans programs to cut on a platter through the government shutdown. 

The president was also asked how many federal jobs will be cut permanently. 

“I’ll be able to tell you that in four or five days if this keeps going on,” the president said, adding “a lot of those jobs will never come back.” 

Speaking to reporters and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Mr. Trump said Democrats voting against reopening the government is like “a kamikaze attack.” 

“You want to know the truth? This is like a kamikaze attack. They almost, you know, they have nothing to lose. They’ve lost the elections, they’ve lost the presidential election in a landslide.” 

Kamikazes were part of Japanese military aviators who flew suicide missions against the Allied Forces in World War II.

A reporter asked the president why he said some furloughed federal workers should not get back pay. 

“Well you’re going to have to figure that out, okay?” the president responded. 

The reporter followed up, insisting federal law says federal workers must receive back pay when the government reopens, and asking the president if he will defy the law. 

“I follow the law, and what the law says is correct,” he said. “And I follow the law.” 

In an Oval Office meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, a reporter asked the president whether it’s the position of the White House that furloughed federal workers will receive back pay. The president said it depends on the worker, and some people “really don’t deserve to be taken care of.”

“I would say it depends on who we’re talking about,” he responded. “I can tell you this — the Democrats have put a lot of people in great risk and jeopardy. But it really depends on who you’re talking about. But for the most part, we’re going to take care of our people. There are some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of and we’ll take care of them in a different way.”

The Federal Aviation Administration is expecting a busy travel weekend, with nearly 53,000 flights forecasted for Thursday, Oct. 9, and nearly 52,000 flights forecasted for Friday, Oct. 10. Monday is Columbus Day, which is a federal holiday, and Indigenous People’s Day. 

For context, the Thursday before Memorial Day saw 53,852 flights, and July 3 saw 51,284 flights. 

That busy weekend comes as the shutdown is worsening air traffic control staff shortages. 

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters a proposal to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies for one year is a “nonstarter” for him. A small bipartisan group of House members has been looking into whether a one-year extension of the subsidies might ease the shutdown situation. 

Jeffries wants a more permanent solution, and called a one-year fix a “laughable position.” 

Speaking to reporters, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries insisted federal law is clear — furloughed workers will get back pay, despite a memo from the White House’s Office of Personnel and Management that has been circulating around that suggests back pay isn’t guaranteed. 

“Donald Trump and his administration have been torturing federal employees since the very beginning of his presidency, engaging in mass firings, harassing them, brutalizing them, laying people off without justification, and violating the law, ” Jeffries said. 

“So let me be clear to those hard working federal employees who are now being victimized by this Trump Republican shutdown,” Jeffries continued. “We continue to stand with you, and we’ll stand with you, as we’ve done from the very beginning of this presidency. And the law is clear — every single furloughed federal employee is entitled to back pay — period, full stop. The law is clear, and we will make sure that that law is followed.”

Speaking to reporters, Senate Majority Leader John Thune reacted to the White House memo suggesting furloughed workers may not be entitled to back pay. 

“I don’t know what statute they’re using,” Thune said. “My understanding is, yes, that they would get paid. I’ll find out. I haven’t heard this up until now, but again, it’s a very straightforward proposition … the government reopens, and this question of whether people get paid or not is a non-issue.”

Thune said “at some point you’re going to have to make some decisions on who gets paid, who doesn’t get paid, which agencies and departments get priorities, and prioritize, and which ones don’t,” but added, “hopefully that doesn’t affect back pay.” 

— Cristina Corujo, Kathryn Watson

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Johnson said he’s sure there “will be a lot of discussion” about whether furloughed workers receive back pay, but did not take a position on whether they would be paid or not. 

“It is true that in previous shutdowns, many or most of them have been paid for the time that they were furloughed. But there is new legal analysis, I don’t know the details, I just saw a headline this morning, I’m not read in on it and I haven’t spoken to the White House about it, but there are some legal analysts who are saying that may not be appropriate or necessary in terms of the law requiring that back pay be provided,” Johnson said, in what appeared to be a reference to the memo circulating around the White House from the OMB general counsel. “So I’m sure there will be a lot of discussion about that.”

“If that is true, that should turn up the urgency and the necessity of Democrats doing the right thing here,” Johnson added. 

Speaker Mike Johnson’s message contrasted with  the president’s Monday, with Johnson saying “real pain is being felt by real people” because of the shutdown. Mr. Trump, however, told reporters it hadn’t yet caused “a great deal of pain.” 

“Last night, the Senate Democrats, the same group, voted again to keep the government closed,” Johnson told reporters on Tuesday. “So that was their fifth vote to shut the government down on the American people. It is regrettable and sad and real pain is being felt by real people because of these political shenanigans.” 

On Monday, Mr. Trump disagreed with a reporter’s premise that Americans are experiencing pain because of the shutdown. 

“Up until now, there hasn’t been a great deal of pain,” he said Monday afternoon. “There could be a great deal of pain, but up until now, there hasn’t been.”

Johnson said Tuesday that the shutdown “results in crippling economic losses right now.” Each week of a shutdown translates to $15 billion in lost GDP, he said.

The Trump administration has not determined yet whether it intends to give furloughed workers back pay, even though the administration doesn’t believe current federal law requires them to do so, a senior White House official said. It’s an ongoing discussion. 

Federal officials have flagged more air traffic control facilities for low staffing levels in recent days than they have since the summer of 2022 when the post-COVID travel boom sent delays and cancellations soaring, according to a CBS News Data analysis of FAA airspace advisories.

On Saturday evening, the national airspace operations advisory flagged 13 different FAA facilities for concerningly-low staffing at the same time. That is the largest number since August 13, 2022, when 15 facilities were flagged, according to the analysis of more than 10,000 advisories.

Not all flags result in delays, which only affected facilities in Atlanta, Chicago and Austin on Saturday. On Monday, when up to 12 facilities were flagged at once, the situation was different. 

Advisories warned staffing would cause average 40-minute delays to Denver, 53-minute delays to Newark, 30-minute delays to Detroit and Teterboro, 40-to-60-minute delays to Las Vegas and 30-45-minute delays to Phoenix and San Diego. 

Flights up the East Coast were constrained into certain routes due to low staffing at the FAA’s Washington Center facility, and the Burbank tower reached “ATC Zero conditions,” because no air traffic control services were available due to staffing, resulting in 150-minute delays.

A White House memo that is circulating suggests furloughed workers may not be paid for the time they are not working during the government shutdown, an administration official said.

A 2019 federal law, passed during Mr. Trump’s first term, known as the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act, is meant to ensure back pay for federal workers who are involuntarily placed on leave or who have to continue working without pay during a shutdown. That law was passed during the last government shutdown of 2018-2019, which lasted 35 days.

A Trump administration official called the 2019 law in question “sloppily” written, saying lawmakers didn’t consult with the Office of Management and Budget at the time over the wording of the law. 

“The appropriation language says that non-furloughed employees do get back paid because that’s covered in appropriations,” the Trump administration official said. “What the sloppy language says … is if you’re furloughed, it does not cover your salary. It’s very obvious.”

— Olivia Rinaldi, Ed O’Keefe

Appearing on “Fox and Friends” on Tuesday morning, Duffy said the government shutdown is making it even “more challenging” to hire additional air traffic controllers at a time when there is already a shortage of them. 

Duffy said the U.S. is “2,000 short” of the needed number or air traffic controllers. 

“So what we did is supercharge, get more controllers into the academy, and then when they get out of the academy, it takes them anywhere from a year to two and a half years to get certified on the system,” he said. “…But also, when they get to their assigned tower, there’s a support staff that helps train them up. And this is affecting their ability for new controllers to get trained. So it has a rippling effect at a time when we’re trying to get more controllers and this shutdown is making it more challenging.” 

Explaining the flight delays and slowed air traffic in California, Duffy said they’re “going to make sure the airspace is safe.” 

“So what we do is we’ll slow traffic, we’ll shut down traffic, and that’s what you saw in Burbank,” he said. “We saw, you know, significant delays because controllers weren’t there.”

The Senate is expected to vote again Tuesday on competing measures to fund the government after the bills fell short of the 60 votes needed for a fifth time on Monday.

Republicans have been pushing for a House-passed measure to keep the government funded until Nov. 21, while Democrats have a separate measure to fund the government through October that would also extend health insurance tax credits, which has become Democrats’ key demand in the funding fight. Republicans are aiming to peel off support from Democrats for their measure, but they failed to pick up any new support on Monday.

With 53 Republicans in the upper chamber, support from Democrats is needed to advance a measure to fund the government. When the House-passed bill first received a vote in the Senate, just one Democrat crossed the aisle to support it. On the next vote, which came last week, two more senators crossed the aisle to back it. But since then, Republicans have been unable to peel off any additional support from Democrats in two more attempts.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said ahead of the vote Monday that the chamber would continue voting on the same competing bills over and over, despite the lack of progress. 

President Trump said in a Truth Social post Monday night that he’s open to negotiating with Democrats on health care, but only after they vote to reopen the government — clarifying his stance after saying earlier Monday that he’s open to a deal with Democrats on health insurance tax credits.

“I am happy to work with the Democrats on their Failed Healthcare Policies, or anything else, but first they must allow our Government to re-open,” the president wrote in a Truth Social post. “In fact, they should open our Government tonight!”

Mr. Trump had referenced health care hours earlier when he told reporters: “We have a negotiation going on right now with the Democrats that could lead to very good things.” 

Democrats have sought an extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits in exchange for reopening the government. But congressional Republicans have said they aren’t willing to discuss health care until after the government reopens, so Mr. Trump’s initial comments Monday came as a surprise to some Democrats. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the upper chamber, said the president’s comment “isn’t true” and said negotiations with the White House are not taking place.

Later Monday, Mr. Trump said he believes progress is being made on resolving the shutdown, despite  congressional Democrats and Republicans saying they remain far apart on a deal to fund the government.

“I guess we’re making progress,” Mr. Trump told Newsmax host Greg Kelly on Monday night, before saying “they should have never shut it down,” referring to Democrats.

Staffing issues at some air traffic control towers are growing amid the government shutdown. The Burbank airport near Los Angeles went several hours without air traffic controllers on Monday night, and there were staffing issues elsewhere as well as air traffic controllers work without pay, though the staffing issues have yet to lead to a spike in flight cancellations. 

Federal Aviation Administration officials said the Hollywood Burbank Airport airport was anticipating no air traffic controllers from 4:15 p.m. to 10 p.m. PT Monday, causing significant delays, while some pilots were redirected to other facilities with staffing that could handle the traffic.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom blamed President Trump for the staffing issues in a post on social media Monday, writing: “Burbank Airport has ZERO air traffic controllers from 4:15pm to 10pm today because of YOUR government shutdown.”

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy responded by blaming Democrats for the shutdown, writing in a post on X: “If you’re looking for someone to blame, look in the mirror — we all know it’s your favorite thing to do.”

Duffy said earlier Monday that there’s been an increase in air traffic controllers calling out sick since the shutdown began, which could cause flight delays.