Vice President JD Vance warned that the federal government will continue to make “deeper cuts” to its workforce amid the ongoing shutdown.
“The longer it goes on, Maria, the more significant they’re going to be,” Vance told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures.” “If you remember, we went nine days before announcing any significant layoffs.”
Claiming that President Donald Trump “wanted to reopen the government,” he added, “He was trying to work with Democrats in order to make that happen. But the longer this goes on, the deeper the cuts are going to be.”
“To be clear, some of these cuts are going to be painful,” he added. “This is not a situation that we relish. This is not something that we’re looking forward to, but the Democrats have dealt us a pretty difficult set of cards.”
In a court filing, the White House budget office said more than 4,000 employees would be fired, noting that the funding situation was “fluid and rapidly evolving.”
Elsewhere in his Sunday interview, Vance continued pointing the finger at Democrats, falsely claiming the shutdown, which began on Oct. 1, is their fault because they were trying to “force” Republicans to “give health care benefits to illegal aliens.”
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The shutdown kicked off in part due to a partisan argument over Affordable Care Act health insurance subsidies that are due to expire at the end of the year. If Congress doesn’t come to a decision soon, premiums will more than double on average for over 20 million people enrolled in the health care program. It’s estimated that 4 million people will lose their insurance entirely.
The last government shutdown began on Dec. 22, 2018, during Trump’s first term, and lasted until Jan. 25, 2019.
“Wouldn’t it be great … if the Democrats just opened up the government so that we did not have to make these very difficult decisions,” Vance added.
Watch Vance’s appearance on “Sunday Morning Features” below.