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The government shutdown is approaching one full week, and President Trump is now threatening to use the shutdown as an opportunity to carry out massive layoffs of federal employees, something that would have been much more difficult with the government open.
Thanks to what many are calling the "Schumer Shutdown," Trump could finally execute the mass layoffs he campaigned on. As Fox News contributor Liz Peek explained, "Any kind of layoff, any kind of firing of a government employee is complicated, and for whatever reason, the legality of firing a government employee is shifted when the government is shut down."
She says the White House believes they could take advantage of that legal loophole and lay off thousands of government workers if Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the other Senate Democrats don't decide to reopen the government.
Peek went on to suggest that this might be an attempt by the president to force Democrats to do just that. She said, "They're looking at this shutdown right now as a win for them, but is it really a win for the Democratic Party if they look like obstructionists?"
She added that if Trump does carry out massive layoffs of federal employees thanks to the Democrat-orchestrated shutdown, the left will start to lose ground on this issue quickly.