The White House is making good on threats to fire thousands of federal workers amid a government shutdown now in its 10th day, with job cuts across federal agencies including the departments of Health and Human Services, Homeland Security and Commerce.

The firings mark the first large-scale layoffs of federal employees during a funding lapse in modern history, going beyond the furloughs that have characterized past temporary shutdowns. The move raises the stakes in a multiweek standoff with Democrats over federal funding and health care subsidies.

White House Budget Director Russell Vought announced the cuts with a terse social media post on Friday. While a senior White House official said thousands of workers are affected, the full scope of the cuts was not immediately clear.

Labor unions representing hundreds of thousands of federal workers asked a judge Friday to immediately halt the mass firings. The emergency request to a federal judge in San Francisco seeks to bar the Office of Management and Budget from ordering officials to carry out the firings and block agencies from issuing layoff notices before the judge holds a hearing on Oct. 16.

Spokespeople for HHS, DHS, the Department of Education and the Department of Housing and Urban Development confirmed workers at those agencies are among those affected by the layoffs. Commerce Department workers were also terminated, according to a U.S. official. A union that represents workers at the Environmental Protection Agency said employees there were impacted.

At the Internal Revenue Service, the administration plans to fire about 1,300 workers, people familiar with the situation said Friday.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune sought to lay blame for the layoffs at Democrats’ feet.

"To their credit, the White House has now for 10 days laid off doing anything in hopes that enough Senate Democrats would come to their senses and do the right thing and fund the government,” Thune said Friday before the layoffs were announced.

In the days before the announcement, some congressional Republicans urged the White House to hold off, saying it dilutes their message that it’s Republicans who are standing up for federal workers.

Susan Collins of Maine, the leader of the Senate’s appropriations panel, became the first Republican to publicly oppose Vought’s moves while still pinning the blame for the shutdown on Democrats.

"Arbitrary layoffs result in a lack of sufficient personnel needed to conduct the mission of the agency and to deliver essential programs, and cause harm to families in Maine and throughout our country,” Collins said in a statement.

Democrats argue that spending money to conduct layoffs in a shutdown is illegal.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sought to cast the firings as an affront against U.S. workers that sows "deliberate chaos.”

"Let’s be blunt: nobody’s forcing Trump and Vought to do this,” Schumer said in a Friday statement. "They don’t have to do it; they want to.”

The job cuts come hours ahead of a court deadline for the Justice Department to file a report detailing any plans to terminate workers during the shutdown. A hearing is scheduled for Oct. 16 on a request by federal worker unions for an order blocking layoffs.

More than two-thirds of civilian federal employees have remained on the job this shutdown — either as essential workers or in roles that receive longer-term funding — with the rest being sent home. The vast majority of federal employees go without pay.

The latest move is reminiscent of Elon Musk’s efforts through the Department of Government Efficiency earlier this year to slash the federal workforce. The Tesla CEO gutted the federal workforce through voluntary resignations, retirements, and targeted firings of probationary employees.

About 150,000 of the voluntary departures took effect with the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1, but some other staffing reductions have been tied up by court challenges.

Friday’s job eliminations mark the latest effort by Trump to make the shutdown as painful as possible for Democratic constituencies while deeming his own priorities as essential services.

Hours into the shutdown earlier this month, the Trump administration paused $18 billion in infrastructure spending in New York City, $2 billion for Chicago transit and $8 billion for green energy projects in 16 states — all of which voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in last year’s presidential election.

The White House has previously admitted that the DOGE job cuts presented political risks. Trump has mused that Musk’s efforts weren’t politically popular and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said DOGE got its attempt to cut federal spending "backward” by leading with mass terminations, rather than looking to create efficiencies.

The tactic gives Trump a chance to talk tough to his MAGA base. He has often derided the federal workforce as being stacked with bureaucrats who he says oppose his agenda. But it also leaves less room for Republicans to blame the most enduring consequences of a shutdown on Democrats.

On Capitol Hill, bipartisan talks have continued in fits and starts, with a handful of Democrats crossing party lines to support short-term spending bills. But party leaders remain divided over whether to tie an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies to reopening the government.

Democrats warned that Vought’s actions will make an agreement to end the shutdown even more difficult as they further erode trust. Reversing the cuts and layoffs will themselves become Democratic demands as part of any deal to stop the shutdown.