Another day, another way Trump is using our government workers as political pawns. Finally following through on their threat to fire federal employees in retaliation to the government shutdown, Trump’s head henchman, Russ Vought, initiated Reduction in Force (RIF) notices to approximately 4200 federal employees. Additional RIFs are expected throughout this week. Rushab Sanghvi, General Counsel for The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), joins Jen to update us on everything to do with these (likely illegal) RIFs.
“How is issuing a Reduction in Force important to save life and property?” Sanghvi asks, noting that the Trump administration is clearly “using federal employees as political pawns.” Sanghvi and Jen discuss why these RIFs may be illegal and what AFGE — and The Contrarian — are doing to protect our federal employees against these violations.
A decision on AFGE’s temporary restraining order against these RIFs is expected on October 15th, 2025. Updates will be provided as they are available.
Rushab Sanghvi serves as General Counsel for The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest federal employee union representing 820,000 workers in the federal government and the government of the District of Columbia.
The transcript below has been edited slightly for clarity.
Jen Rubin
Hi, this is Jen Rubin, editor in chief of The Contrarian. We’re delighted to have back with us Rushab Sanghvi. He is the general counsel of the American Federation of Government Employees. Welcome. Great to see you.
Rushab Sanghvi
Thank you. Jen. Thank you for having me.
Jen Rubin
We have been in a shutdown mode now for just about two weeks. And then something extraordinary happened on Friday. Um, what happened? And, uh, what does that mean for government workers?
Rushab Sanghvi
Uh, yes. Jen. So I think as, as most have seen the, the administration, you know, through Russ Vought, um, engaged in mass reductions in force on Friday afternoon, like they’re threatening. These are unlawful reductions in force. Um, and, you know, the way in which they’ve done them not only violates the law, but was so disrespectful to federal employees who, you know, whose lives are dedicated to serving this country.
I think, you know, Russ Vought initiated them by by tweeting. Um, the rifts are beginning something of that nature, which again, is so disrespectful to these hard working Americans.
Jen Rubin
And they these are not furloughs, which is what we are used to in a government shutdown. Two categories of employees essential workers who remain working but generally are not paid, and those who are furloughed, meaning they have to leave the workforce, but they will return. And in all previous shutdowns, they have been paid.
They are doing something different. Um, what is that and why is this illegal?
Rushab Sanghvi
Uh, yes. Sure. Jen. So, yes. And we we knew this was coming. Right. Um, a few weeks ago, um, OMB issued a memorandum, um, and it basically directed agencies to conduct riffs during reductions of first terminations during the government shutdown. And the memo itself and all of the the messaging they’ve been giving throughout, um, this period has, has sort of demonstrated that what what they’re doing here is they’re using our members and federal employees in general as political pawns.
Right? And that is not reason decision making. And so so we’ve we’ve made all of those arguments and we’ve, you know, filed a TRO to, to try and get, um, the courts to stop these risks from continuing, um, on under these unlawful premise.
Jen Rubin
Right. So just to recap, about 4200 people already. There may be more, um, have been essentially fired and the Constitution, Administrative Procedures Act, um, other statutory law says you cannot do this, and yet they are doing it anyway. The president keeps saying something else. Um, and the administration keeps doing something else that is very telling. He keeps saying we’re going to get rid of Democrat programs.
He then has postings on HUD and on other Agencies. Essentially, we’re closed because of the Democrats. This is all politicization. This is all, um, Hatch Act. You’re not supposed to use the government to further your political views. Um, no president has tried this before. How does that kind of vehemence and partisanship play into the lawsuit? And will the judge take notice of that and say, okay, we’re not going to allow that?
Rushab Sanghvi
Uh, yes. So so all of this background again, and it shows and it reveals that this is not reason decision making. Right. This is a political game and that’s that’s not permitted. Right. OMB can’t be using federal employees livelihoods and even more so can’t be using the services that Americans need for political games.
Right. And that’s what they’re doing. And this this is sort of revealing of that, um, you know, and we believe the judge will consider that information. Um, you know, that’s been put in our briefing. One note on that. You know, yes, the government filed their opposition to, um, our, um, our request for a TRO on Friday, and they barely tried to to argue against the substance in our arguments.
Right. They’re making jurisdictional arguments. They’re making arguments about harm, which we think, again, are weak arguments on their side. But they barely even touched on the fact that they are violating the Anti Deficiency Act, that they’re violating the Administrative Procedures Act because they, they we think they know they’re wrong. Right. They they know they’re acting unlawfully here.
Jen Rubin
Right. Um, what is kind of fascinating about all of this is the brazenness. Um, has any other administration, Republican or Democratic, ever tried anything like this before?
Rushab Sanghvi
Not a one. Not even, uh, the Trump administration during. During the first term.
Jen Rubin
Right. Um, and what, um, do you hope the judge can do tomorrow. It’s interesting, by the way, that the judge agreed to move up the hearing, which was probably a good sign that he sees some urgency in the matter. Um, do you hope that he has an order that covers Christie’s employees, perhaps a broader order that says you can’t fire anyone? What are you looking for?
Rushab Sanghvi
Yes. So things have changed since since, you know, um, we first filed our TRO because when we first filed our TRO, the riff notices hadn’t gone out at all. So our primary request was to, uh, stop the government from issuing any, any reduction in force notices. And so, you know, that is still our primary request.
We don’t want the judge. We don’t want the the administration to issue any additional unlawful riff notices. Uh, and part of that is because of the hardship it creates for these employees. Right. When you receive a riff, notice you’re being told, hey, in 30 days or 60 days, you are being fired. If you, you know, have a family if you have, you know.
Um, a life here in wherever you’re working. You know, you you may have to, you know, sell your house. You may have to start looking for new jobs, um, enroll your children from school or your childcare and all of those harms are, you know, they’re they’re immense. Right? Just by receiving that notice. And so we don’t want further notices to go out.
We’re also going to ask the judge to make sure that, you know, um, these additional notices that go out, uh, that, that have gone out, sorry, the notices that have gone out that they’re, they’re, they’re they’re paused. Right. And this is to to be clear, this is a TRO hearing. Right. So a TRO is emergency like is the quickest emergency relief you can get.
And so the relief would last, um, up to 14 days generally speaking. Um, and then we will, you know, take that time, uh, to further our arguments and to ask for additional relief.
Jen Rubin
Gotcha. Now, one last question from the president the other day said, oh, I’m gonna pay a whole bunch of employees in the Defense Department. Where does that come from? We just got finished saying there’s two categories of employees furloughed employees and essential employees. And the essential employees don’t get paid.
What is going on here?
Rushab Sanghvi
More political games, right? And actually, while just while we got on the zoom, uh, Russ Vogt made another tweet, uh, or rather, the it wasn’t even a Russ vote himself. It was the actual official account, I believe, of the Office of Management and Budget. And it says OMB is making every preparation to batten down the hatches and ride out the Democrats intransigence, pay the troops, pay law enforcement, continue the rifts.
So it’s it’s clear political games here, right? Absolutely not. You know, whatever side you support, whether or not you believe the Republicans are right on the shutdown or the Democrats are right on the shutdown, it doesn’t matter. You shouldn’t be using federal employees and Americans. In fact, you know, because of these services.
Um, for for these political games. And I’ll just note, these are these federal employees are not, you know, people think of federal employees as people in D.C. and people in, you know, white collar jobs. No, these are federal employees throughout the government working, you know, all over the country. You know, one unit of our employees are GE’s four employees.
So relatively low plate employees working in Tucson, Arizona, manning a call center. And they were they were we found out that they were under these premise. Right. So this is affecting a broad group of people across all ideological lines. And it’s just unfair and wrong.
Jen Rubin
I would just point out two things, actually three things. Contrarians. First, these people don’t know what they’re doing. They, of course, fired a bunch of CDC employees and then had to bring them back because, whoops. Um, we really do need these people. Second of all, I think Rashad was going to take that tweet and go right back to court and add on another exhibit.
And last thing contrarians, your pain subscriptions are helping this lawsuit. You want to see how this works. Norm, who is with Democracy Defenders, is part of the litigation team here. So we are fighting for you rehab for employees and for a constitutional system in which a president doesn’t get to pick and choose and use people as hostages and use people for vindictive purposes.
Um, so, contrarians, this is all about you. And tomorrow we’re going to find out. Rashad, best of luck, I think. I suspect you’re going to be successful. You have an excellent judge there and a great counsel as well. So thank you for joining us, and we will have you back soon to keep track of what’s going on.
Rushab Sanghvi
Thank you so much. And thank you so much for the support of of the contrarians and all the Democracy Defenders Fund. And you and Norm do. Thank you so much.
