Breaking: HHS, Commerce, Probably Other Agencies Send Entire Staff Email Blaming Democrats for Shutdown
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On Tuesday afternoon, employees at the Department for Health and Human Services and the Department of Commerce, and likely other agencies all received messages from leadership explicitly blaming Democrats for the impending government shutdown. This is, obviously, in blatant violation of the Hatch Act and the longstanding precedent of agencies functioning in nonpartisan fashion.
"President Trump opposes a government shutdown," read the message to both agencies' employees, shared with me by multiple sources minutes after it was sent. I also heard it went out to employees at the Department of Labor as well as the National Archives, though have not yet seen those versions — the similarity of the language suggests it is coordinated across the entire executive branch.
Update, 8:55 pm: After publication, I heard about and/or saw versions of this message to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, the State Department, and others. There have been some oddities, like EPA employees also receiving notice that all of them are excepted and won't be furloughed, though this will likely change rapidly as the shutdown arrives. Marisa Kabas at The Handbasket reported that the Hands Across the Hatch Act Violation came via an OMB directive requiring absolutely no modifications to the language of the messages.
The message went on to say that the president supports a "clean Continuing Resolution" to fund the government through November 21. "Unfortunately, Democrats are blocking this Continuing Resolution in the U.S. Senate due to unrelated policy demands," the message continued, sent from an agency-wide listserv. "If Congressional Democrats maintain their current posture and refuse to pass a clean Continuing Resolution to keep the government funded before midnight on September 30, 2025, federal appropriated funding will lapse."
There is no particular guidance for employees on how to manage this potential shutdown, of course — it is, as one employee told me, "propaganda" aimed at pinning the fiasco on the party that, incidentally, holds exactly zero of the branches of the federal government. Another staffer said the message was "the most overtly political message" they had yet received; another said "I've never seen anything like this, even from them in the past."
Both agency versions I saw included language that there are contingency plans in place in case of "any lapse in appropriations forced by Congressional Democrats."
A Commerce Department employee called it a "wild" message to come from agency leadership. "It's crazy."
