WASHINGTON, October 11. /TASS/. The reduction of the American government in conjunction with its current shutdown will be large-scale, President Donald Trump said.

"It'll be a lot," he said on Friday about those being sacked from ministries and departments of the executive branch of the US government. "A lot of them happen to be Democrat-oriented. And some of these people, these are largely people that the Democrats want. Many of them will be fired," said Republican Trump. "We'll announce the numbers over the next couple of days, but it'll be a lot of people."

Earlier, the US administration said several times that the White House was going to use the shutdown, in part to further reduce the number of employees of various structures of the executive branch of the US government. White House Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said on October 2 that thousands of government employees would be laid off as a result of the shutdown. Earlier, American entrepreneur Elon Musk, who oversaw the work of the department for improving the efficiency of the federal government (DOGE) on a voluntary basis, was engaged in cutting the government numbers. In May, Musk left the US administration and returned to the private business.

The US federal government partially suspended work at midnight on October 1 due to the lack of funding after the ruling Republican and opposition Democratic parties in the US Congress failed to agree on some expenditure items, including healthcare, and accused each other of provoking the shutdown and prolonging it for political purposes.

According to US law, ministries and departments responsible for ensuring national security and foreign policy activities continue to operate during shutdowns. Similar requirements are imposed on those civil servants whose activities are aimed at "protecting life and property." The government employees who are forced to go to work in such conditions do not receive a salary, but it is usually paid to them after the issue with the receipt of funds is resolved.

Since 1977, funding for the federal government has been interrupted more than 20 times due to disagreements between the administration and Congress. The longest period was 35 days, from December 22, 2018 to January 25, 2019, during Trump's first term as president.