Trump says government will pay troops during lockdown

President Donald Trump said Saturday that his administration has “identified funds” to pay troops next week despite the federal government shutdown.

Trump said in an article on Truth Social: “I am using my authority, as Commander in Chief, to direct our Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to use all available funds to have our troops PAID on October 15th.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether all or some members of the U.S. military would be paid and what funds the government would use to pay them.

The salaries of 1.3 million active members of the U.S. military are scheduled to be paid on Oct. 15, increasing the potential political costs of the impasse, some economists said.

“We believe the military pay date of October 15 could be an important event for a compromise to restore funding and we expect the shutdown to end by mid-October,” Goldman Sachs economists Ronnie Walker and Alec Phillips said in a client note.

The Trump administration began laying off thousands of federal workers across various agencies on Friday, the 10th day of the government shutdown.

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that the number of federal workers who would be laid off would be “significant.”

“It will be biased toward Democrats,” Trump said, reiterating his promise to target programs he believes are favored by Democratic officials. Uncertainty over which federal workers will be paid — and which will be furloughed or potentially laid off — has increased worker anxiety.

Members of the aviation industry have raised concerns about the added pressures placed on already few air traffic controllers across the country.

They will receive their first partial pay next week and will not receive their full pay on Oct. 28 if the funding impasse is not resolved, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, the controllers’ union, said Friday.

The union said it plans to begin handing out informational flyers at New York’s LaGuardia Airport on Tuesday about the shutdown’s effects on controllers. Similar events are planned at other airports in Washington, D.C., Chicago and Philadelphia.

“Participating air traffic controllers and other air safety professionals plan to engage with travelers to explain how the government shutdown introduces unnecessary risks to the National Airspace System (NAS) and undermines its effectiveness,” the union said.

— CNBC’s Jeff Cox and Dan Mangan contributed to this report.