'How Tony Soprano talks': Trump buried over remarks about punishing federal workers

President Donald Trump in the White House Rose Garden on April 2, 2025 (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok/Flickr)

The White House reportedly is exploring ways to bypass a federal law mandating government employees furloughed during a shutdown receive back pay once the government reopens. President Donald Trump appeared to suggest that he would not be paying some federal workers — not based on job type but on some other metric.

Fox News senior White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich on Tuesday asked the president, “Is it the White House’s position that furloughed workers should be paid for their back pay?”

“I would say it depends on who we’re talking about,” Trump replied.

He then attempted to blame Democrats.

“I can tell you this, the Democrats have put a lot of people in great risk and jeopardy, but it really depends on who you’re talking about,” Trump said. “But for the most part, we’re gonna take care of our people.”

He did not explain who he meant by “our people.”

“There are some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of, and we’ll take care of them in a different way. Okay?” Trump added.

NBC News reported that a draft White House memo “clashes with a 2019 law that requires back pay for federal workers. The law, called the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019, says all federal employees, whether furloughed or deemed essential and working without pay, must receive back pay after a shutdown ends.”

President Trump signed that legislation into law.

Critics blasted the president’s remarks.

The Steady State, a consortium of over 330 former national security officials, wrote that “the President of the United States [was] explaining how he will ‘take care’ of his people, and ‘take care’ of some others — the second ‘take care’ is Tony Soprano. This is how dictators take and hold power.”

Similarly, Sophia A. Nelson, an award-winning author and journalist, wrote: “This is how Tony Soprano talks. Not the President of the United States.”

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