Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, said on Sunday that federal layoffs will take place if President Trump decides that negotiations are going nowhere.

In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” the NEC director signaled Republicans were far from willing to negotiate their position to end the government shutdown but suggested he was hopeful Democrats would compromise this coming week.

“I think that if the president decides that the negotiations are absolutely going nowhere, then there will start to be layoffs,” Hassett said, when asked if the threat of mass federal layoffs during the shutdown will definitely materialize.

“But I think that everybody's still hopeful that when we get a fresh start at the beginning of the week that we can get the Democr

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