US Vice President James David Vance warned that if the government shutdown isn't resolved, there will be further layoffs, on top of the thousands of jobs already cut.

"The longer this goes on, the bigger the layoffs are going to be," Vance told Fox News. "And to be clear, some of those layoffs are going to be painful."

Democrats say Republicans are punishing the public by refusing to include health insurance subsidies in the spending bill.

As the US government shutdown enters its third week, hundreds of thousands of federal employees have been furloughed. No votes in Congress that could reopen the government are currently scheduled.

The impasse began on October 1st after Democrats rejected a short-term funding bill. They wanted the budget to include an extension of federal health insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act.

The Trump administration announced Friday that seven agencies, including the CDC, had begun laying off more than 4,000 employees.

However, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, said some of the CDC layoff notices were sent in error. Andrew Nixon said those CDC employees "have all been notified and are not included in the layoffs."

The employee union said that of the approximately 1,300 CDC employees laid off on Friday, about 700 returned to work on Saturday.

Essential workers, such as federal law enforcement officers and air traffic controllers, will continue to work without pay. However, the Trump administration has made an exception for some essential positions: active-duty U.S. military personnel.

Trump directed Secretary of War Peter Brian Hegseth to find available funds this week to pay military personnel, and Hegseth did so.

A Pentagon official said that if the funding shortfall is not addressed, the Department of Defense will use approximately $8 billion in "unencumbered research, development, test, and evaluation funds" to pay military personnel on October 15th.

In an interview with Fox News, Vance placed the blame on Democrats, saying, "This is not something we're happy to see, and it's not something we were expecting, but the Democrats have given us a pretty tough ask."

As lawmakers continue to battle over the budget, more government services are being affected by the shutdown. Several Smithsonian museums, research centers, and the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., closed on Sunday after running out of funds to keep them operating.