And the White House seems more interested in making punitive threats against its own federal workforce than in trying to get them back to work. “There is, you know, conglomerations of different people and groups, but it’s been very informal,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). Nowadays, the institution is consumed with political gridlock, and it seems like the lawmakers are constantly dealing with threats of shutdown. That could change as the pain of a government shutdown becomes more acute and more people are affected by airport staffing shortages. During the 2019 shutdown, the Pentagon was one of the few departments that was funded, which is one of the reasons it lasted so long.
