‘The communication culture sucks’: Republicans on Capitol Hill in the dark on Trump administration decisions during shutdown

By Annie Grayer, Adam Cancryn, CNN

(CNN) — As the government shutdown drags on, many congressional Republicans are in the dark about the Trump administration’s decisions over which federal workers are being laid off and which federal contracts are being cancelled.

Multiple GOP lawmakers told CNN they are only finding out about the decisions – which have far-reaching consequences for the constituents they represent – after they’ve been made public.

During the shutdown, President Donald Trump and his team have announced the cancellation of nearly $8 billion dollars for energy projects around the country and layoffs of over 4,000 federal employees. While the cuts have so far largely targeted Democratic strongholds and priorities, some GOP lawmakers are frustrated with the administration over what they describe as a lack of communication or coordination.

GOP Rep. Mark Amodei says he found out that $202 million dollars’ worth of battery recycling projects were being cancelled in his Nevada district via press release.

And he’s tired of being the last to find out about big decisions from the administration that impact his constituents.

“The communications culture sucks,” Amodei told CNN in a phone interview.

As calls started pouring into his office from people thinking that as the only Republican in his state’s delegation, he would have been clued into the latest cancellation in his district, Amodei had to reveal that has not been the case.

“It’s like, you know who the person is with the least amount of information on that cancelation decision? Is the guy that they’re calling in Congress,” he said.

The plan to cancel federal contracts in his district didn’t even come up in a recent conversation he had with Energy Secretary Chris Wright before the cancellation was publicly announced, Amodei told CNN. Instead, Amodei said the pair spoke about a lithium project in his district and a separate solar project.

Wright recently said on CNN after the mass cancellations were announced that “our decisions have been made over the last few months.”

“I hope you’re not paying anybody for congressional relations. Because if you are, you ought to get your money back,” Amodei said, reacting to that comment. “Months ago?”

And this is not the first time Amodei, a senior member on the House Appropriations Committee, has been left in the dark, telling CNN he can’t remember a time that the Trump administration has given him a heads up on anything. There was also a $95 million dollar goldmines project that was cancelled in his district over the summer.

A spokesperson for the Energy Department said, “Multiple members of Rep. Amodei’s office were notified about both projects referenced.”

“Since day one, the Energy Department has been clear that it was conducting a department-wide review to ensure all activities and financial awards follow the law and align with the Trump administration’s priorities. The American people provided President Trump with a mandate to govern and to unleash affordable, reliable and secure energy,” the spokesperson added.

Amodei’s office told CNN that the Department of Energy informed it of the cancellations on the same day that the company found out.

Senior White House officials have kept in close touch with House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune through the shutdown, largely relying on the two congressional leaders to manage communications and tamp down any unrest within the rest of the conference, aides and advisers said.

“The Trump Administration has been completely transparent and communicative with Congress about the actions they need to take to preserve the continuity of government operations during the Democrat Shutdown,” a spokesperson for the speaker’s office told CNN.

And White House budget chief Russell Vought has held at least one conference call with House Republicans since the shutdown began, though sources on that call said not a lot of specifics were shared at that point.

But a number of Republicans were blunt in describing their lack of insight into the administration’s process.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, told CNN, “the Appropriations Committee in general believes that it should get more information and that we should receive a list of canceled or paused contracts, as well as more specifics on which federal employees are being fired and justification for it.”

Collins acknowledged that “sometimes” she gets a call right before a cancellation is announced, but said, “we are not really consulted.”

Even as the holder of the purse strings in the Senate, Collins said on Wednesday that she had still not received the specifics on how the administration has reallocated funds to pay military troops, but said she had been given two different explanations.

In a statement, a White House official said the administration “has been very communicative with Hill Republicans about shutdown-related actions.”

The official said that’s “one of the many reasons” why the White House, Thune and Johnson “have all been in lockstep on priorities and actions.”

But the aggressive moves by the administration during the shutdown reflect a broader view within the White House that Congress exists chiefly to enable Trump’s agenda, rather than serve as an equal partner in shaping it.

Since the start of his second term, Trump has wrested key authorities away from Congress with little resistance from Republican lawmakers, drastically tipping the power balance between the two branches in a matter of months. That’s included carrying out a major bombing campaign on Iran without first seeking congressional authorization. More recently, the administration has unilaterally conducted lethal strikes on boats in the Caribbean it claims were trafficking drugs.

The White House has also seized spending authorities from Congress, singlehandedly withholding billions of dollars that Republicans had appropriated just months earlier.

Those actions have so far prompted some discontent from GOP lawmakers, but no signs of a revolt as most Republicans on Capitol Hill are deferential to the administration, further emboldening Trump. And as the shutdown drags on, officials have similarly brushed off criticism of their retaliatory cuts, especially as much of it comes from a handful of lawmakers like Collins and Sen. Lisa Murkowski who have long been at odds with the president.

During the shutdown, Johnson has had weekly conference calls to update his members who remain in their districts, and Thune is in regular communication with his senators as the Senate remains in session. Johnson and Thune, who have remained in lockstep, speak to the president regularly and both Republican leaders were at the White House on Tuesday when Trump posthumously awarded Charlie Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Both Republican leaders have defended the White House’s decision to fire federal workers during the shutdown and have consistently blamed Democrats.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune has described the administration’s layoffs of thousands of federal workers as a decision “forced on” them by Senate Democrats as the shutdown drags on.

“I’m not comfortable with any of this being done, because, as I’ve said, I don’t like government shutdowns. Nobody wins in a government shutdown,” Thune said Wednesday. “These are decisions I should say that are being forced on the administration by the Democrats voting repeatedly — it’ll be the ninth time today — to keep the government shutdown.”

Still, even as some members grumble about being kept in the dark, few have proven willing to go out of their way to directly criticize Trump.

“That’s why Johnson’s not bringing the House back,” Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and a close Trump ally, said of GOP leaders’ efforts to keep the conference unified. “That’s to minimize the ability of members to come back and complain too much.”

Johnson has maintained that there’s no reason for the House to return until the government reopens. Yet even as he’s sought to keep the focus on Democrats, the administration’s moves have at times seemed to catch him off guard.

On Wednesday afternoon, Johnson told CNN he hadn’t received the details of the Trump administration’s offer to Argentina of a $20 billion lifeline – with consideration of even more – and was awaiting information.

Asked if he was okay with the bailout given the US debt and the government shutdown, the speaker replied, “I’m trying to get the details on that. I didn’t talk about it with the president last night when I was there.”

Pressed further, the speaker said, “I’ve been really busy, as you’ve probably noticed, but I’m waiting to get an update on it.”

Even as Trump has said that cuts during the shutdown will be “Democrat-oriented,” with no clear end in sight to the impasse over funding, the White House’s insistence that it will carry out additional reductions is likely to further raise the risk that projects and constituents in some Republican districts end up affected.

Speaking with CNN recently, Wright said more funding cuts will likely be coming to red states.

“As this fall goes on, you’ll see cancellations in red and blue states,” Wright told CNN’s Kaitlin Collins.

On Wednesday, Vought said firings across the government could end up exceeding 10,000 people.

“I think it’ll get more,” Vought said on the Charlie Kirk Show of the reductions in force. “We’re going to keep those RIFs rolling.”

If more firings are coming, most Republicans say they likely won’t find out about it until after they occur and are publicized.

When asked by CNN if she is kept in the loop on the administration’s decisions and whether her constituents would be impacted, GOP Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa said, “they don’t give us information ahead, but if we request information, they’ve been willing to provide that information for us.”

GOP Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, whose state is home to more than 18,000 federal workers, said “no” she is not part of the decision-making process about how federal dollars in her state are cut or who gets laid off.

Even GOP Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, who launched a Senate caucus to partner with the Department of Government Efficiency, said she is “not in the decision-making process” and is instead “just asking for information and transparency.”

The communication between the White House and Republicans on Capitol Hill who are not in leadership has been even more strained during the shutdown as many federal workers at agencies are furloughed and can’t respond to lawmaker requests.

With severe flooding ravaging her state of Alaska, Murkowski told CNN, “You’re trying to get answers from the agency and people aren’t answering the phones because they’ve been furloughed — that doesn’t help us.”

Despite being largely out of the loop on the recent announcements the Trump administration has made as it relates to federal contracts and employees, many Republicans contend that their calls would be answered if needed.

GOP Rep. Mike Flood of Nebraska, who was part of a phone call with Vought last week, said he wasn’t told ahead of time about the cancellation of $8 billion dollars of energy projects or the 4,000 federal workers getting fired, but still praised Vought and his team.

“We’ve had great communication,” Flood told CNN. “Russ Vought and his staff had said things like ‘hey, if you see something that you’re concerned about, communicate with us, we’ll look into it.’”

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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CNN’s Manu Raju and Ella Nilsen contributed.