USDA says SNAP benefits won't be issued on Nov. 1

Employees at the IRS received an agency-wide email on Wednesday morning informing them that staff who are not "excepted or exempt" are being furloughed effective immediately due to the lapse in funding, according to an email obtained by ABC News and multiple sources.

The memo states that while all employees were receiving the notice, some staff are "excepted or exempt from the furlough based on their specific duties" and would receive separate instructions from their divisions. Unless employees were specifically notified otherwise, David Traynor, Acting IRS Human Capital Officer wrote, "you are being furloughed beginning October 8, 2025," and are instructed to cease work and enter non-pay, non-duty status.

The email to IRS staff also states that furloughed federal workers are legally entitled to receive full back pay once funding is restored, citing the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019. Trump has threatened not to give furloughed workers back pay, despite the law.

Multiple sources inside the IRS told ABC News the rollout of the furlough order has been "very chaotic," with some workers being left confused over whether they were exempted from the furlough, given they were told before the agency-wide notice and not afterward.

Sources told ABC News that some employees who had already left, assuming they were furloughed, were later called back, while others were told to "sit tight" as managers awaited clarification on who should keep working.

The Treasury Department and IRS did not respond to a request for comment. It's unclear exactly how many IRS staffers were furloughed but sources told ABC News multiple departments were impacted.

-ABC News' Will Steakin, Benjamin Siegel and Olivia Rubin

Ahead of the sixth scheduled vote in the Senate on government funding, both Majority Leader John Thune and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer continued with the across-the-aisle blame.

There doesn't appear to be much movement in resolving the shutdown impasse.

Schumer, in remarks on the floor Wednesday morning, again branded this as "Donald Trump's government shutdown." Democrats, he said, "want to reopen the government right away," but require a "serious negotiation to fix health care" to do so.

But Thune followed up by knocking the Democrats' shutdown strategy. Thune argued that the GOP-led clean funding bill was passed by the House, has majority support in the Senate and would be signed by President Donald Trump while the Democratic proposal would not.

"We are now in day 8 of a government shutdown, which is truly unfortunate and unnecessary and totally at the behest of left-wing Democrat special interest groups who have pressured the Democrat leadership into a position that makes absolutely no sense to any thinking person," Thune said.

-Allison Pecorin

Frustrations continue over the government shutdown, as House Republican leaders again blamed Democrats and Speaker Mike Johnson voicing exasperation over the prolonged impasse on Capitol Hill.

“I’m sorry. I’m aggravated,” Johnson admitted at a news conference in the Capitol on Wednesday as he caught his emotions bubbling up. “The first responsibility of the government is to protect the people. And the people who are supposed to be protected are being completely cheated by Democrats in the Senate because they want to play politics.”

Ahead of a sixth attempt to break the stalemate in the Senate today, Johnson emphasized that the House’s clean continuing resolution would avert the pain inflicted during a shutdown.

“They have another chance today to reopen the government, and we'll see if they do the right thing,” Johnson said.

-ABC News' John Parkinson and Lauren Peller

The White House claims it has found a “creative solution” to keep the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children program running as funding for it threatens to run out during the shutdown.

“Thankfully, President Trump and the White House have identified a creative solution to transfer resources from Section 232 tariff revenue to this critical program,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.

Leavitt continued to place the blame on Democrats using the funding fix as a way to score political points.

“The Democrats are so cruel in their continual votes to shut down the government that they forced the WIC program for the most vulnerable women and children to run out this week.”

ABC News has reached out to the White House on how the process will work.

-ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa