Trump’s shutdown blame game: Why he says Democrats are at fault

[Thiệu Ngô]

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has had one refrain in recent days when asked about the looming government shutdown.

By SEUNG MIN KIM

Will there be a shutdown? Yes, Trump says, “because the Democrats are crazed.” Why is the White House pursuing mass firings, not just furloughs, of federal workers? Trump responds, “Well, this is all caused by the Democrats.”

Is he concerned about the impact of a shutdown? “The radical left Democrats want to shut it down,” he retorts.

“If it has to shut down, it’ll have to shut down,” Trump said Friday. “But they’re the ones that are shutting down government.”

In his public rhetoric, the Republican president has been singularly focused on laying pressure on Democrats in hopes they will yield before Wednesday, when the shutdown could begin, or shoulder the political blame if they don’t. That has aligned Trump with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., who have refused to accede to Democrats’ calls to include health care provisions on a bill that will keep the government operating for seven more weeks.

Those dynamics could change Monday, when the president has agreed to host Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Johnson and Thune. Democrats believe the high-stakes meeting means the GOP is feeling pressure to compromise with them.

Still, Republicans say they are confident Democrats would be faulted if the closure comes. For Trump, the impact would go far beyond politics. His administration is sketching plans to implement mass layoffs of federal workers rather than simply furloughing them, furthering their goal of building a far smaller government that lines up with Trump’s vision and policy priorities.

This time, it’s the Democrats making policy demands

The GOP’s stance — a short-term extension of funding, with no strings attached — is unusual for a political party that has often tried to extract policy demands using the threat of a government shutdown as leverage.

In 2013, Republicans refused to keep the government running unless the Affordable Care Act was defunded, a stand that led to a 16-day shutdown for which the GOP was widely blamed. During his first term, Trump insisted on adding funding for a border wall that Congress would not approve, prompting a shutdown that the president, in an extraordinary Oval Office meeting that played out before cameras, said he would “take the mantle” for.

“I will be the one to shut it down,” Trump declared at the time.

This time, it’s the Democrats making the policy demands.

They want an extension of subsidies that help low- and middle-income earners who buy insurance coverage through the Obama-era health care law. They also want to reverse cuts to Medicaid enacted in the GOP’s tax and border spending bill this year. Republican leaders say what Democrats are pushing for is too costly and too complicated to negotiate with the threat of a government shutdown hanging over lawmakers.

Watching all this is Trump. He has not ruled out a potential deal on continuing the expiring subsidies, which some Republicans also want to extend.

“My assumption is, he’s going to be willing to sit down and talk about at least one of these issues that they’re interested in and pursuing a solution for after the government stays open,” Thune said in an Associated Press interview last week. “Frankly, I just don’t know what you negotiate at this point.”

Back and forth on a White House sit-down

At this point, Trump has shown no public indication he plans to compromise with Democrats on a shutdown, even as he acknowledges he needs help from at least a handful of them to keep the government open and is willing to meet with them at the White House.

Last week, Trump appeared to agree to sit down with Schumer and Jeffries and a meeting went on the books for Thursday. Once word got out about that, Johnson and Thune intervened, privately making the case to Trump that it was not the time during the funding fight to negotiate with Democrats over health care, according to a person familiar with the conversation who was not authorized to discuss it publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Not long after hearing from the GOP leaders, Trump took to social media and said he would no longer meet with the two Democrats “after reviewing the details of the unserious and ridiculous demands being made by the Minority Radical Left Democrats.” Republicans privately acknowledge Trump’s decision to agree to a meeting was a misstep because it gave Democrats fodder to paint Trump as the one refusing to negotiate.

“Trump is literally boycotting meeting with Democrats to find a solution,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., wrote on the social media site X before Trump reversed course again and agreed to meet with the leadership. “There is no one to blame but him. He wants a shut down.”

It was not immediately clear what led Trump over the weekend to take a meeting he had once refused. Schumer spoke privately with Thune on Friday, pushing the majority leader to get a meeting with the president scheduled because of the approaching funding deadline, according to a Schumer aide. A Thune spokesman said in response that Schumer was “clearly getting nervous.”

Another reason why Democrats suspect Trump would be fine with a shutdown is how his budget office would approach a closure should one happen.

The administration’s strategy was laid out in an Office of Management and Budget memo last week that said agencies should consider a reduction in force for federal programs whose funding would lapse, are not otherwise funded and are “not consistent” with the president’s priorities. A reduction in force would not only lay off employees but also eliminate their positions, triggering yet another massive upheaval in the federal workforce.

Jeffries argued that Trump and his top aides were using the “smoke screen of a government shutdown caused by them to do more damage.”