This is the price you pay for waiting until the last minute to get funding bills passed.
For months, we all knew this date loomed for a potential government shutdown, but everyone played games, and Democrats figured this would be a good time to posture.
Bad news for them… Trump wanted this shutdown, but he also would have been happy to have a clean continuing resolution passed. Either way, he wins, but the shutdown gives Trump an even bigger win, and Democrats took the bait to hand it to him on a silver platter.
Had Democrats agreed to pass clean legislation, Trump would have gladly signed the bill and kept the government operational.
As the clock ticked down, Democrat leadership begged Trump for a meeting, and he gave it to them, but this was more of a press op than anything else for Trump.
When Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) showed up to the Oval Office, Trump had his MAGA hats all over the Resolute Desk to troll them.
Dems refused to budge on their healthcare demands, Trump smiled and told them no deal, so the government shut down as of midnight.
The reason that Trump did not care if there was a government shutdown is that this enables the administration to initiate mass firings and scale back the government workforce, something on which he ran during the 2024 campaign.
Democrats handed this win to Trump, and unless they cave and pass a clean CR within the next day or so, you had better believe that the president will take full advantage of this gift horse.
Trump warned Democrats, “We’re doing well as a country, so the last thing we want to do is shut it down, but a lot of good can come down from shutdowns. We can get rid of a lot of things that we didn’t want.”
If Trump follows through, unions and Democrats are going to have a fit, but he will be more than happy to fight this out in court with them.
Trump has been baiting Democrats for the shutdown for weeks, but he never hid his intentions as to what would happen if the government were to be shut down. Now, even the liberal media is going off on Dems.
The Washington Post editorial board wrote, "There is no reason to think this shutdown will end any differently for its left-wing counterpart. The most likely outcome is that Democrats will come to regret having just walked into a trap.”
The board continued, "Left-wing Democrats, like the Freedom Caucus before them, enter this shutdown in a position of weakness. President Donald Trump and his budget director, Russell Vought, now have extraordinary authority to choose which agencies to close, what spending to prioritize, and even which government workers to lay off.”
I have plenty of family and friends who will be impacted by this shutdown, but I still support it rather than caving to Democrats when they refused to do the same when they had the power, always resulting in the GOP giving in to keep the government open. I doubt it will be a prolonged shutdown. But I am sure that the longer this lasts, the more the people of this country will turn against Democrats, exactly the opposite of what Schumer thought would happen. And when he eventually caves and gets nothing, he will look even more foolish than he already does.
