I have stated numerous times that I actually believe that Donald Trump wanted the government shutdown.
The president has been very open about the fact that if the government shuts down, he believes he can take an axe to federal agencies to reduce the size of the government's workforce.
Now that everything has shut down, and Dems are holding firm in their position, does Trump actually have the power to achieve his goals?
So far, Democrats have not budged, believing they hold sufficient leverage to get Republicans to cave to their demands on healthcare.
They are doing this despite an overwhelming sentiment among the citizens that theirs is the party to blame for the shutdown.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) remained undaunted this week, saying that Trump’s threats are nothing new, and neither are his rumored plans. He stated, “These are all things that the Trump administration has been doing since Jan. 20.”
Jeffries continued, “The mass firings of federal workers -- the Trump administration has been engaging in this since Jan. 20. Targeting the green-energy economy -- Republicans have been doing that since Jan. 20.”
Trump believes that shutdown will allow him to fully utilize his presidential powers, and he plans on meeting with Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought to downsize the government during the shutdown.
The presisdent posted, "I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity.”
He continued, "They are not stupid people, so maybe this is their way of wanting to, quietly and quickly, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"
While Trump pushes that message, Vice President JD Vance is hammering the narrative that Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is caving to pressure from the far left to hold firm on the shutdown, doing so largely because of a possible primary threat from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Trump's ability to carry out his threats remains an open question, and there are a lot of different theories on this. For instance, the Center for American Progress (CAP) believes that Trump’s powers actually get dialed back during a shutdown.
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued a memo regarding the shutdown, on which CAP reported, “The OPM guidance should be seen as an admission from the Trump administration that a government shutdown would in fact limit its ability to fire federal employees, which is why it would only allow any permanent layoffs to be initiated prior to the start of a shutdown or in its very first few hours while the government winds down.”
While Trump and the OMB will determine which agencies stay functional during a shutdown, there is also resistance on the right to have the president make sizable cuts, such as that posed by Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), who stated that he "strongly opposes these harmful cuts, which undermine, amongst other things, our counterterrorism efforts and critical infrastructure projects in New York."
As we all know, Trump has no problem testing the limits of his power, so he will likely move forward with his plans, but expect legal action to be taken to litigate the question and decide the issue once and for all. And just remember, anything Trump does now, Democrats will be able to do in the future when they move back into the White House, so he has to be very careful about how far he wants to push things. I expect more information on this later today after the president meets with Vought to discuss his desired cuts.
