Trump's shutdown blame game: Why he says Democrats are at fault
[September 29, 2025]
By SEUNG MIN KIM
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has had one refrain in recent
days when asked about the looming government shutdown.
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.”
[to top of second column]
|
President Donald Trump attends the Ryder Cup golf tournament at
Bethpage Black Golf Course in Farmingdale, N.Y., Friday, Sept. 26,
2025. (Mandel Ngan/Pool Photo via AP)
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."
___
AP Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro and Associated Press
writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
