Trump Threatens ‘a Lot’ of Firings as Shutdown Looms

Trump threatened deep cuts during the shutdown.
Reuters
By Yuval Rosenberg and Michael Rainey

As the calendar turns to October at midnight tonight, fiscal year 2025 will come to an end and with it funding for the federal government, which will shut down for the first time in nearly seven years - and the 15th time Since 1981. We've got your evening update.

Trump, Congress Head Toward First Government Shutdown in Nearly 7 Years

President Trump and congressional lawmakers barreled toward a government shutdown on Tuesday, digging in for what could be a prolonged standoff as the two sides traded accusations and barbs rather than engage in negotiations.

The Senate on Tuesday evening again voted down a Democratic bill to avert a shutdown by funding the government through October. That plan would also extend expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits. The vote was 47-53, falling well short of the 60 votes needed. A second vote on a Republican plan to fund the government through November 21, without an extension of the ACA subsidies, also failed, 55-45.

With little sign that their deep differences could be resolved by a midnight deadline, Democrats and Republicans spent much of the day attacking each other and assigning blame.

For his part, President Trump warned Democrats that his administration and budget director Russell Vought would look to use a shutdown to further their agenda. "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," he said. "We can get rid of a lot of things that we didn't want, and they'd be Democrat things."

Earlier in the day, he threatened large-scale cuts. "We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them and irreversible by them, like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like," the president told reporters.

The administration has significant discretion to decide what federal operations will continue and which will be suspended, and it has already begun detailing its plans. An estimated 750,000 federal workers could be sent home without pay, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Vought has also threatened mass firings of federal workers who are not deemed essential, rather than just the usual furloughs, if the government shuts down. The website of the Department of Housing and Urban Development featured a large pop-up box that said: "The Radical Left are going to shut down the government and inflict massive pain on the American people."

Trump took the blame game to a whole new level on Monday night, posting a racist, AI-generated video on social media. The 34-second clip depicts House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wearing a sombrero and a large mustache while mariachi music plays in the background. Next to him, a fake Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says that Black and Latino voters don't like Democrats anymore and "if we give all these illegal aliens free health care, we might be able to get them on our side so they can vote for us."

Democrats slammed Trump for the video. "Bigotry will get you nowhere," Jeffries wrote on social media. "Cancel the Cuts. Lower the Cost. Save Healthcare. We are NOT backing down."

In keeping with the fake video he posted, Trump on Tuesday again made the misleading argument that Democrats are trying to give "illegal aliens" free healthcare. Other Republicans have also made such claims, even though undocumented immigrants are ineligible for Medicaid.

"Republicans may be referring to the law changing the eligibility requirements for certain immigrant groups," Linda Qiu explained in a New York Times fact-check yesterday. "Under the tax cut and domestic policy law, certain groups of 'lawfully present' immigrants are no longer eligible for Obamacare subsidies. The Democrats' proposal would restore that eligibility."

Qiu noted that the Congressional Budget Office estimated that 1.2 million people would lose subsidies and health coverage under tighter eligibility criteria, though it did not characterize those immigrants as illegal or unauthorized.

In remarks on the Senate floor, Schumer pushed back on what he called Republican lies. "They say the Democrats want undocumented immigrants to get the federal dollars of healthcare. That is utter bull, and they know it," he said. "The law prohibits undocumented immigrants from getting payments from Medicare, Medicaid, or the ACA. There is no money - not a penny of federal dollars - that are going there. So why do they bring this up? Because they're afraid to talk about the real issue, which is healthcare for American citizens, healthcare for people who need the healthcare and can't afford these premiums."

ACA Premiums Will More Than Double on Average if Subsidies Expire: Report

The key policy issue at the heart of the shutdown battle is the looming expiration at the end of this year of enhanced tax credits for Affordable Care Act plans. Democrats want to extend those higher subsidies, first introduced in 2021, while Republicans are more divided on the issue, with some pressing to avoid a surge in premiums for millions of families while others want to introduce tighter limits to the program or eliminate the credits completely.

A new analysis by KFF, a non-partisan, nonprofit healthcare foundation, shows what's at stake. It estimates that, if Congress extends the enhanced tax credits, subsidized enrollees would save an average of $1,016 in premium payments for 2026. The vast majority of the 24 million people enrolled in ACA plans receive subsidies.

Put differently, if the enhanced tax credits are allowed to expire, subsidized enrollees would see their annual out-of-pocket premiums soar by an average 114%, from $888 in 2025 to $1,904 in 2026.

The new estimate is sharply higher than an earlier one by KFF, which put the savings at an average $705, or about 76%. KFF's analysts say the difference stems from Trump administration changes to the way tax credits are calculated as well as rising premiums for 2026. Insurers in the Affordable Care Act marketplace are proposing the largest rate hikes since 2018, with a median increase of 18%, KFF says.

Poll of the Day: Who Takes the Blame?

Party leaders are pointing fingers across the aisle ahead the impending shutdown, but a new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll indicates that Republicans would get a larger share of the blame.

In a poll of 1,477 adults taken September 22-26, 38% of respondents said they would blame Republicans for the shutdown, while 27% said they would blame Democrats. About 30% would blame both parties equally.

Trump Announces Pricing Deal With Pfizer, New 'TrumpRx' Program

President Trump announced Tuesday that Pfizer will voluntarily reduce prices on some products it sells to U.S. consumers. The pharmaceutical giant will provide prescription drugs to the Medicaid system at the typically lower price offered in Europe, and any new drugs will be sold at prices like those in other developed countries.

At a press conference in the Oval Office, Trump and his top health officials also said that Pfizer will offer medications directly to consumers on a new website called TrumpRx, at an average discount of 50%. The White House said the website is still under construction but is expected to list drugs from multiple manufacturers when it goes live in early 2026.

The White House said Pfizer has agreed to spend $70 billion on new facilities and research in the U.S. The agreement secures a three-year reprieve from tariffs for products Pfizer imports from plants outside the U.S.

Pharma in the crosshairs: Trump has been pushing drug companies to lower their prices, pointing out that many drugs sold in the U.S. are much cheaper overseas while demanding that producers match the lowest price they offer in other developed countries, which he calls the most-favored-nation price.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to impose tariffs on pharmaceutical imports, and last week announced that a 100% tariff on "any branded or patented pharmaceutical product" would be imposed starting on October 1 - with an exception granted for products made by companies that are building factories in the U.S.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, whose department is responsible for determining whether specific product categories should be shielded by tariffs on national security grounds, said he is waiting for other drug companies to complete their talks with the federal government before making any final decisions on pharmaceuticals.

"While we're negotiating with these companies, we're going to let them play out and finish these negotiations," Lutnick told reporters at the White House.

Details unclear: Trump said that getting drugs at "most-favored-nation's prices" would help reduce the cost of Medicaid "like nothing else," but there are still many unanswered questions about how the discounts and the new TrumpRx program will work. Among other things, most Americans get their medications through insurance programs, and it's not clear whether private insurance or Medicare prices will be affected by the agreement.

There's also the question of how low prices can go, an especially tricky matter when Trump promises reductions upwards of 1,000% - a mathematical impossibility.

Hannah Katch, a senior Medicaid official during the Biden administration, said the savings may not add up to much. "We don't yet know specifics, but it's hard to imagine that states and the federal government are going to save much money based on this announcement," she told The Washington Post.

Pfizer shares rose after the announcement, with analysts saying the terms of the agreement could have been worse for the company by requiring a larger discount on a wider array of drugs. Investors were also pleased that the deal likely protects the company from tariffs that Trump could impose in the future.

Trump Says US Cities Could Be 'Training Ground' for Military

President Trump on Tuesday told top military brass that American cities could be used as "training grounds" for their troops.

"We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military," Trump said as part of a rambling speech to hundreds of military commanders who had been summoned to Quantico, Virginia. He later added: "We're under invasion from within, no different than a foreign enemy but more difficult in many ways because they don't wear uniforms."

In recent weeks and months, Trump has ordered controversial deployments of National Guard soldiers to Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Portland, Oregon, despite the insistence of local leaders that those troops weren't needed.

Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that the meeting was a distraction for the troops and a waste of their time. He called Trump's suggestion of using cities as training grounds "a dangerous assault on our democracy, treating our own communities as war zones and our citizens as enemies."

Hegseth pushes his 'warrior ethos': Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also addressed the unusual gathering of admirals and generals, raising familiar culture war complaints and decrying what he called "decades of decay" at a department that had been infected with "social justice, politically correct and toxic ideological garbage."

Hegseth emphasized fitness and grooming as part of his clean-up effort. "It's completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon," Hegseth told the gathered leaders. "The era of unprofessional appearance is over. No more beardos."

Hegseth also announced that he is loosening disciplinary rules surrounding bullying and hazing as part of an effort to toughen training.

Questions about cost: As The New York Times noted, "It was standard fare for Mr. Hegseth, who will undoubtedly come under criticism for the expense of flying the commanders to the Washington area as a federal shutdown looms."

In the lead-up to the event, the reasons for it were a mystery and the subject of much speculation. So what was the purpose? The messages delivered reinforced the Trump administration's focus on remaking the Pentagon's culture, Trump's willingness to have troops patrolling the streets of America's cities and Hegseth's war on "woke."

That left critics still questioning the need to bring in military leaders from far-flung deployments as well as the costs and the security risks involved.

"This event was an expensive, dangerous dereliction of leadership by the Trump Administration," Reed said. "Even more troubling was Mr. Hegseth's ultimatum to America's senior officers: conform to his political worldview or step aside. That demand is profoundly dangerous. It signals that partisan loyalty matters more than capability, judgment, or service to the Constitution, undermining the principle of a professional, nonpartisan military."

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