Trump Threatens to Cut ‘Democrat Programs’ as Shutdown Drags On

Reuters
By Yuval Rosenberg and Michael Rainey

Happy Thursday! President Trump today hailed the "momentous breakthrough" of a ceasefire agreement that could end the two-year-long war in Gaza and return all Israeli hostages held by Hamas. "We ended the war in Gaza," Trump said at a Cabinet meeting, even as questions remain about how the multi-phase process will play out.

Also today, Trump's Justice Department and his hand-picked prosecutor secured an indictment against New York Attorney General Letitia James, accusing her of mortgage fraud related to a 2023 purchase of a property in Virginia. James is the second of Trump's targeted adversaries to be indicted in recent weeks.

Here's what else you need to know tonight.

Trump Threatens to Cut 'Democrat Programs' as Shutdown Drags On

President Trump said Thursday that he plans to cut "Democrat programs" as the government shutdown drags on with no end in sight.

"We'll be making cuts that will be permanent, and we're only going to cut Democrat programs, I hate to tell you," Trump said at a Cabinet meeting.

Trump added that his administration will be "cutting some very popular Democrat programs that aren't popular with Republicans because that is the way it works." And he made it clear that the threatened cuts amount to a revenge of sorts. "They wanted to do this, so they will get a little taste of their own medicine," he said, referring to Democrats.

Trump has threatened more than once to make significant spending cuts, including major layoffs, during the shutdown, but to the surprise of many, the White House has held its fire, although a handful of important infrastructure projects in blue states have seen cuts and freezes.

One reason for the administration's hesitation may be the warnings issued by some Republican lawmakers about the fraught politics involved in cutting government programs. As The Wall Street Journal's Natalie Andrews, Meridith McGraw and Lindsay Wise report, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and other Republicans have advised Trump not to start slashing the federal government for fear that such moves would create a massive public backlash against the GOP. It looks like Trump has taken their advice so far.

Cracks in GOP unity: Republican leaders have had to contend this week with some prominent criticism from their own members, with a growing number of GOP lawmakers publicly expressing frustration with the approach taken by Speaker Mike Johnson on issues including healthcare, military pay and the House's extended recess.

Earlier this week, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called for immediate action on the issue Democrats are focused on during the shutdown: the expiration of the enhanced subsidies for Obamacare health plans. "I'm going to go against everyone on this issue because when the tax credits expire this year my own adult children's insurance premiums for 2026 are going to DOUBLE, along with all the wonderful families and hard-working people in my district," Greene wrote on social media Monday evening.

She has since doubled down on her comments, telling CNN on Thursday that her constituents are worried about the cost of healthcare and the potential for insurance premiums to soar.

"I see the shutdown completely different from maybe my party leadership," Greene told CNN. "And I'm not putting the blame on the president. I'm actually putting the blame on the speaker and Leader [John] Thune in the Senate. This should not be happening."

Greene doesn't have a lot of support on the issue among her fellow Republicans, but she does have some backing on her complaints about Johnson's decision to keep the House out of session for weeks. California Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley warned against canceling House sessions again. The House hasn't voted since September 19.

"The entire reason a CR is necessary is that Congress has not done its job in passing a timely budget," Kiley wrote on social media. "The Speaker shouldn't even think about cancelling session for a third straight week."

Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie also questioned Johnson's strategy of keeping the House closed as a way to pressure Democrats, suggesting that the speaker may have other motivations. "Why are we in recess?" he wrote. "Because the day we go back into session, I have 218 votes for the discharge petition to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files."

At least two Republicans have also called on Johnson to allow a vote on a bill that would pay military personnel during the shutdown. "If Congress fails to do its job, our military shouldn't pay the price," said Rep. John Joyce of Pennsylvania.

'Every day gets better for us': Democrats, by contrast, are presenting a common front for the most part and are expressing confidence that the public supports their effort to prevent big increase in the cost of Obamacare health plans.

"Every day gets better for us," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told Punchbowl News in remarks that were harshly criticized by Republicans. "It's because we've thought about this long in advance and we knew that health care would be the focal point on September 30 and we prepared for it."

Schumer added that he doesn't think the Republican approach has been effective. "Every time they try something, it doesn't quite work," he said. "Even the threat of shutting things - 'We're gonna close this, we're gonna close that.' It's [reflecting] at least as negative on them as it is on us. I think more so on them."

A new strategy? Thune, the Senate's top Republican, is reportedly considering an attempt to partially reopen the government by bringing full-year appropriations bills in specific areas such as defense to the floor for a vote.

As Axios's Stef W. Kight and Hans Nichols note, trying to reopen the government one department at a time could be time-consuming and difficult, but it could quiet critics and ease some of the pain of the shutdowns, especially in areas like defense, for which the House has already passed its own bill.

The strategy would require unanimous consent to work, though, so Democrats would have to agree.

"There's nothing holding him back from doing that," Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, told Axios. "That does not change where we are right now in the CR. We still have to negotiate with the House. The president has to sign it, so it's a long way from anywhere."

Senate votes fail a seventh time: The Senate voted on a pair of competing funding bills for the seventh time on Thursday, and for the seventh time, the bills failed.

Needing 60 votes to pass, the Republican-backed bill failed 54-45, while a Democrat-backed bill failed 47-52. As before, three senators in the Democratic caucus voted for the GOP bill, while one Republican voted against it.

Poll of the Day: Disapproval of RFK Jr., Distrust in the CDC

As Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continues his overhaul of federal healthcare agencies and injects his long-running vaccine skepticism into official U.S. policy, a new poll finds that most Americans disapprove of Kennedy's job performance and his handling of the vaccine issue.

Four in 10 people say they strongly disapprove of the job Kennedy is doing and another 19% say they somewhat disapprove. By comparison, 11% say they strongly approve of the way Kennedy is leading HHS and 29% somewhat approve.

On vaccine policy, 62% disapprove, including 40% who do so strongly, while 37% approve.

Opinions about Kennedy are split along partisan lines, with 74% of Republicans backing how the HHS secretary is handling his job versus 35% of independents and 13% of Democrats.

Kennedy has framed his mission as one of rebuilding trust in America's public health administration, but the poll finds a notable erosion in trust, at least when it comes to vaccine information. Just 35% say they have a "great deal" or a "fair amount" of trust in Kennedy to provide reliable information on vaccines and only half of U.S. adults say they trust the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the same issue. That's down from 57% in July and 63% in September 2024.

The poll results are based on a nationally representative sample of 1,334 U.S. adults surveyed from September 23 to 29. The margin of sampling error for the full sample is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Read more about the poll at KFF.

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