President Donald Trump on Tuesday reportedly set a clear deadline for Democrats as the government shutdown entered its second week, warning that if they continue to block a resolution to reopen the government, his administration will begin cutting federal jobs and eliminating programs he says are riddled with waste.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his Democratic caucus once again rejected a short-term continuing resolution on Monday, prolonging the shutdown.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said Democrats’ intransigence was giving his administration a rare opportunity to streamline the federal bureaucracy and rein in government spending.
“If this keeps going on, it’ll be substantial, and a lot of those jobs will never come back,” Trump said when asked how many permanent federal positions could be eliminated. “You’re going to have a lot closer to a balanced budget.”
Pressed on which programs were under review, Trump declined to provide details but said announcements would come soon. “Oh, sure. We have a lot, I’m not going to tell you, but we’ll be announcing it pretty soon,” he said. “We have a lot of things that we’re going to eliminate and permanently eliminate.”
The president cast the ongoing standoff as an unintended advantage, one that allows his administration to target entrenched inefficiencies in Washington. “Because of the shutdown, which I think they made a big mistake, we’re able to take out billions and billions of dollars of waste, fraud and abuse,” Trump said. “They’ve handed it to us on a silver platter.”
The shutdown centers on disputes over health care spending. Democrats have demanded increased federal funding for Medicaid—including reimbursements to states for covering illegal immigrants—and additional subsidies for the Affordable Care Act.
The White House, meanwhile, has insisted that long-term spending reform is overdue, particularly as federal deficits grow and the national debt climbs past $35 trillion.
Trump said he has been receiving calls from Democrats eager to negotiate, though he noted that some of the figures claiming to speak for the party were unfamiliar to him. “I’ve been getting calls from Democrats who want to meet with me and are claiming to be the leader of the party,” he said. “Some of the names I’ve never heard of.”
Last week, Trump met with his Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director to discuss the scope of potential layoffs.
Following the meeting, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Daily Caller that agencies had already begun identifying redundant or unnecessary positions across the federal government.
“Unfortunately, because the Democrats shut down the government, the president has directed his cabinet and the Office of Management and Budget is working with agencies across the board to identify where cuts can be made,” Leavitt said. “We believe that layoffs are imminent.”
Trump’s remarks underscore a broader political calculation: that the shutdown, though politically risky, could be used to advance one of his long-standing promises—to “drain the swamp” by downsizing a sprawling federal bureaucracy.
The president’s message to Democrats was blunt: if they continue to block a deal, he will take matters into his own hands and permanently shrink Washington’s footprint.
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