President Donald Trump said Thursday that the government shutdown Democrats engineered will result in cuts to their pet programs.

“The Democratic shutdown is causing pain and suffering for hardworking Americans, including our military, our air traffic controllers, impoverished mothers, people with young children — people that have to live not the greatest of lives,” Trump said in a video posted to X.

“But we’re doing so many tax cuts. We’ve cut their taxes. The great big, beautiful bill —we’ve cut their taxes at levels nobody has ever seen. No tax on tips. No tax on Social Security. No tax on overtime. It’s been a great thing for a lot of people. They are doing great, despite all of the damage that it’s caused,” he said.

.@POTUS: “We’ll be making cuts that will be permanent, and we’re only gonna cut Democrat programs … We’ll be cutting some very popular Democrat programs.” pic.twitter.com/l1GEELAhaC

— CSPAN (@cspan) October 9, 2025

Trump said the government shutdown “has been, you know, pretty damaging. Not yet, because it’s early, but it gets a little bit worse as it goes along.”

“We will be making cuts that will be permanent, and we’re only going to cut Democrat programs, I hate to tell you. I guess that makes sense, but we’re only cutting Democrat programs. We are going to start that,” he said.

“Russell can talk to you about it if he wants to, but we’ll be cutting some very popular Democrat programs that aren’t popular with Republicans, frankly, ’cause that’s the way it works,” Trump said, referring to Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought.

“They wanted to do this, so we’ll give them a little taste of their own medicine,” Trump said.

Earlier in his Cabinet meeting, Trump trolled a pair of New York Democrats — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

“The problem is, we really don’t know who the hell is leading the Democrats,” Trump said, according to RealClearPolitics.

“You have this AOC — I don’t know her at all. I watched her the other day: ‘If they want, they can come to my office.’ That’s not leadership,” Trump said.

“The only one to challenge her was Nancy Pelosi. Nancy is not looking too good. I don’t know what’s happened to Nancy. She’s not looking great. But I give her credit — she was the only one to challenge her.

“AOC said that Republicans could come to her office and negotiate. I didn’t know she was the leadership, but she is taking Hakeem Jeffries’ place. And Schumer is afraid she’s going to run against him,” Trump said.

“And right now — I don’t know, it could change, life is crazy, right? — but right now, I don’t think he can beat anybody. He would lose any primary. I would say he’ll retire before he loses in a primary. I think Schumer is going to retire, because he can’t beat anybody, his polls are so bad,” Trump said.

Trump said Democrats are picking the wrong tactic, according to CBS News.

“They keep using health care as a cudgel,” Trump said. Democrats have said they want to fund a health care program that subsidizes Obamacare premiums, but Republicans have said without reform, that would fund health care for illegal immigrants.

“They want to try and get everyone thinking about health care. We’re the ones that are saving health care,” he said.

On Thursday, the Senate again rejected proposals that would end the shutdown, according to CBS News.

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