Donald Trump just pulled off a political maneuver that has Democrats reeling — and, frankly, they should be. With a potential government shutdown looming on September 30, the Trump administration has made it clear that if Congress can’t pass a clean Continuing Resolution to keep the government running, federal workers could be facing mass firings. Not furloughs. Firings. Real jobs on the line. For years, Democrats thought they could weaponize shutdowns as a way to extract concessions from Republicans. Now, Trump has flipped the script by putting the pressure right back where it belongs: on them.
The House passed a stopgap to fund the government through November 21, but Senate Democrats won’t move it forward. Why? Because they’re holding out for a laundry list of demands, from making Obamacare subsidies permanent to funding transgender surgeries for minors and free health care for illegal immigrants. Essentially, they’re trying to hold government funding hostage in return for policy demands the voters rejected.
And Trump isn’t having any of it.
The Office of Management and Budget issued a blunt memorandum spelling out how the administration will deal with a shutdown. The message was unmistakable: Democrats are blocking a straightforward funding bill, and if they insist on playing chicken with the budget, their allies inside the federal bureaucracy will pay the price.
The memo makes it clear that agencies must prepare for mass layoffs, and employees working on programs not aligned with Trump’s priorities are especially vulnerable. Translation: there will be no shelter for the pet projects of the left. Programs that didn’t get automatic funding boosts under the law are first on the chopping block, leaving the bloated progressive agenda exposed.
What makes this gambit so devastatingly effective is that essential services remain untouched. Social Security checks will still go out. Medicare continues. Military operations remain fully funded. Our law enforcement and immigration enforcement won’t miss a beat. The parts of government people actually rely on—the safety net, national security, basic rule of law—will keep functioning. It’s the ideological fluff, the progressive experiments, the swamp’s gravy train that faces extinction.
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Not everyone in the Democratic Party is on board with this recklessness. Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman has broken ranks with his colleagues, calling it exactly as it is. “It is absolutely the wrong thing for a lot of reasons that we’re going to shut our government down,” he warned, explicitly condemning Democrats for playing partisan games That kind of candor is rare these days, and it leaves Schumer and Jeffries looking even more isolated.
The memo leaves Democrats a clear choice: pass a clean continuing resolution before the September 30 deadline, or trigger a shutdown that would unleash thousands of layoffs in the very federal workforce they claim to protect. Democrats now must weigh their obsession with expanding government handouts against the livelihoods of the bureaucracy they champion. This is Trump at his political sharpest, turning a Democrat tactic into a weapon against them.
By forcing their rhetoric about protecting workers to collide with their own shutdown brinksmanship, Trump ensures that if the government falters, it won’t be Republican voters paying the price—it will be the Democrats’ own allies in the swamp.
Trump has turned the Democrats’ favorite weapon—government shutdowns—into their worst nightmare. PJ Media delivers the real story while legacy media covers for Democrats. Join PJ Media VIP with promo code FIGHT for 60% off. Get exclusive member perks and fearless reporting. Join the fight today.