Democrats voted for a government shutdown, and that's precisely what they got.

They find themselves in an optics nightmare - as party leaders were surely aghast watching CNN's Jake Tapper call out House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) over the hill they've chosen to die on - restoring provisions that were eliminated in Trump's 'big beautiful bill' that provides free healthcare to illegal immigrants.

What's more, Democrats handed President Trump a gift - not only do they look stupid for trying to add $1.5 trillion to the national debt, they've opened the door for President Trump to deliver on one of his core campaign promises; cutting waste and fraud, a crusade that began with Elon Musk and DOGE in his first term but has since lost momentum - well, until now. 

On Tuesday, the president warned that he could "get rid of a lot of things" that would heavily impact the Democratic Party, adding, "We can eliminate many things we didn't want ... and they'd be Democrat things." 

By Wednesday morning, left-wing New York Governor Kathy Hochul and fellow Democrats were furious about Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought's announcement that the Trump administration withheld $18 billion in New York City infrastructure projects due to "unconstitutional DEI principles". This shows how the administration has a lot more power during the shutdown to slash and burn spending that funds the Democratic Party machine.

Late last night, Trump wrote on Truth Social, "Republicans must use this opportunity of Democrat forced closure to clear out dead wood, waste, and fraud. Billions of Dollars can be saved." 

Vought has fired up the chainsaw ... again.

Panic mode sets in for Democrats in the far-left state of Maryland. 

Trump did warn Democrats ahead of the shutdown that his administration was ready to slash jobs and programs .... 

Democrats appear to have made a miscalculated move in forcing a shutdown, one that now inadvertently gives the Trump administration the runway to cut even more waste and fraud from a bloated federal bureaucracy. A January Ipsos poll found that a majority of Americans support downsizing the federal government. With the national debt soaring to $37.5 trillion, savings must be found wherever possible. Those savings now appear to be coming from defunding the Democratic Party’s globalist machine, which has squandered not only the inheritance of previous generations but also the future of young Americans through its nation-killing woke policies.