President Donald Trump said Monday night he isn’t worried that Americans might turn against him and Republicans if the federal government shuts down this week, commenting that “people that are smart” know what’s going on and accusing Democrats of being “deranged.”
The administration had signaled earlier Monday that it might consider the proposal if Democrats first agreed to pass a stopgap spending bill, but by evening, Trump ruled out concessions tied to health coverage for people in the country illegally, reports Politico.
“They want to destroy health care in America by giving it to millions and millions of illegal aliens,” Trump told the outlet Monday, hours after he and congressional leaders met at the White House in an 11th-hour bid to avert a shutdown.
Their session ended without progress, leaving the parties bracing for a lapse in funding when the fiscal year ends at midnight Tuesday. Democrats’ demands to extend soon-to-expire health insurance subsidies are at the center of the impasse.
Trump’s latest attack was less pointed than some in recent days, but carried the same theme of portraying Democrats as willing to risk a shutdown over unpopular policies.
House Speaker Mike Johnson and Republicans have echoed Trump’s argument, framing Democrats as pushing a counterproposal that would roll back parts of a sweeping GOP-backed domestic policy law Trump signed in July.
That measure tightened rules barring noncitizens from accessing federal benefits. Currently, undocumented immigrants are not eligible to buy insurance under the Affordable Care Act.
At the center of the standoff is how to keep the government funded in the short term and under what terms.
Republicans are pressing for a “clean” continuing resolution that would simply extend current spending without new policy provisions, arguing that major debates over health care, taxes and social programs should be settled separately.
Democrats, meanwhile, insist that any stopgap bill include extensions of Affordable Care Act subsidies, safeguards against Medicaid cuts and other health care measures.
Democrats emerged from Monday’s White House meeting insisting they would not back a funding bill without conditions. Republicans, in turn, accused Democrats of holding agencies “hostage” with unrelated demands.
“I think we’re headed into a shutdown because the Democrats won’t do the right thing,” Vice President JD Vance said earlier Monday. “You don’t use your policy disagreements as leverage.”
Trump’s administration on Monday also began detailing which federal services would pause if the shutdown begins, with the U.S. health department slated to furlough 41% of its workforce.
The impending closure would differ from past shutdowns, officials said, because the administration has threatened mass firings of federal staff and suggested it could use the funding lapse to shrink the size of government permanently.
In guidance from the Office of Personnel Management, training and onboarding of new federal employees are barred during a shutdown, but employees handling dismissals are to continue their work.
Unlike during previous shutdowns, furloughed staff would also be allowed to use government-issued computers to check for layoff notices by email.
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