Trump Promises to Make ‘Permanent’ Cuts to ‘Democrat Programs’ During Shutdown

During Thursday’s cabinet meeting, President Donald Trump took digs at Democrats refusing to back down on health care during the government shutdown that’s now in its second week.

Trump began by talking about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) inviting Republican lawmakers to “come to her office and negotiate.”

“Oh, I didn’t know she was in leadership,” Trump said. “But she’s taking Hakeem Jeffries’s place.”

“Meanwhile, the Democratic shutdown is causing pain and suffering for hardworking American,s including our military, our air traffic controllers, impoverished mothers, people with young children, people that have to live not the greatest of lives,” Trump continued. “But we are doing so many tax cuts…we’ve cut their taxes at levels nobody’s ever seen.”

Trump listed off provisions of the Big Beautiful Bill, including no tax on tips, social security, and overtime pay, saying, “It’s been great for a lot of people. They are doing great.”

He then threatened “Democrat programs” if the shutdown continued:

The shutdown has been pretty damaging, you know, not yet because it’s early, but it gets a little bit worse as it goes along. And we’ll be making cuts that are permanent.

And we’re only gonna cut Democrat programs, I hate to tell you. I guess that makes sense. But we’re cutting Democrat programs. We are going to start that. Russell [Vought] can talk to you about it if he wants to, but we will be cutting some very popular Democrat programs that aren’t popular with Republicans, frankly. Cause that’s the way it works. They wanted to do this so we will give them a little taste of their own medicine.

Trump claimed Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) “is acting not to serve the people but to serve the partisan interests of his party, and I don’t think he’s serving them well, because they just lost an election in a landslide.”

Watch the clip above via Fox News.