The Trump/Republican Government Shutdown
Trump and the Republicans in Congress shutdown the government on October 1 and due to Republican intransigence, there is no end in sight. Any Republican effort to blame their shutdown on the Democrats is laughable since they control all of the branches and claimed a landslide and smashing mandate in 2024. They also hate a government that assists working families, the elderly, the sick and the poor.
Trump and the Republicans are shutting down the government because they want to increase your health insurance premiums by 75%. Trump and the MAGA Republicans believe that rich people don’t have enough money and that the poor and middle class have it too easy.
We’re in a shutdown because Trump broke a long time promise.
February 26.
REPORTER: “Can you guarantee Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will not be touched?”
POTUS: “I’ve said it so many times that you shouldn’t even be asking me that question… We’re not going to touch it.”
The U.S. government is shut down, and Americans are more inclined to blame President Trump and Republicans for it, according to four independent, national polls conducted just before or during the funding lapse. Maybe it’s because they shut down the government.
Washington Post (Oct. 2, 2025): 47% of Americans mainly blame Trump and Republicans, compared to 30% who mainly blame Democrats.
Morning Consult (late Sept. 2025): 45% of registered voters would blame congressional Republicans, while 32% would blame Democrats.
PBS News/NPR/Marist (late Sept. 2025): 38% would blame Republicans, 27% would blame Democrats, and 31% would blame both equally.
New York Times/Siena (late Sept. 2025): 33% of registered voters would blame both parties equally, 26% would blame Trump and Republicans, and 19% would blame Democrats.
Meanwhile, the Republicans in Congress have gone on vacation and even refuse to negotiate. They want unconditional surrender. In 2024, 50.2% of the voters did not vote for Trump. Currently, Trump has a 38% approval rating. The majority of Americans who oppose Trump and MAGA deserve some representation. We did not elect a dictator in 2024.
“Democrats should stop playing the blame game. Who is technically responsible for initiating the shutdown is an inside-the-Beltway fascination for cable pundits and congressional reporters. It’s irrelevant to everyone else. To the extent the rest of the country cares, they are much more interested in what Democrats are fighting for.
The best way to achieve the legislative goal is to win the messaging war — and the most effective way to do that is to use the shutdown as an opportunity to demonstrate that Democrats will fight fiercely to lower costs for American families.”
Dan Pfeiffer
The Republican budget means 15 million Americans could lose their healthcare. And 24 million face doubling premiums. Democrats will not let that happen.
Democrats are fighting to stop your health care premiums from skyrocketing — and to reverse Trump’s brutal cuts to Medicaid, school lunches, and community policing.
Republicans have demands as well — increase health care costs for Americans and fund Trump’s lawlessness.
A new survey has found that a majority of Republicans and Make America Great Again (MAGA) supporters back the extension of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits at the center of the government shutdown fight.
The poll, conducted by non-partisan health policy research organization KFF, indicated that 59 percent of Republicans and 57 percent of supporters of the MAGA movement favor extending the tax credits. Among the general public, 78 percent of respondents said they’d like to see the tax credits extended — more than three times the share that said the opposite.
Republican voters support the ACA tax credits because they benefit from them. This is a remarkable statistic: 18.7 million out of the 24.3 million Obamacare enrollees are in states won by President Trump in 2024. The Republicans are hurting their own voters with this shutdown.
The Republicans are trying to convince the voters that the Democrats allegedly shutdown the government to provide free health care to undocumented immigrants. The argument is so ludicrous that most Republicans don’t even believe it. According to You Gov poll findings, only 13 percent of Americans believe that the Democrats’ goal is to expand Medicaid benefits to immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally. Moreover, a scant 22 percent of Republicans believe that the Democrats’ goal is to expand Medicaid benefits to immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally.
The single most important thing to remember when you hear this groundless GOP talking point is that by law, undocumented immigrants cannot get Medicare and Medicaid. They cannot get federally subsidized insurance through the exchanges. They are not eligible for these things.
Undocumented immigrants can go to the emergency room and have it paid by Medicaid. That’s because Ronald Reagan signed into law a legal mandate that requires all hospitals to provide emergency medical treatment to anyone — including undocumented immigrants. Those payments are less than 1% of total funding in Medicaid.
And so to suggest that because of that 1% of spending, Democrats are out to give free care to illegal immigrants. It’s just a lie. It’s a lie in the sense that it is fundamentally untrue. They know it’s untrue. They are trying to create a misperception and distract from what the real issue is, which is that they don’t want to spend the money on Medicaid and Obamacare that would help millions of people get insurance.
The Senate will not be holding votes anytime soon on funding the government since many Republican senators will be attending a high-dollar fundraising at a luxury resort by the ocean in Georgia. Must be nice! Let them eat cake!
Meanwhile, the House is on an indefinite vacation. Speaker Mike Johnson said the House will only return to Washington if the Senate votes to fund the government.
The Trump/GOP shutdown could end later today if the Senate Republicans act. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) blasted Senate Republicans for “playing games” instead of using the “nuclear option” to reopen the government, three days after funding lapsed.
“If Republican Senators wanted to pass the CR [continuing resolution] and reopen the government they could, by using the nuclear option to override the 60 vote rule and pass the CR with a simple majority vote,” Greene wrote on social platform X.
This is important. The GOP can open the government literally today with zero Democrats. Just waive the filibuster again. The Senate Republicans have already waived the filibuster rule three times in 2025. Go ahead. Why won’t they do it?
Please call your member of Congress and urge him/her to vote to restore the Trump/GOP health care cuts. We are on the right side of an 80/20 issue! Thank you!
Sources:
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/talking-with-jonathan-cohn