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President Trolls Democrat Leaders Amid Shutdown

3 mins read
Donald Trump Smirk
via Gage Skidmore

President Donald Trump stirred the pot once again by posting a photo that gave the public a glimpse into tense government shutdown negotiations, and what appeared to be his latest trolling move against Democratic leaders.

The picture, shared on Truth Social, showed Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune sitting around the negotiating table.

On the table sat two of Trump’s signature Coca-Colas and, placed conspicuously, a pair of red hats emblazoned with the words “Trump 2028.”

Reports indicate that Trump offered the hats as gifts to his Democrat counterparts, but they refused to accept them.

According to Punchbowl News, Jeffries jokingly asked Vice President JD Vance what he thought of Trump running for a third term.

Vance reportedly quipped, “No comment,” prompting laughter throughout the room.

The lighthearted jab followed another social media controversy sparked by the president just a day earlier.

Trump had posted an AI-generated video targeting Schumer and Jeffries. The video altered Schumer’s speech and superimposed a sombrero and mustache onto Jeffries, with mariachi music playing in the background.

The manipulated clip depicted Schumer making crude remarks about Democrats losing voters over “woke, trans bulls—” while suggesting they could sway illegal immigrants with free health care.

The video drew immediate backlash from Democrats. Rep. Madeleine Dean confronted Speaker Johnson directly, pressing him on Trump’s decision to share it.

Johnson distanced himself, saying, “It wasn’t my style,” before walking away.

Dean shot back, “Not your style? It’s disgraceful. It’s bigoted. It’s racist. You should call it out.”

Jeffries also responded angrily, denouncing the post as “racist” and challenging Trump to confront him personally.

“Mr. President, the next time you have something to say about me, don’t cop out through a racist and fake AI video,” Jeffries declared on the steps of the Capitol.

“When I’m back in the Oval Office, say it to my face,” he added. “Say it to my face.”

During an interview with MSNBC, Jeffries dismissed the video as a “malignant distraction” meant to divert attention from what he described as Republican efforts to “rip health care away from the American people.”

Schumer, meanwhile, railed against Trump on the Senate floor. “Hours away from a shutdown, which we don’t want, the American people don’t want, the president is busy trolling away on the internet like 10-year-old,” he spat.

Schumer argued that Americans would blame Trump if the government closed and stressed that the video was fake, pointing to its poor audio quality and AI-generated voice impersonation.

“The president posted a face video of Leader Jeffries and me with [a] sombrero, fake music, impersonating my voice through AI — it wasn’t me — talking more lies about health care and immigration,” Schumer said.

Speaker Johnson attempted to downplay the uproar in a CNN interview, describing Trump’s video as “a joke” and insisting the real issue was keeping the government open.

“The fight tonight is not about social media posts,” he said. “The fight is about whether [Democrats will] keep the government open for the American people.”

Despite days of talks, Democrats blocked Republican efforts to pass a funding deal, instead pushing their own measure that would fund the government through October.

Their proposal included a permanent extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies and reversed $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts.

All 53 Republicans rejected the measure, leaving the government on the brink of its first shutdown since December 2018.

A memo from the Office of Management and Budget warned that current federal funding would lapse at 11:59 p.m. Tuesday.

“Unfortunately, Democrat senators are blocking passage of H.R. 5371 in the Senate due to Democrats’ insane policy demands, which include $1 trillion in new spending,” the memo read.

The Senate scheduled another vote on the failed bill for Wednesday morning.

Trump warned Democrats of consequences during an Oval Office appearance.

“We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible — that are bad for them and irreversible by them — by cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like,” he said.

Schumer countered that Republicans would bear the brunt of public anger if the shutdown went forward.

“It’s in their court to solve it. It’s their shutdown,” he said, adding that Trump himself admitted during talks that the health care funding fight “is going to be very bad for you.”

Schumer said he warned the president that the shutdown would not only hurt Republicans politically but harm the country as well.

Accusing the GOP of dragging out negotiations until the last moment, Schumer said Trump could easily order Johnson and Thune to incorporate Democrats’ demands into their bill to resolve the standoff.

“We said this to Trump yesterday. He can easily call up Thune and Johnson and say, just add the two parts we want added to the bill. They can take it out of our bill, put it in theirs, and solve it,” Schumer remarked.

He insisted Americans were waking up to what he called a health care crisis and would put “tremendous heat on Republicans to solve it.”

The government shutdown at midnight on Wednesday, for the first time since a 35-day border wall funding skirmish caused the longest government shutdown in U.S. history in late 2018.

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Clark Kelley

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