President Donald Trump has seized on the government shutdown as an opportunity to reshape the federal workforce and punish detractors, by threatening mass firings of workers and suggesting “irreversible” cuts to programs important to Democrats.
Rather than simply furlough employees, as is usually done during any lapse of funds, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said layoffs were “imminent.” The Office of Management and Budget announced it was putting on hold roughly $18 billion of infrastructure funds for New York’s subway and Hudson Tunnel projects — in the hometown of the Democratic leaders of the U.S. House and Senate.
Thursday is day two of the shutdown, and already the dial is turned high. The aggressive approach coming from the Trump administration is what certain lawmakers and budget observers feared if Congress, which has the responsibility to pass legislation to fund government, failed to do its work and relinquished control to the White House.
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Anti-abortion group says it plans to spend on another 2026 Senate race
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America said it’s adding North Carolina to the list of U.S. Senate races it’s targeting next year.
The anti-abortion group committed to spending $4.5 million in an effort to defeat Roy Cooper, a Democratic former governor who’s running next year to replace retiring Republican Sen. Thom Tillis.
The announcement comes about a week after SBA said it would put the same amount into each of two other Senate races, in Michigan and Georgia.
If it follows through with the spending, it would be about the same amount it put into independent political expenditures across the country in 2022 and 2024 combined.
The group says it will also get involved in other 2026 races.
Trump to meet with White House budget director as he eyes spending cuts during shutdown
The president said on his social media site that he'll meet with White House budget director Russ Vought to discuss “temporary or permanent” spending cuts as part of the government shutdown.
Trump specifically highlighted in his Truth Social post that Vought played a role in putting together the Project 2025 initiative to reshape the federal government around right-wing policies. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump had denied having any involvement with the Project 2025 playbook released by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
Trump said the point of the meeting is “to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies” Vought “recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.”
The president said Democratic lawmakers, by having the shutdown, are giving him “this unprecedented opportunity” to reorient the government to his liking.
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