Trump doubles down on ‘Democrat programme’ cuts as shutdown drags into day 15

President Donald Trump has doubled down on his threat to permanently eliminate what he calls “Democrat programmes” as the United States government shutdown stretches into its fifteenth day with no deal in sight.
“The Democrats are getting killed on the shutdown because we’re closing up programmes that are Democrat programmes that we were opposed to… and they’re never going to come back in many cases,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday, according to ABC News.
He added that a list of targeted programmes could be made public as soon as Friday, though he gave no details. “Republican programmes,” he assured, “will be safe.”
The White House has already started wielding the shutdown as a budget weapon. According to CNBC, $28 billion in federal funds for infrastructure and energy projects in Democrat-led states like California, Illinois, and New York has been paused or cut.
And last Friday, roughly 4,200 employees across eight government agencies received “reduction-in-force notices,” bureaucratic language for being laid off. The biggest hits came at the Treasury Department, Health and Human Services, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Some of the cuts have surprised even Trump’s allies. Among the axed programmes was the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, which supports investment in low-income areas and has long had bipartisan backing.
The scale of the disruption continues to grow. Of the roughly 2.25 million civilian federal employees, about 750,000 have been furloughed since the shutdown began two weeks ago. The rest, classified as “essential,” are working without pay.
The White House said it would divert $8 billion in existing funds to keep paying military and coastguard personnel, an unusual step meant to soften political blowback.
Meanwhile, Congress remains deadlocked. A Republican-backed funding bill that would have extended government operations to November 21 failed in the Senate on Monday in a 49–45 vote, short of the 60 needed to pass.
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