Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) are coming in hot against President Donald Trump after the federal government officially shut down at midnight.
Amid a tense partisan standoff, Congress failed to reach an agreement on how to extend federal funding, bringing the country into its first government shutdown since 2018. The Senate rejected separate Republican and Democratic proposals just hours before the deadline.
The impasse mainly centered on health care, with Democratic leadership pushing for an extension of tax credits under the Affordable Care Act that are set to expire at the end of the year, as well as a reversal of Medicaid cuts in Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” passed this summer. Meanwhile, Republicans aimed to extend funding for seven weeks to allow more time to continue working on annual spending bills.
In a joint statement released early Wednesday, Schumer and Jeffries took aim at Trump, calling his behavior “erratic and unhinged,” and blamed him and the Republican Party for causing the government shutdown.
“…They do not want to protect the healthcare of the American people,” the lawmakers said in the statement. “Democrats remain ready to find a bipartisan path forward to reopen the government in a way that lowers costs and addresses the Republican healthcare crisis. But we need a credible partner.”
Schumer and Jeffries also pointed to Trump’s recent taunting social media posts, after the two had met with the president on Monday in the Oval Office as part of a last-minute effort to reach a deal before federal funding lapsed.
On Monday, Trump first posted an AI-generated video showing the two leaders speaking after the meeting — with a fabricated voice of Schumer saying Democrats “have no voters anymore, because of our woke, trans bulls—.” Jeffries, alongside him, is shown wearing a sombrero while mariachi music plays in the background.
While Jeffries slammed the video as “disgusting,” Trump posted a second fake video late Tuesday of him playing mariachi music behind Jeffries, who is depicted wearing a different sombrero. Trump also had uploaded images showing “Trump 2028″ hats strategically placed in front of Schumer and Jeffries as they met with him.
“Instead of negotiating a bipartisan agreement in good faith, he is obsessively posting crazed deepfake videos,” they wrote in the statement.
Schumer and Jeffries concluded: “The country is in desperate need of an intervention to get out of another Trump shutdown.”
During an appearance on CNN early Wednesday, Schumer said that he hopes “Republicans have seen they don’t have the votes” and will “sit down and negotiate in good faith.”
Due to the federal shutdown, around 750,000 federal workers are expected to be furloughed each day, starting Wednesday, according to an estimate from the Congressional Budget Office. The White House has threatened that permanent firings may be imminent.
Many federal offices are set to close, while some agencies say their services will continue, including Trump’s immigration crackdown and some public health work.
