U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., Oct. 9, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
President Donald Trump on Thursday said his administration plans to use the ongoing government shutdown to permanently cut government programs popular with Democrats, his latest threat amid the funding stalemate.
“We’re only cutting Democrat programs,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.
It was not immediately clear which programs Trump had in mind, but he specified that they were “very popular Democrat programs that aren’t popular with Republicans, frankly.”
“They wanted to do this,” Trump said, doubling down on blaming Democrats for the shutdown.
They will “get a little taste of their own medicine,” he added.
The president’s threat to target Democratic priorities came one week after he initially floated the idea of inflicting pain on his political opponents during the shutdown, which is now in its ninth day.
He said in a Truth Social post last Thursday that the congressional funding lapse gave him an “unprecedented opportunity” to slash what he described as “Democrat Agencies.”
He also wrote he would be meeting with Russell Vought, the White House Office of Management and Budget director, to determine what to cut.
On the first day of the shutdown, Vought announced that the administration was freezing about $18 billion in funding for New York City infrastructure projects, and canceling roughly $8 billion more in climate-related funding for Democratic-leaning states.
Two days later, Vought said that $2.1 billion in Chicago transit project funding has also been put on hold.
The administration is considering canceling an additional $12 billion earmarked for clean energy projects, Semafor reported Tuesday.
The shutdown began on Oct. 1 after Republican and Democratic congressional leaders could not pass appropriations bills to keep the government funded past the end of the fiscal year.
Republicans want to adopt a stopgap measure to resume funding largely at current levels through Nov. 21. Democrats say any funding bill should include additional health-care protections, including extending premium Affordable Care Act tax credits before they expire at the end of the year.
The dueling proposals have repeatedly failed to pass in the Senate.