Michael Hernandez
03 October 2025•Update: 03 October 2025
WASHINGTON
US President Donald Trump is seeking political "retribution" and is not engaging with Democrats as the ongoing government shutdown nears a second full day, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Thursday.
"We've seen behavior by the president that is unserious and unhinged, and leader Schumer and myself haven't gotten a single phone call as it relates to a follow-up conversation. We are ready to have that conversation, but we need credible partners on the other side of the aisle, and Donald Trump and Republicans have made clear they wanted to shut down the government," Jeffries told reporters on the steps of the Capitol, referring to his Senate counterpart, Chuck Schumer.
"They want to inflict pain on the American people. They continue to engage in their retribution efforts, and they have zero interest, zero in providing high quality, affordable and accessible care to everyday Americans," he added.
The federal government officially entered a shutdown at midnight Wednesday after lawmakers failed to break a deadlock on funding legislation.
Senate Democrats on Wednesday again rejected a Republican proposal, already passed by the House of Representatives, to fund the government at current levels through late November. Only three Democrats backed the proposal, well short of the total needed to overcome a key 60-vote threshold to pass legislation in the chamber.
Democrats have sought to include health care reforms as part of any budget bill, including a reversal of part of President Donald Trump's signature tax law that established cuts to Medicaid funding, as well as an extension of subsidies under the US's quasi-universal health care law known as the Affordable Care Act.
The Republican-controlled Senate rejected along party lines a stopgap funding bill that would have included the funding Tuesday evening. Republicans have accused Democrats of seeking to fund health care for undocumented migrants, a charge they deny.
"The legislation that House Democrats and Senate Democrats have introduced together relates to a permanent extension of the Affordable Care Act tax credits for working-class Americans," said Jeffries.
While a shutdown does not automatically result in a full-blown economic crisis, it creates major disruptions for many aspects of American life.
Many federal employees deemed essential are furloughed, or forced to work without pay, while others have been placed on mandatory leave until a new budget is approved. Trump has added the threat of layoffs during this shutdown.
Jeffries brushed off the threat, saying the Trump administration has already dismissed thousands of federal employees since he assumed office, saying "no reasonable person can come to the conclusion that simply because they've now decided to shut the government down, that all of a sudden they're going to take an approach where they're going to fire federal employees."
"This is what they've been doing prior to this shutdown. They need to come to the table. We can go back to the White House, or they can come up here and we can have a conversation to end this shutdown. They're hurting the American people. Let's find a bipartisan path forward," he added.
