There were a couple of government shutdowns during Donald Trump’s first term, including the one the president personally began in late 2018, which lasted 35 days and proved to be the longest in American history. At no point, however, did the Republican or his administration try to use the breakdown as a vehicle for retaliation against states that failed to vote for him.
Things are different in his second term. As The New York Times summarized:
The Trump administration took steps on Wednesday to maximize the pain of the government shutdown, halting billions of dollars in funds for Democratic-led states while readying a plan to lay off potentially droves of civil servants imminently. The moves by the White House appeared both unprecedented and punitive, underscoring the risks of a fiscal stalemate that had no end in sight. It also evinced how President Trump might try to leverage the governmentwide closure to achieve his agenda, slash the budget and exact revenge on his political enemies.
Americans have been confronted with an avalanche of examples in recent months of the Trump administration using the levers of power to exact revenge on the president’s perceived political foes, but most of these instances have involved campaigns against individuals (see, for example, James Comey, Fani Willis, Letitia James, Adam Schiff, John Brennan, John Bolton and, of course, Joe Biden).
But with the federal government shut down, the Republican White House is pursuing more expansive abuses, targeting programs and entire states.
The Times’ report added, “In a series of social media posts, Russell T. Vought, the White House budget director, said the administration had paused or moved to cancel the delivery of about $26 billion in previously approved funds across a range of programs, describing the money as wasteful or in need of further review.”
In an especially glaring example, Vought used social media to declare, “Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled.”
Putting aside the facts that the “Green New Deal” agenda was never approved; that federal energy policy is not a “scam”; and that the climate crisis is not solely of interest to “the Left”; the far-right head of the Office of Management and Budget proceeded to list 16 states that will no longer receive federal funding — money that was already approved by Congress — for energy projects.
What do these 16 states have in common? They all voted for the Democratic presidential ticket in the 2024 election, and they all have two Democratic U.S. senators.
Subtle, it was not.
Around the same time, the Trump administration also halted federal funding — which, again, had already been approved by Congress — for infrastructure and transportation projects in New York City, home to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
“Donald Trump is once again treating working people as collateral damage in his endless campaign of chaos and revenge,” the Democratic leaders said in a joint statement soon after. “By blocking billions of bipartisan infrastructure dollars for the Gateway Tunnel and Second Avenue Subway, Trump isn’t hurting Democrats — he’s hurting the nurses, teachers, first responders, and everyday commuters from New York and New Jersey who rely on safe, reliable transit to get to work, school, to shop and home to their families.” Vice President JD Vance treated the developments like a joke. DOOCY: Does the timing of this indicate you going to squeeze Schumer's home state until he blinks?JD VANCE: I'm sure that Russ Vought is heartbroken about the fact that he's unable to give certain things to certain constituencies Democrats were not amused. In fact, one Democratic senator drew a parallel between the White House’s moves and an organized crime syndicate. “We’re less than a day into this shutdown, and Trump [and] Vought are illegally punishing Democrat-led states,” Sen. Patty Murray of Washington wrote online. “This administration is clearly salivating at the opportunity to hurt people and using the shutdown they caused as the pretext to do it. These mafioso tactics will not work.”
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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