The White House and congressional Republicans are capitalizing on Democrats’ demands to help illegal immigrants access public services to blame them for a looming government shutdown.
“Radical Democrats” are threatening to shut the government down if they do not get their almost $1.5 trillion wish list of demands in a short-term funding deal, “including free healthcare for illegal aliens,” according to the White House. The reference is to Democrats’ requests to repeal One Big Beautiful Bill provisions that targeted illegal immigrants’ access to healthcare in exchange for their votes on a short-term government funding deal.
“The Democrats’ radical agenda was rejected by the American people less than a year ago at the ballot box; now they’re trying to shut down the government and hold the American people hostage over it,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told the Washington Examiner.
The White House’s funding deal and shutdown messaging strategy have been accompanied by action, including preparations for mass firings of government employees instead of the traditional furlough procedures.
Simultaneously, the White House and congressional Republicans’ funding deal and shutdown messaging have not been consistent. Trump, for example, claim Democrats are trying to “force Taxpayers to fund Transgender surgery for minors” and his canceling a meeting last week between himself, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) before rescheduling it for Monday.
Trump’s transgender messaging stems from five states compelling Obamacare healthcare insurance plans to cover gender-reassignment surgeries for transgender enrollees, but, while that was politically potent before last year’s election, it creates political problems for centrist Republicans before next year’s midterm elections.
However, Trump’s illegal immigrant messaging has traditionally been among the strongest for him and Republicans more broadly. The president’s average immigration approval, for instance, is net negative 3 percentage points in contrast to his general approval averaging net negative 7 points, according to RealClearPolitics.
Regardless, Democrats remain confident in their demands for a funding deal and their shutdown strategy before Tuesday night’s deadline to keep the government open.
Democrats appear more comfortable with the prospect of a shutdown than the last funding deadline in March, in part, because of the political backlash Schumer experienced from Democratic voters at the time.
To that end, Democrats have been trying to use Trump and Republicans’ need for at least seven Democratic votes in the Senate to fund the government and avoid a shutdown to pressure them into extending Obamacare premium tax credits, in addition to providing services for illegal immigrants.
Democrats say that the Obamacare tax credit expiration could increase healthcare costs for 22 million Americans.
The One Big Beautiful Bill, which Trump signed into law this summer, includes new provisions to restrict noncitizens from accessing services, including Medicaid, as well as identification verification requirements.
At the same time, American Progress communications senior adviser Colin Seeberger countered that the federal government “does not pay a dime” for Medicaid coverage for illegal immigrants.
“That’s been the law of the land for decades, and no one is trying to change that,” Seeberger told the Washington Examiner. “What Democrats are fighting for is to lower the cost of living by reversing Republican healthcare cuts that are driving up premiums by 75% in a matter of weeks. This is an urgent problem that demands an urgent solution for working families, not more bulls*** out of a White House whose handling of the cost of living has hit an all-time low.”
Democratic strategist Jim Manley added: “Despite what the increasingly unhinged president says, unauthorized immigrants are already prevented from accessing most public benefits. His word is no good, and he can’t be trusted. How can Democrats cut a deal with him? And besides, Republicans control both the House and Senate.”
Manley referenced the Trump administration’s use of rescission packages to roll back previous funding deals Republicans have struck with Democrats.
For Democratic strategist Garry South, “the nuances of the parties’ respective shutdown communications strategies are less important than that a shutdown this time would happen under Republicans’ trifecta control of the federal government.”
“The average voter can’t and doesn’t follow all of the minute ins and outs, the argumentative back and forths that presage a shutdown; they tend to blame it on the party in power that can’t get its act together,” South told the Washington Examiner. “In this case, it will fall on Trump, who was also president the last time we had a shutdown — the longest one in history, by the way, in 2019.”
Suffolk University Political Research Center director David Paleologos partially agreed with the South, considering that the Republicans are “steering the ship of state in D.C. currently, so more voters will blame the GOP because they are the party in power charting the course.”
“However, very few polls, if any, have assigned ‘majority blame’ among residents or registered voters to either party,” Paleologos told the Washington Examiner. “Instead, we are observing ‘plurality blame’ of around 40% toward Republicans, while 30% blame Democrats, and 30% blame both parties. The impact of this on the midterm elections might be muted so long as a government shutdown isn’t a prolonged affair.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt apportioned responsibility for a funding deal and shutdown to Democrats.
“Our message and what we want out of this is very simple: The president wants to keep the government open,” Leavitt told reporters Monday at the White House. “He wants to keep the government funded. There is zero good reason for Democrats to vote against this clean continuing resolution. They voted for this exact same bill 13 times in the past. We want to keep the funding for our military, for our veterans, for our women, and our children in this country continuing.”
Monday’s meeting between Trump and congressional leaders did not lead to a breakthrough with negotiations, with the Democrats underscoring the importance of healthcare and Republicans emphasizing the significance of defunding illegal immigrants, among other GOP priorities.
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“We have disagreements about tax policies, but you don’t shut the government down. We have disagreements about healthcare policies, but you don’t shut the government down. You don’t use your policy disagreements as leverage to not pay our troops, to not have essential first services of government actually function,” Vice President JD Vance told reporters Monday at the White House.
Jeffries later told reporters on Capitol Hill the meeting was concentrated on the Obamacare tax credit because “of the immediate urgency of the fact that in just a matter of days, which we continue to point out, tens of millions of Americans are going to confront the reality that their healthcare, premiums, co-pays, deductibles and costs are about to skyrocket out of control because of Republicans’ refusal to extend the tax credits this ways that would benefit working class Americans.”
