Trump says shutdowns could bring “many good” despite layoffs
President Donald Trump said the government shutdown would help “remove” Democratic policies.
- Old news clips show Donald Trump previously blamed the president on the government shutdown.
- In 2011 and 2013, Trump said the president was responsible for bringing together political parties to avoid shutdowns.
- Now, as president, Trump is denounced Democrats for the current government shutdown against fundraising disputes.
Old news clips have been circulated on social media where President Donald Trump says he should lie to the president because of the government’s shutdown.
The video, posted by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, in collaboration with other Senate Democrats, edited clips of Trump in 2011 and 2013, spoke about the closure, saying the president should be the leader of the negotiations. Snippets and quotes from these interviews are widely shared on social media.
Trump, who now hosts the closure of the fourth government as president, blames Democrats for not blocking demands for Medicaid and Obamacare funding to continue insurance coverage for millions of Americans.
“They’re shutting it down, we’re not shutting it down. We don’t want to shut it down,” Trump said on September 30.
Did Trump say the president should be blamed for the government shutdown?
In April 2011, leaders of both parties reached an agreement after weeks of hard negotiations, and ultimately avoided the government shutdown, as President Barack Obama repeated again. In an interview with Meredith Vieira about the NBC “Today” show, Trump spoke about a potential shutdown ahead of the agreement. A recording posted to Vimeo by Roll Call’s FactBase, Trump said: “In my opinion, I hear Democrats are being criticized. “If there’s a closure… I think it’s going to be a very negative mark for the US president. He’s the guy who has to bring people together.”
At the time, Trump was messing around with the president’s running and repeatedly questioning the validity of Obama’s citizenship. Obama was born in Hawaii and made him a US citizen.
When Obama was president, the shutdown eventually occurred. In 2013, the government was closed for 17 days.
Prior to the 2013 closure, Trump also spoke about how the closure is remembered in a phone interview with Fox News’ “Fox & Friends,” according to Politifact.
“When they talk about government closures, they’re going to talk about the US president, who was then president,” Trump said. “They aren’t talking about who is the Senate head of the family and who is running things in Washington, so I think there’s really pressure on the president.”
Trump closures in 2025: Consider massive layoffs
Trump and other Republicans have tried to hold Democrats accountable for the shutdown. They claim that they want to illegally provide medical care to immigrants here (undocumented immigrants are primarily ineligible for federally funded coverage, like Medicaid). Democrats are trying to pin a shutdown in the Republic.
On the first day of the shutdown, Vice President JD Vance spoke and denounced the Democratic “Chuck Schumer Aock Wing” for the closure.
The White House also said the shutdown could lead to more layoffs rather than Farlow.
“I can’t believe the radical left Democrats have given me this unprecedented opportunity,” Trump said in an October 2 social media post.
“Many profits can get off the closure,” Trump told White House reporters hours before the deadline. “We can get rid of a lot of things we don’t want.”
White House spokesman Abigail Jackson called Schumer and USA Today’s questions about Trump’s old comments, “I am eager to be distracted from their decisions.”
“Democrats want free health care for illegal foreigners and they know that it hurts Americans, so they’re going to shut down the government. They just listen to their own statement,” Jackson said in an email.
Contributors: Sarah D. Wire, Terry Moseley, Joey Garrison, USA Today
Kinsey Crowley is a Trump Connect reporter for the USA Today Network. Contact her at kcrowley@gannett.com. Follow her on X and Tiktok @kinseycrowley or Bluesky @kinseycrowley.bsky.social.
