Day 3 of government shutdown puts Trump layoffs in spotlight as Senate to reconvene: Live updates

The Independent’s Washington bureau chief Eric Garcia brings the analysis:

Senate Democrats continued to hold the line on their standoff with Republicans as the government shutdown went into its second day on Thursday.

Already, President Donald Trump has said he would meet with Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, “to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.”

That should not come as a surprise to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who predicted as much as part of his reasoning for making the exact opposite decision in March, when faced with another continuing resolution that the House crafted without any Democratic input.

A new poll from The Washington Post indicates more Americans think Republicans, rather than Democrats, are responsible for the government shutdown.

In a poll of 1,010 Americans, about 47 percent said Trump and Republican lawmakers are mainly responsible. Meanwhile, 30 percent said Democratic lawmakers are mainly responsible, and 23 percent said they’re not sure.

It’s day two of the shutdown, and there’s still no sign of a deal between Senate Democrats and Republicans. The Senate is set to vote again on Friday.

President Donald Trump told the One America News Network Thursday he and Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries “got along very well” during a meeting earlier this week to discuss a looming government shutdown, which took effect at midnight on Wednesday.

After the meeting, Trump posted a racist AI-generated video of Jeffries in a sombrero and handlebar mustache as Schumer’s digitally altered voice said, “nobody likes Democrats anymore” because of “all of our woke trans bulls***,” before baselessly claiming Democrats support giving undocumented immigrants free healthcare because the party needs “new voters.”

Democrats are demanding a reversal in Medicaid cuts from Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” and the extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies in exchange for their support on a funding bill to keep the government open.

Donald Trump’s administration is facing another round of calls to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office in the wake of his remarks to an unprecedented assembly of the nation’s military leaders.

Trump’s Cabinet and then-Vice President Mike Pence faced similar demands in the aftermath of the January 6 attack, when a mob of the president’s supporters stormed the halls of Congress to derail the certification of an election he lost.

And it’s not the first time Trump has faced calls to step down since he returned to the White House in January. Liberal commentators and critics on social media routinely demand his Cabinet invoke the 25th Amendment.

Our senior reporter Alex Woodward writes:

Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation’s massive proposed overhaul of the federal government, was drafted by many of President Trump’s long-serving allies and administration officials.

Trump’s campaign leaders in 2024 were livid at The Heritage Foundation for publishing the book of policies that Democrats tried to pin on the campaign, to warn a second Trump term would be too extreme.

The 900-plus page book made several proposals, particularly on curbing immigration and dismantling certain federal agencies.

“I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump, who spent much of last year denouncing the project, insisted in July 2024.

“I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

But in a post on his Truth Social site Thursday morning, Trump announced he would be meeting with his budget chief, “Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.

Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget under Biden, said the administration had clearly been following the project’s blueprint all along.

“I guess Democrats were right, but that doesn’t make me feel better,” she said. “I’m angry that this is happening after being told that this document was not going to be the centerpiece of this administration.”

While a federal government shutdown imperils critical services for millions of Americans, courthouses that handle the fates of immigrants across the country will remain open for business for Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

Shutdown contingency plans for the Department of Justice deemed immigration court staff essential, suggesting that tens of thousands of deportation cases can proceed as normal. The American Immigration Lawyers Association told members that cases for clients who are not in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers “are proceeding as usual” despite the government-wide shutdown.

“I have no reason to believe that it will change, because they want to deport as many people as they can,” according to Ohio immigration attorney Margaret Wong.

President Donald Trump has accused Democrats of being “the party of hate, evil, and Satan” on Truth Social in his latest broadside in response to the U.S. government shutdown.

As part of a short posting spree late on Thursday, the president posted an image of a frowning Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, surrounded by unflattering images of New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Joe and Jill Biden, under the headline: “The Party of Hate, Evil, and Satan.”

Below that, the post declared: “The Democratic Party is Dead! They have no leadership! No message! No hope! Their only message for America is to hate Trump.”

It is “unlikely” that senators will vote in the Capitol this weekend, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on Thursday, which would effectively guarantee that the government shutdown will continue into the next week.

“They’ll have a fourth chance tomorrow to vote to open up the government, and if that fails, we’ll give them the weekend to think about it, and then we’ll come back and vote on Monday,” Thune told reporters according to Politico.

As the government enters the third day of shutdown, congressional leaders and the White House remain in stalemate.

While Thune hinted he could meet Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer this week, he was sceptical that a meeting would produce a breakthrough.

Schumer said Democrats and Republicans need to work together “to reach an agreement to reopen the government and lower healthcare costs” in a statement on Thursday.

President Trump joked about the two assassination attempts against his life — and, seemingly, the murder of Charlie Kirk — in an interview that aired Thursday afternoon on OANN.

He was asked by OANN’s correspondent, Daniel Baldwin, whether he had any “big plans” for the upcoming year, as Republicans face midterm congressional elections that could endanger one or both of their House and Senate majorities.

Instead of getting into how he’d help his party retain seats in the midterms, a chuckling President Trump responded: “Yeah, I do have big plans. Yeah, I have big plans. I want to survive.”

“You look at what’s going on, it’s crazy. The rhetoric that these crazy Democrats are using is very dangerous,” Trump insisted.