Vice President JD Vance was all smiles as he and the hosts of Fox and Friends discussed President Donald Trump’s trolling of Democratic leaders during a failed high-stakes meeting to try to avoid a government shutdown.
During Monday’s meeting in the Oval Office, two “Trump 2028” hats suddenly appeared on the table as if earmarked for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Jeffries told CNN a day later.
Their Republican counterparts also attended the meeting, along with Trump and Vance.
After the two sides failed to reach an agreement to keep the government open past Tuesday at midnight, Fox and Friends host Ainsley Earhardt asked Vance on Wednesday what he and Trump had discussed with Democratic leaders, and how the two sides could reach a compromise.
“And the hats—Trump trolling them with ’28 hats,” co-host Lawrence Jones chimed in before Vance had a chance to answer.
“That’s the most important part,” the vice president said, laughing. “There were also the Trump 2028 hats, which I think made the minority leader in both the House and Senate very uncomfortable.”
He then explained that Monday’s meeting involved a “very good conversation” about health care policy.
“But the president finally sort of threw up his hands and said, ‘Guys, let’s absolutely work on this health care policy disagreement. We want to fix this issue for the American people, but we’re not going to be taken hostage,’” and shut down the government, Vance recalled.
According to Vance, Trump then added, “Let’s negotiate, but we’re not going to reward this behavior.”
But Trump’s trolling and “erratic” behavior has shown Democrats that Trump is not a serious negotiator, Jeffries told CNN’s Abby Phillip.
“[The hats] just randomly appeared in the middle of the meeting on the desk,” he said. “It was the strangest thing ever. And I just looked at the hat, looked at JD Vance, who was seated to my left, and said, ‘Don’t you got a problem with this?’ And he said, ‘No comment.’ And that was the end of it.”
Or almost the end of it—Trump also posted photos of the Democratic leaders sitting next to the hats—which call for the president to serve an unconstitutional third term in his office—on his Truth Social account, along with deepfake AI-generated videos of Schumer and Jeffries, whose likeness is wearing a Mexican sombrero and fake mustache.
“We just don’t have serious negotiating partners right now,” Jeffries said. “On the other side of the aisle, because they’re engaging in this erratic behavior, posting racist, fake AI videos. It speaks for itself in terms of the American people concluding who’s serious and who’s deadly unserious.”
Economists have warned that a government shutdown could push the economy toward a dreaded state of “stagflation”—a perfect storm of poor growth, high unemployment and high inflation.
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