Two weeks after the start of the government shutdown, President Trump has seized on the stalemate for political gain, aiming to hurt Democrats while insulating his administration from the costs of the fiscal crisis he helped bring about.
Democrats and Republicans remain starkly at odds over how to reopen the government. But unlike previous presidents, Mr. Trump has been unwilling to meditate a truce. He has opted instead to stretch the limits of his power to cushion the blow for agencies and constituencies he supports, while embarking on a retribution campaign against his political foes.
That strategy came into clear view on Tuesday, as Mr. Trump publicly renewed his threat to strip away funding from Democrats’ priorities. He promised to release a list on Friday of “Democratic programs” slated for cuts if the government remained closed, saying that some were “never going to open up again.” At the same time, Mr. Trump assured that “Republican programs” would be spared.
The threat came days after the administration moved to lay off thousands of federal workers and cancel billions of dollars in federal aid. Each of the moves seemed designed to put pressure on Democrats, who say they will not back a Republican measure to fund the government unless it extends a set of soon-expiring federal health subsidies.
In the process, the White House has looked to shield itself from both the burden and the blame of the shutdown, given the severe consequences it could inflict on families, businesses and the economy.
Over the weekend, the administration rearranged the budget at the Pentagon so that it could pay military service members their full checks, even as many in government must forgo salaries while federal funding has lapsed. Mr. Trump and his aides have eyed similar budgetary maneuvers to pay other categories of workers, including federal law enforcement.
The president’s split-screen tactics appeared to drive a deeper wedge between the White House and congressional Democrats. Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader, said on Tuesday that Mr. Trump and his aides had been “targeting programs that benefit everyday Americans since the beginning of his presidency,” including through strong-arm budget ploys.
“Their intimidation tactics are not working and will continue to fail,” he said.
For Mr. Trump, the recriminations only served to raise the risk of a protracted disruption, one that could carry stark consequences for a precarious economy.
The president at times has embraced the shutdown as an “unprecedented opportunity,” as he once described it, in his long-running campaign to conform federal spending to his political agenda. That has put to the test his expansive view that he may reprogram the nation’s budget without the approval of Congress, even though the Constitution conveys spending power to lawmakers.
After the government shuttered on Oct. 1, the administration quickly announced a series of moves to pause or cancel nearly $28 billion in funding that primarily benefited Democratic-leaning cities and states, according to an analysis by The New York Times.
Those efforts affected states such as New York, the home state of Mr. Jeffries and Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader. Announcing the pause, the Transportation Department blamed the two men by name for the slowdown in aid, claiming that agency officials could not review their states’ grants while the government remained closed.
Mr. Trump has also targeted the federal work force, which has already faced staggering cuts in his second term. His aides have threatened to deny automatic back pay to hundreds of thousands of workers who are currently furloughed, even though federal law would provide it. And the administration has broadly embarked on an effort to lay off some of those employees while they are not on the job.
The cuts so far have targeted roughly 4,000 workers across eight agencies and major education, health and housing programs, prompting a set of unions representing government employees to challenge the administration in court. The labor groups asked a federal judge to block the layoffs, framing the firings in court filing on Tuesday as a campaign of “political pressure and retribution.” The judge has set an initial hearing in the case for this week.
On Tuesday, Mr. Trump also revived his threats to eliminate what he has described as “Democrat programs.” He did not elaborate on whether he would seek to slash spending, fire workers, or both, saying only that the shutdown enabled the administration to “do things that we were unable to do before.”
“The Democrats are getting killed in the shutdown, because we’re closing up programs that are Democrat programs that we’re opposed to,” Mr. Trump told reporters at the White House. “And they’re never going to come back, in many cases.”
But Mr. Trump has behaved much differently with agencies and programs he supports, or those that present risk of political blowback. There, the administration has relied on creative accounting to keep some workers paid and programs functioning.
Soon after the shutdown began, the administration moved around money collected from customs duties to fund the federal nutrition aid program known as W.I.C., which faced a potential funding shortfall. By last week, the administration had worked to release funds to rural airports seeking to avoid the type of flight delays and cancellations that have accompanied past shutdowns.
On Saturday, Mr. Trump and his aides also took the unusual step of tapping about $8 billion in unspent research money at the Pentagon to pay military service members. It expanded that approach on Monday, using funds in a recently passed tax cut package to pay military members of the Coast Guard, according to congressional aides.
“My understanding of this, is they have every right to move the funds around, duly appropriated dollars from Congress to the Department of Defense,” Speaker Mike Johnson said.
Democrats did not object to Mr. Trump’s desire to help the troops but took issue with his tactics in a budget fight with no end in sight.
“I agree with making sure that our men and women in uniform, our active duty troops are paid,” Mr. Jeffries said. “We also need to make sure that we take care of all of our hard-working federal civil servants, which is why Republicans should be back here in Washington working with us to reopen the government, as opposed to continuing the Trump Republican shutdown.”
Tony Romm is a reporter covering economic policy and the Trump administration for The Times, based in Washington.
Catie Edmondson covers Congress for The Times.
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