On the first day of the government shutdown, Donald Trump made it clear what he wanted Republicans to do with the moment: slash spending.
The president, now 79, had been quiet most of the day, appearing only in an interview with conservative network One America News that is set to air Friday. Then late at night, he took to Truth Social with his message.
“Republicans must use this opportunity of the Democrat forced closure to clear out dead wood, waste, and fraud. Billions of Dollars can be saved. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” he wrote.
He didn’t stop there. Trump reposted messages from his supporters, including one calling President Joe Biden’s use of an autopen “Autopen Gate” and another mocking Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell with a supposed “expiration date.”
He also shared a meme of himself signing papers at his desk with the caption, “Cry all you want. He’s doing exactly what I hired him for.” Another repost simply read, “Winning.”
His push to highlight “dead wood, waste, and fraud” echoed the themes from his presidential campaign, when he created the short-lived Department of Government Efficiency and tapped Tesla CEO Elon Musk to run it. That experiment ended in disaster, with Musk burning through more than $21 billion in taxpayer money in a failed attempt to overhaul federal spending.
Still, Republicans kept hammering Trump’s talking points leading up to the shutdown, blaming Democrats for trying to expand health care benefits to undocumented immigrants. GOP leaders stuck to the script while the government braced for furloughs and layoffs.
Trump’s absence from public events during the day didn’t go unnoticed. CNN’s Erin Burnett called it out during her show, saying, “We have not seen Trump today. We have not heard from Trump today.
We haven’t heard his voice. On the first day of a government shutdown, as the Trump administration says layoffs are imminent, there is no sign of the president of the United States. And it is no secret to anyone, anywhere in the world, that Trump loves to be seen.”
CNN’s Jeff Zeleny added that the silence might have been deliberate. “It signals first and foremost, he does not want to be out front or the face of this shutdown, at least on its opening day,” he said. “Of course, that could change and likely will change as the hours and days go forward.”
Sure enough, Trump’s late-night post seemed to confirm that prediction, putting him back in the spotlight with a clear directive for his party. The question now is whether Republicans will follow his lead and use the shutdown to push through the spending cuts he’s demanding—or if his call will only add more fuel to an already chaotic standoff.