“We should fix it, and we can fix it with the Democrats. All they have to do is let the country open and we’ll fix it,” Trump said.
The government shutdown has lasted 33 days and is now just shy of the record of 35 days set during the winter of 2018-19, during Trump’s first term. Thousands of federal government workers line up at food banks each week in the suburbs outside Washington and elsewhere.
Members of the California National Guard sorting produce at the Los Angeles Food Bank last week.Credit: AP
After returning from a six-day trip to Asia to meet with world leaders, Trump spent the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, where he hosted a Great Gatsby-Esque gala dance titled “A little party never killed anyone.”
Democrats, especially Schumer, came under fire from their own camp this year when they reluctantly voted with Republicans to avoid a government shutdown.
This time, the party is also under pressure from allies, including the largest federal workers union, the American Federation of Government Employees, which last week said it was time to end the shutdown on Republicans’ terms.
“Both political parties have made their views clear and there is still no clear end in sight,” wrote the group’s president, Everett Kelly. “It’s time to pass a ‘clean’ continuing resolution and end this shutdown today.”
Trump said 60 minutes Democrats would eventually capitulate and vote to end the shutdown. “I think they have to, and if they don’t vote, that’s their problem.”
Meanwhile, Trump has floated the idea of changing Senate rules to eliminate the 60-vote supermajority needed to halt debate on a bill and move it to a vote. Republicans hold just 53 seats in the 100-seat chamber.
Calling it “the nuclear option,” Trump said, “Republicans have to get tougher. If we end the filibuster, we can do exactly what we want.”
Charging
Despite the 60-vote threshold to overcome a legislative filibuster, Republicans can change the Senate rules with a simple majority of 50 percent plus one (or a tie-breaking vote from Vice President JD Vance).
But Republican leaders, including Senate Leader John Thune, have rejected these calls, arguing that they would leave them susceptible to Democrats passing laws with a simple majority in the future.
‘More handsome’
Trump was also asked about 60 minutes about the impending election in New York in which Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old Muslim immigrant and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, is about to become mayor of the country’s largest city.
Charging
When asked to respond to comparisons between him and Mamdani (both are seen as charismatic, populist figures who broke with party conventions), Trump responded: “I think I’m a much better-looking person than him, right?”
A post from an official White House account later suggested the president was joking.
Calling Mamdani a communist, Trump said he would find it difficult to give much federal funding to New York if Mamdani won on Tuesday night local time.
“If you have a communist running New York, all you’re doing is wasting the money you send there.”
Get a note directly from our foreigner correspondents about what’s making headlines around the world. Subscribe to our weekly What in the World newsletter.
