President Donald Trump on Thursday vowed to make permanent spending cuts targeting "Democrat programs" first with Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, giving shutdown Democrats "a little taste of their own medicine."
"We'll be making cuts that will be permanent," Trump said during Thursday's Cabinet meeting. "And we're only going to cut Democrat programs, I hate to tell you.
"I guess that's makes sense, but we're only cutting Democrat programs, but we're going to start that."
Vought has been given Trump the OMB plans under government shutdown authority as foisted upon Congress, the White House, and Americans.
"Russell [Vought] can talk to you about it if he wants to, but we'll be cutting some very popular Democrat programs that aren't popular with Republicans, frankly, because that's the way it works," Trump continued.
"They wanted to do this. So we'll give them a little taste of their own medicine."
Trump also accused Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., of hypocrisy over the shutdown, pointing to past remarks opposing government closures. He claimed Democrats were facing a "rebellion" within their ranks as pressure mounts to end the stalemate.
"But Chuck Schumer proclaimed this morning that every day gets better for them," Trump said. "No, every day it's actually getting worse for them. And they're having a rebellion in the Democrat Party, because they want to stop."
The president further boasted about his recent election win, calling it "one of the greatest, biggest landslides in history," and accusing Democrats of "lying" about the results.
"I watched last night like 10 different times over the years, he said, 'You can't shut down government, you can't shut down,'" Trump said of Schumer. "And now he's the one that shut it down. So this is a confession that he's acting not to serve the people, but to serve the partisan interests of his party.
"And I don't think he served them well because they're way down.
"Look, they just lost an election in a landslide."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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