Another fabricated claim is spreading from the White House and congressional Republicans, asserting that Democrats are forcing a government shutdown by demanding funds to help immigrants in the country illegally access public services.
This narrative is false, but it would hardly qualify as ‘news’ to report that President Donald Trump is lying. During and between his terms as President of the United States, Donald Trump has made tens of thousands of false or misleading claims.
“President Donald Trump keeps saying the same false things over and over,” said Daniel Dale, a senior reporter who, since joining CNN in 2019, has fact-checked political claims. “Trump’s lying has always been notable for its audacity – his willingness to make obviously untrue claims that can be very quickly debunked.”
From the marbled halls of power, a fiction is being manufactured, a carefully crafted lie designed not to inform, but to inflame, and to provide cover for what now appears inevitable: a catastrophic shutdown of the American government.
The bone of contention, we are told, is a brutal, last-minute demand from Congressional Democrats.
The story, repeated like a mantra from the White House podium and echoed by a chorus of Republican lawmakers, is that the minority party is holding the entire budget hostage to secure a grotesque prize: millions in taxpayer dollars to help those they call “illegal immigrants” access public services.
There is only one problem with this narrative. It is a bald-faced lie.
A fabrication. A work of political fiction so audacious it would be admirable if the stakes were not the paychecks of millions of federal workers and the stability of the nation’s economy.
Republicans control Capitol Hill and the White House, but they need at least seven Democrats in the Senate to join them to pass a spending package under the chamber’s rules.
Trump and the White House Office of Management and Budget have signaled that they are willing to exploit a government shutdown to dismantle the federal system that so many Americans depend upon.
Since 1980, there have been 14 government shutdowns, with the most recent and longest occurring during Trump’s first term, when the tyrant presided over the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, a 35-day partial closure that began in December 2018.
Unlike partial shutdowns, where some agencies remain funded, this closure would shutter all nonessential operations because lawmakers have not approved any of the 12 annual spending bills.
While functions critical to protecting lives and property continue, many government services would halt.
We have obtained the actual negotiation documents. We have spoken to officials on both sides, some too angry to remain silent. There is no such demand. The text contains no such provision.
The Democrats’ conditions are a matter of public record, focusing on funding for childcare, disaster relief, and protecting nutrition assistance programs for working-class families.
The “immigrant services” line is a phantom, a ghost story told to scare the electorate and provide a villain for the coming disaster.
This is not mere political gamesmanship.
This is a calculated descent into the dark arts of propaganda. It is the political equivalent of shouting “fire” in a crowded theater and then blaming the panicked victims for the stampede.
The GOP is building a pyre of lies and preparing to sacrifice the functioning of the Republic upon it.
The motivation is as transparent as it is cynical. With polls showing the public would overwhelmingly blame one side for a shutdown, a new narrative was needed. And so, they have reached into the bottomless bag of cultural grievances and pulled out a monster of their own creation.
The Trump administration is handling this potential shutdown differently. The Office of Management and Budget is not posting agency contingency plans on its central website, instead requiring the public to search individual agency sites.
An OMB memo also noted it hadn’t received updated plans from every agency.
Key impacts would include:
- Limited Food and Drug Administration inspections and delayed public health oversight
- Most Education Department staff furloughed, though student aid programs would continue
- Most Homeland Security personnel, including border and immigration agents, are remaining on duty
- Veterans Affairs medical services continue, though some programs for homeless veterans and mental health services would pause
- Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment benefits are continuing unchanged
Some functions funded through alternative sources would operate normally. The IRS plans to keep all staff working using Inflation Reduction Act funds, and border security operations funded through recent legislation would continue.
However, the administration’s approach suggests this shutdown could prove more disruptive than previous ones. The OMB has directed agencies to prepare for widespread furloughs, contrasting with the 2018-2019 shutdown when some services were maintained to reduce public impact.
They are not just lying; they are gaslighting the entire country, hoping the resulting confusion and anger will absolve them of responsibility.
The result is a capital city gripped by a kind of madness, a vortex where truth is the first casualty and reason has fled the scene.
The gears of government are grinding to a halt not over a legitimate policy dispute, but over a phantom, a specter conjured from the dark imagination of political operatives who have long since abandoned any pretense of principle.
And so we stand on the brink.
Not because of an intractable debate over the nation’s finances, but because of a wilful, malicious, and utterly shameless deception.
The shutdown, when it comes, will not be a failure of negotiation. It will be a deliberate act of political arson, and the match being struck is a lie.
The American people are not being governed; they are being played. And the consequences, like the lie itself, will be very, very real.
Whatever gods are still listening, they have no reason to shed mercy on this Republic.