I told you at the very beginning of this Government Shutdown that it was EXACTLY what President Trump wanted… And the Democrats walked right into his trap — hook, line and sinker! I told you this two weeks ago: The Government Will Shutdown Tomorrow — And Play PERFECTLY Into President Trump’s Plan! Now President Trump just confirmed it himself, telling reporters that there are SUBSTANTIAL federal worker job cuts coming and they will be permanent! And then he says they (Democrats) handed it to him on a silver platter! So true. Watch here: Reporter:Mr. President! Have you identified programs to eliminate under this shutdown? President:Oh, sure. Reporter:Which ones? President:We have a lot. I’m not going to tell you, but we’ll be announcing it pretty soon. But we have a lot of things that we’re going to eliminate and permanently eliminate. You know, one of the things that we have is—some advantage, you could say—but because of the shutdown, which I think they made a big mistake, we’re able to take out billions and billions of dollars of waste, fraud, and abuse. And they’ve handed it, you know, on a silver platter. President:And you know Russell Vought—he’s a serious person, very serious person. And he’s sitting there and he’s getting ready to cut things. And this is something that was handed to us by, I assume, Schumer. I just don’t know if Schumer has any power anymore. I look at your leadership—I don’t know who to speak to. President:I’ll tell you what: I’m getting calls from Democrats wanting to meet. I never even heard their names before, and they’re claiming to be leaders. The Democrats have no leader. They remind me of Somalia, okay? You know? And I met the president of Somalia—told him about the problem he’s got. President:I said, “You have somebody from Somalia who’s telling us how to run our country. He’s from Somalia.” He said— Would you like to take her back? He said, “No, I don’t want her.” Okay. You know what? I’m going to— Reporter:Which workers are you talking about? What workers are you talking about? President:Sandwiches. Reporter:How many permanent jobs are you talking about eliminating— President:Well, I could tell you— I’ll be able to tell you that in four or five days if this keeps going on. President:If this keeps going on, it’ll be substantial, and a lot of those jobs will never come back. But you’re going to have a lot closer to a balanced budget, actually. That's a short clip from today's joint Press Conference held with Canadian PM Mark Carney. You can watch the full thing here, it's really good: President: It’s an honor to have the Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, who I have made very popular. He’s an extremely popular prime minister, and I’m very honored to do it because I liked him right from the beginning. I’ve liked him, and we’ve had a good relationship. We have some natural conflict, but we’ll probably work that out. President: We’ve had a very strong relationship, and your hosting of the various countries that showed up—well, that was a beautiful job you did, and I appreciate it very much. We’re going to be talking about trade. We’re going to be talking about a lot of different things. We’ll certainly be talking about Gaza. We’re in very serious negotiations to—depending on the way you count, you could say 3,000 years, you could say 500 years—but it’s been raging for a long time, and I think there’s a possibility that we could have peace in the Middle East. President: It’s something even beyond the Gaza situation. We want a release of the hostages immediately, etc. And so our team is over there now. Another team just left, and other countries—literally every country in the world—has supported the plan. I don’t think there’s anybody that hasn’t, actually, not that I’ve seen. President: But there’s a real chance that we could do something, so you may have some questions on that later. In the meantime, we’ll spend some time, and we’ll make some deals, and we’ll do some things that are good for both of our countries. And Mark, it’s an honor to have you. Thank you very much. Prime Minister: Thank you very much, Mr. President. If I may, you kindly hosted me and some of my colleagues a few months ago— President: Yeah. Prime Minister: —and I said at the time, you are a transformative president. And since then, the transformation in the economy, unprecedented commitments of NATO partners to defense spending, peace from India–Pakistan through to Azerbaijan–Armenia, disabling Iran as a force of terror— President: And now— Prime Minister: —and I’m running out of time, but this is, in many respects, the most important: what you created— President: The merger of Canada— Prime Minister: No, what you created— President: —and the United States. Prime Minister: No, what you created. President: I’m only joking, yeah. Prime Minister: That wasn’t where I was going. I would— No, but on this solemn day of commemoration of the horrific attacks of October 7th— President: Yeah. Prime Minister: —for the first time in decades, hundreds of years, thousands of years, this prospect of peace that you’ve made possible—Canada stands foursquare behind those efforts, and we’ll do whatever we can to support it. President: Very nice. President: Yeah. Thank you, Mark, very much. Any questions? Reporter: Mr. President, what would it take for you to drop or lower your tariffs on Canadian sectors, including aluminum and steel? President: Well, we’re going to be talking about that with the prime minister. We’ll be talking about tariffs when we talk about a lot of that. But that’s for a little bit later on. I want to just acknowledge our great ambassador. Is he doing a good job? Prime Minister: He’s doing a good job. President: Otherwise, I’ll get him out of there so fast. No, you have a— Reporter: What is the White House’s position that furloughed workers should be paid their back pay? President: I would say it depends on who we’re talking about. I can tell you this: the Democrats have put a lot of people in great risk and jeopardy. But it really depends on who you’re talking about. For the most part, we’re going to take care of our people. There are some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of, and we’ll take care of them in a different way. Okay? Thank you. Reporter: Mr. President, in your opinion, have Canada and the United States failed to reach an agreement up until now? President: Well, it’s a complicated agreement—more complicated, maybe, than any other agreement we have on trade. Because, you know, we have natural conflict. We also have mutual love, you know? We have great love for each other. I love Canada and the people of Canada, and Mark feels the same way about here. President: The problem we have is that they want a car company, and I want a car company—meaning the U.S. wants a car company. And they want steel, and we want steel. In other countries, they’re very far away and there’s no problem. You can compete and you can do— We don’t like to compete because we sort of hurt each other when we compete, and so we have a natural conflict. President: It’s a natural business conflict. Nothing wrong with it. And I think we’ve come a long way over the last few months, actually, in terms of that relationship. So, when it comes to trade, the United States was always giving everything. They gave everything to Canada. They would let car companies leave here and go to Canada. President: But that hurts the United States. And other presidents didn’t see that. They weren’t business-oriented. They might’ve been good politicians in some cases—not in all cases; they were bad at both. But it’s a very natural conflict, and it’s something that we’re working on. Reporter: Mr. President, Canada has offered a lot of compromise this summer. Are you willing today to offer some compromise to Canada, maybe on steel and aluminum? President: Well, we’ve made compromise, and we’ve made some compromise even on steel. But, you know, we have the same basic authority and the same basic— This is also going to be a little bit of a conflict with other countries all over the world on steel, because we want to make our own steel. We don’t want to bring steel in for the most part. President: But we will bring it in and we do bring it in. We continue to bring it in from Canada, but there is a tariff to pay. And I think that would be a normal thing to say. We’ve come a long way. I think, Howard, we can truly say— Do you want to make a comment on that? Prime Minister: Well, I think the opportunity to work together— But as you’ve said, there’s conflict. You know, why do we make cars in Canada? You’ve called that out and you’ve addressed that. So, there are places we should work together, and there are places that we have natural conflict. President: It’s a tough situation because we want to make our cars here. At the same time, we want Canada to do well making cars. So, we’re working on formulas, and I think we’ll get there. Reporter: Canadians are refusing to go to the U.S. The numbers are down like 23% in the first seven months of the year. What do you say to Canadians that don’t want to go to the U.S. now because of your “51st state” talk, because of the trade war, the tariffs, and the fear of also being detained at the border? President: Look, I understand that. And Americans don’t want to buy cars that are made in Canada, you know. I mean, we have the same conflict. It’s something that will get worked out. There’s still great love between the two countries. But American people want product here; they want to make it here. President: Detroit was emptied out and moved to Canada, moved to Mexico, moved to other places—not just Canada. And now they’re all moving back, you know? They’re moving back. We have—right now, I was just telling Mark—we have 17 trillion, but it’s really much higher. That was as of a couple of months ago. President: We have over $17 trillion being invested now in the United States. As an example—Biden— He was the worst president we’ve ever had, but they had less than one trillion in four years. We have more than 17 trillion in eight months. Eight months. And I think that number is going to be 21, 22 trillion dollars. President: There’s never been anything like that in the history of the world for any country—not even close. If you did one trillion in a year, that’s pretty good. We’re going to do over 20. And it’s coming in with AI; it’s coming in with auto plants. We’re building a lot of auto plants in the U.S. It’s coming in for a lot of reasons. President: It’s coming in because I think the November 5th election was a big factor, and I think the tariffs are a big factor. And again, we want Canada to do great. But there’s a point at which we also want the same business. We’re competing for the same business. That’s the problem. President: That’s why I keep mentioning one way to solve that problem is a very easy way, but we’re competing for the same business. He wants to make cars; we want to make cars, and we’re in competition. And the advantage we have is we have this massive market. So it’s quite an advantage. Reporter: Mr. President, can we talk about Portland for a second? Are you planning to invoke the Insurrection Act? President: That would be, you know, a very long-standing law that’s been on the books. Yeah, well, it’s been invoked before, as you know. If you look at Chicago—Chicago is a great city where there’s a lot of crime. And if the governor can’t do the job, we’ll do the job. President: It’s all very simple. They probably had 50 murders in Chicago over the last five, six, seven months. Many people were shot. And then the governor gets up and he says, “Well, we can handle it.” They can’t handle it. They don’t know what they’re doing. President: The mayor is grossly incompetent. He’s at a 4% approval rating in Chicago. He’s at 4%—lowest approval rating—lower than even de Blasio had, which is hard to believe, in New York. I thought de Blasio would always maintain that record, but the Chicago guy is even lower. So I think that we want safe cities. President: If you look at D.C., you would— Right now, Mark, you could go out, take your family out to dinner. You could walk right down the middle of the street. There is no crime in D.C. When I got here, this place was a raging hellhole where people would come from Canada, people would come from other places and end up getting shot. Nobody is being shot. President: The National Guard has been unbelievable. I mean, they are strong, tough guys. You know, we won something at the Supreme Court, which is a big deal—merit. Everything now in this country is merit-based. I didn’t think I’d ever see it again. And we have our soldiers merit-based too, and they’re central casting. They walk through that town and I’ll tell you what, this place is safe. President: It’s beautiful. Now we’re in Memphis and the same thing is happening. You’re getting the reports. The bad guys are saying, “We don’t want anything to do with this.” And we’re removing many people. In D.C., we took out 1,700 career criminals and sent them back to the countries from which they came—mostly let out by Biden and his people that had an open-border policy. And, you know, Canada, you suffered because of that too. President: Because they’d come here and they’d go into Canada also. So we’re like a buffer for that in terms of— Prime Minister: Yep, yep. President: Canada suffered greatly by Biden and the open border—the policy of open border. Totally unchecked, totally unvetted. And these people were— You know, if you got 5%, 2%, you were getting a lot of bad people. President: And we now have a closed border. And now we’re trying to tighten the border. Prime Minister: Yep, yep. You’ve done well. President: We have a closed border, and it’s a really closed border. In fact, for four months—I don’t even know if this is possible—but the figures were released: zero people were able to come into the United States from the southern border. Zero. And as you know, we’ve taken a very hard stand on drugs. President: This is also benefiting you. A lot of the—we call them the water drugs, the drugs that come in through water—they’re not coming. There are no boats anymore. Frankly, there are no fishing boats out there, period, if you want to know the truth. We’re saying: does anybody go fishing anymore? The fact is, we probably saved at least 100,000 lives—American lives and Canadian lives—by taking out all those boats coming in. President: So now they don’t come in that way anymore. Now they’ll come in other ways, and we’re not going to allow that either. We’ve done a great job on that. But on crime—Chicago is a great city, but you can’t be a great city if you have murders and a lot of problems, and they do. And they have an incompetent policy. President: Just like they had open-border policy—anybody could come in. They came in from prisons. They came in from mental institutions, drug dealers. They came in from all over the place. And we don’t have that anymore. This country is becoming very— We’re a very strong country. Look, financially speaking, I would say that because of the tariffs, because of the election, because of the policy, because of the great, big, beautiful deal— President: I added the word “great” because it really is. It’s the biggest bill ever passed in the history of our country. We don’t need another bill. It’s the biggest tax cuts—the bigger— I mean, when you think: no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, no tax on overtime for the people. But far beyond that, what it does is incentivize auto plants and AI and all of the things that— Nobody’s ever passed a bill like it. President: We don’t need another bill. We don’t need any more bills. I said, “Let’s get it all at once.” I was greatly helped by our Speaker, Mike Johnson, and by the Senate. I’ll tell you what—John Thune’s been— Both of those guys have been incredible. And we got a bill passed that we really— I said, “Let’s see if we can get it all done.” Because these Democrats are like insurrectionists, okay? They’re so bad for our country. President: Their policy is so bad for our country. I said, “Let’s see if we can get it all done in the—” And everybody said it’s not doable. This is the biggest bill ever passed in the history of our country. And we got it all done. We don’t need anything else. We got everything we want. And now, because of that, that’s a big reason why the companies are coming in. You know, one-year depreciation, one-year write-off, one-year expensing— President: Nobody’s ever seen anything like it. So they’re coming in from all over the world. But to have a great country, you can’t have crime. And we don’t have crime, but we have cities where there’s tremendous crime. And Chicago is one of them. And if the governor can’t straighten it out, we’ll straighten it out. Reporter: Thank you. A question for the Prime Minister. Mr. Prime Minister, how come the U.K. and the European Union have succeeded in signing deals and bringing the tariffs down, and Canada still hasn’t been able to do the same? President: Yeah, because they’re not located right next to each other. In many cases, it’s much better and easier. But please— Prime Minister: Yeah. If I may, let’s be clear about the relationship as it stands right now. We are the second-largest trading partner of the United States. We do a lot of trade going across the border where we’re cooperating—first thing. Secondly, we are the largest foreign investor in the United States. Prime Minister: Half a trillion dollars in the last five years alone—probably a trillion dollars in the next five years if we get the agreement that we expect to get. Thirdly, there are areas, as the President just said, where we— I wouldn’t—conflict—maybe not so much conflict. We compete. There are areas where we compete, and it’s in those areas where we have to come to an agreement that works. Prime Minister: But there are more areas where we are stronger together, and that’s what we’re focused on. And we’re going to get the right deal—right deal for America; right deal, obviously, from my perspective, for Canada. President: Wait. So, one thing where we are working very closely is the golden dome. President: That’s the protective mechanism, and you see how that works. It’s unbelievable. You know, Ronald Reagan wanted to have it, and at that time, they didn’t have the technology— even close to the technology. But he was advanced, and we’ll be working together on a golden dome for the two countries, and that’s something that I think is going to be very important, especially when you look at the world and you look at what’s happening. We want to have that protection. President: It’s really amazing. The technology is unbelievable. Reporter: Mr. President, should workers not get their back pay? Why do you say some? President: Well, you’re going to have to figure that out, okay? Ask the Democrats that question. Go ahead. Reporter: Mr. President, just to follow up there—I mean, the law says that when the government is reopened, workers will receive their back pay. So, are you going to defy the law there? Or what are you hoping— President: I follow the law, and what the law says is correct, and I follow the law. Reporter: Mr. President, will Canada be leaving empty-handed, or will Mr. Carney be leaving Washington with a deal on tariffs? President: I think they’re going to be very happy. We have a lot of things that we’re working on that people don’t talk about. They talk about, you know, competitiveness— He’s a very competitive person. And they talk about things that we don’t necessarily agree on. But I think they’re going to walk away very happy. Prime Minister: I think so. Reporter: Every trade deal that you’ve signed—there has been a minimum tariff that countries have got. When USMCA gets renegotiated, do you want a minimum tariff on goods between Canada— President: Well, we’re going to have tariffs between Canada and— You know, they have them with us. I will say, with our farmers—as you know—they went up to as much as 400%. Two-fifty, 300, and even one at 401. We found one having to do with a very small product. But it was high. Reporter: But you want minimum tariffs with Canada? President: So we’ve had— You know, we’ve always had tariffs between the two of us. And actually, Canada was charging us very high tariffs on our agricultural things—a lot of our agricultural product. And that’s one of the things that we talk about for bringing that down. President: So this is a mutual thing. But we’ve been charged tariffs. Look, we’re the king of being screwed by tariffs—just so you understand. And I’m not talking about with Canada; I’m talking about with countries all over the world. When you look at Europe, when you look at China—almost every country charged the U.S. We didn’t charge them because we were led by stupid people, in many cases. Stupid people. President: They took advantage of our country. They’re not taking advantage of us anymore. If you looked at the European Union—they’re all my friends. I don’t blame them; I blame our presidents. I blame our past presidents and, you know, business leaders. But we are the king of countries that have been taken advantage of for many, many years. We’ve been paying trillions and trillions of dollars and receiving nothing—nothing at all. President: As an example, prior to the deal with Europe—where they pay a lot of money, but they’re happy and I’m happy—the deal was good. It’s a fair deal, but it wasn’t fair before. You couldn’t put a car into Europe. You couldn’t sell your agriculture into Europe. You couldn’t do anything. And now we have it so that it’s open. President: We charge them tariffs. We didn’t charge them tariffs. A car—they charged us tremendous. I said to Angela Merkel once, I said, “How many cars have gone to Germany from the United States?” And she said, “Well, I don’t believe any.” And I said, “You’re right. You’re right.” Well, that doesn’t happen anymore. And they’re paying a fair amount. President: It’s just a fair amount. It’s not— I could ask for much more. It’s a fair amount. But the United States now is using the same thing that they’ve used on us. And I just can’t believe it’s taken presidents so long to do this. And again, we’re going to treat people fairly. We’re going to especially treat Canada fairly. President: But I can’t believe it’s taken so long, where we get charged and don’t charge them. Japan was a good example. We made a deal with Japan—you saw that, Mark. Prime Minister: Yeah, yeah. President: A deal with Japan. It’s a much different deal than we’ve had in the past. But they would send us millions of cars—no charge. We weren’t allowed to send them cars. President: We sent them no cars. I doubt you had one car go into—because we were restricted. They didn’t want our cars. Same thing with Europe, same thing with other places. So now all we do now is fairness. But fairness leads us to the most successful country there’s ever been. We have some advantages over other countries, and we do have a great market. President: We have an amazing market. But you know what? If I let this go—if we didn’t win this election—if we had these people that were running, that were ruining our country, destroying our country with their open borders and men playing in women’s sports and transgender from everybody and windmills all over the place—if we allowed that to go on for another couple of years, we would be— I’m not sure that we’d even have a country. President: And I— By the way, I’m not sure we would have even had a country. And now we have the most successful country in the world. Reporter (Brian): Yes, sir. What is your message to Democrats ahead of the next vote to open up the government? The American people are saying, “Open the damn government.” What’s your message to them right now? President: Well, they’re the ones that started it. They’re the ones that have it. And it’s almost like a kamikaze attack by them. You want to know the truth? This is like a kamikaze attack. They almost— You know, they have nothing to lose. They’ve lost the elections. They’ve lost the presidential election in a landslide. I saw the other day where Kamala said, “This was a very close election.” President: This was one of the biggest sweeps that anybody’s ever had. Won the popular vote by 1,000,000, won the Electoral College by a massive amount. They said if I got 270, that would be great. But I got, I think, 312 or 315, and they got 220. So, you know, we won that. But we won counties. The big thing is counties. Out of all of the counties—thousands and thousands—we got 2,500. They got 525. President: It was a landslide. And we listened— Oh yes, it was close. It was one of the greatest victories ever. And it was a mandate to do what we’re doing. And I hope—and Mark wants this as much as I do—we are very close to making a deal on the Middle East that will bring peace to the Middle East. After all of these years of millions and millions—tens of millions—of people being killed, there’s a chance to bring peace to the Middle East. President: In addition to that, I made seven other deals, and they’re great. And things are happening with respect to Russia/Ukraine. That’s one that— Last week, Mark, 7,812 people were killed. Soldiers. Prime Minister: Yeah. President: Mostly soldiers. Yeah. But more than 7,000—almost 8,000—soldiers were killed. President: It’s a crazy thing. I thought that would’ve been one of the easy ones. I get along very well with Putin, and I thought that would’ve been— I’m very disappointed in him, because I thought this would’ve been an easy one to settle. But it’s turned out to be maybe tougher than the Middle East. We’ll see what happens with the Middle East. Reporter: Is the fentanyl crisis over with Canada—at the Canadian border? President: What is—? Reporter: The fentanyl crisis. President: Fentanyl. I don’t think it’s— No, it’s not over. I think it’s never going to be over, frankly. But Canada’s worked hard, and they’ve done a much better job than in the past. We have very few people coming in through our southern border too. We’ve worked with Canada and we’ve worked with Mexico, so we’ve made it a lot better. Prime Minister: Yay. Reporter: What do Canada and the United States want to do about fentanyl? What is the next step in getting fentanyl back under control? President: On fentanyl, any amount is too much. So we’ve gotten it down. It’s down substantially. It’s less than 1%, but— Look, it’s still too much. It’s too much at home in Canada. Prime Minister: A lot of people. President: Yeah, we’ve got to stamp it out. Reporter: On USMCA, are the two of you both committed to seeing it through in the renegotiation of that deal that you made? President: Well, we could renegotiate it, and that would be good, or we could just do different deals. We’re allowed to do different deals if we want. We might make deals that are better for the individual countries. Reporter: What’s your preference? President: I don’t care. I want to make whatever the best deal is for this country and also very much with Canada in mind. Reporter: What’s on Canada’s list that the United States is not making compromises on— Go ahead, please. Reporter: Sir, on China, what work can the United States and Canada do together to counter China? President: Well, you have to be able to compete. They’re a great competitor, and Mark and I both know that. And you have to be able to compete. We have big advantages over China for lots of different reasons. And I think we’re doing very well with China. I get along very well with President Xi. I’m going to be meeting him in a few weeks, as you know. I’ll be meeting him in South Korea. President: But we’ve had a very good relationship for a long time. But you have to be able to compete. To do well with China—if you can’t compete, you’re not going to do well with China. And Canada’s very competitive. I can tell you that. Canada’s a very competitive country. And I think Canada’s done very well over the years with China. Prime Minister: Yeah. Prime Minister: Yeah, we have. But we’ll do better together on that. Reporter: Mr. President, on the Middle East—what guarantees are you giving your Arab partners that Israel will not resume its offensive after the hostages are released? President: Well, the primary guarantee is once this deal happens—if it does happen— Look, they’re in negotiations right now. We are going to do everything possible. We have a lot of power, and we’re going to do everything possible to make sure everybody adheres to the deal. Okay? Reporter: Mr. President, are you concerned about the delays at airports, and how do you see this shutdown ending? President: Oh, sure. I mean, there are delays at the airport. That’s standard. And again, this is something that we— Every day we put forth a bill. It’s just a continuation. It’s a very simple thing to sign and very simple to do. And I really think that these are people that— I think they have nothing to lose. They have a party that’s out of control. They have no leader. President: Nobody knows who the leader is. I look at people with very low IQs, like Crockett—this woman, Crockett. I never met her, but she’s a low-IQ individual. I look at AOC talking about how, “If they want to negotiate, they can come to my office.” She’s not in that position to do that. And who the hell is she to say that? President: And then I watch Nancy Pelosi not knowing what to do. I watch their leadership. Look, Schumer is petrified of a primary ‘cause he’s not going to win, probably, against anybody in a primary. You know, Schumer did the right thing, but he handled it badly. Originally, a year ago, he did probably the right thing, but he handled it badly. I think Schumer’s incapable of making a deal. President: They are a mess. They’re a party that has no leadership. And they have no policy, you know? But the Democratic leadership is very limited right now. We have great— We have great— I think we have great leadership, but we also have great policy. We have strong borders. We have no men in women’s sports. We have— I mean, basic things. President: We’re not going to take your child away and change the sex of your child. We’re not going to do things like that. What they’re doing to the country is so incredible. And they got away with it, with all their woke crap, and now it’s stopped. And we have a country that’s based on common sense and strength and intelligence. I mean, we have the United States of America—and I say it, I say it all the time—other leaders have told me this. President: Mark hasn’t yet, but I think he would. A year ago, we were a dead country, and now we are the hottest country anywhere in the world. Maybe Canada—I’ll give Canada—because I do like Canada. But, you know, we’re the hottest country in the world right now. There’s never been a country that has the kind of money coming in— There’s never been anything like this. There has never been a country that— If you take a trillion dollars, that would be unbelievable. We’re going to have over $20 trillion invested in this country. President: There’s never been anything like what you’re seeing. And it’s based on good policy and common sense and leadership. Reporter: President, what is Canada giving you in return? If you say Mr. Carney is going to be leaving Washington happy, what’s Canada giving you in return? President: Well, you’ll find out, but I think the people of Canada—they will love us again. Most of them still do. But— Reporter: You say only 45%. President: I assume a lot of them— I think they love us. Reporters: Mr. President! Mr. President! Mr. President! President: And you know what? I’m not the biggest hockey fan, but I like it a lot. And I watched some of the greatest hockey games I’ve ever— Prime Minister: Helped them with those games, right? President: Yeah, yeah. Prime Minister: Yeah, very good. President: Mm-hmm. Reporter: We’re coming down for the World Series, Mr. President. President: Oh, good. By the way, you do have some great teams in sports. You’ve got some great teams going on right now. Prime Minister: Yeah, very good. President: Yeah. Reporter: Mr. President, will you sign a trade deal with Canada that doesn’t include supply-managed goods—like dairy, for example? The federal government says that’s off the table. President: Well, a deal will include dairy. I mean, it’s going to include everything. We’ll do a comprehensive— Reporter: Mr. President! Have you identified programs to eliminate under this shutdown? President: Oh, sure. Reporter: Which ones? President: We have a lot. I’m not going to tell you, but we’ll be announcing it pretty soon. But we have a lot of things that we’re going to eliminate and permanently eliminate. You know, one of the things that we have is—some advantage, you could say—but because of the shutdown, which I think they made a big mistake, we’re able to take out billions and billions of dollars of waste, fraud, and abuse. And they’ve handed it, you know, on a silver platter. President: And you know Russell Vought—he’s a serious person, very serious person. And he’s sitting there and he’s getting ready to cut things. And this is something that was handed to us by, I assume, Schumer. I just don’t know if Schumer has any power anymore. I look at your leadership—I don’t know who to speak to. President: I’ll tell you what: I’m getting calls from Democrats wanting to meet. I never even heard their names before, and they’re claiming to be leaders. The Democrats have no leader. They remind me of Somalia, okay? You know? And I met the president of Somalia—told him about the problem he’s got. President: I said, “You have somebody from Somalia who’s telling us how to run our country. He’s from Somalia.” He said— Would you like to take her back? He said, “No, I don’t want her.” Okay. You know what? I’m going to— Reporter: Which workers are you talking about? What workers are you talking about? President: Sandwiches. Reporter: How many permanent jobs are you talking about eliminating— President: Well, I could tell you— I’ll be able to tell you that in four or five days if this keeps going on. President: If this keeps going on, it’ll be substantial, and a lot of those jobs will never come back. But you’re going to have a lot closer to a balanced budget, actually. Reporter: Mr. President! Mr. President! Is there anything the prime minister has done that’s making it more difficult to reach a deal? President: Say it? Reporter: Is there anything that the prime minister has done that’s making it more difficult—or easier—to reach a deal? President: No, I think he’s a great prime minister. I mean, he could represent me anytime. I will tell you— I’m not saying that because it’s true. No, no, no. He is a very strong, very good leader. He’s a nice man, but he can be nasty. He can be very nasty. Maybe as nasty as anybody. Reporter: How? President: I think Canada—let me put it this way. I can tell you this because I deal with lots of leaders all over the world. He is a world-class leader. He’s a man that knows what he wants, and I’m not surprised to see that he won the election and won it substantially. And I would think he’s more popular now. President: He’s a good man. He does a great job, but he’s a tough negotiator. Reporter: How do you feel about Canada? Reporter: So then what’s holding things up? If he’s a great man and you want to do a deal with Canada, why aren’t you? President: Because I want to be a great man too. President: Thank you very much. Thank you. That could’ve been a joke. Thank you. Share! My original report from 2 weeks ago: The Government Will Shutdown Tomorrow -- And Play PERFECTLY Into President Trump's Plan! I love it when a plan comes together! President Trump is about to get EXACTLY what he wanted, and Chuck Schumer and the Democrats are going to hand it to him on a silver platter! It seems fairly certain at this point that the Government will indeed shut down tomorrow evening. Here is VP Vance confirming that's where we're headed: VP VANCE: "I think we're headed to a [government] shutdown." pic.twitter.com/Gz41x7JKl6 — Breaking911 (@Breaking911) September 29, 2025 In the past, the party not in power would always want a shutdown because then they'd blame the party in power for all the Government workers who are not getting paid. And Chuck Schumer thinks he's just going to roll out that same plan here, but he doesn't realize this time is different! Think about it... What has President Trump spent most of the past 9 months fighting to do? He's been up to the Supreme Court many times on the issue of who in Government he can and can't fire. He's won most or all of those cases, but they're taking a lot of time and a lot of effort. What would be better? Just shut the whole damn thing down and start over! Clean house! Wipe things clean and later on rebuild only the people and things you need. And the cherry on top? Of course Trump couldn't do this on his own, Democrats would be outraged!  So the cherry on top is to get Chuck Schumer to do it for him! And Chuck is playing right into Trump's hand -- but hey, no one ever said this guy was smart: Chuck Schumer DELETES Father’s Day Post After Getting Mercilessly Clowned On Twitter Mark it down, President Trump and Russ Vought are going to PERMANENTLY eliminate thousands of jobs out of the Government during this process: If there is a govt “shutdown”, Trump has ordered Russ Vought to permanently eliminate jobs when funding lapses. In past shutdowns, they just get a vacation and backpay a few days later (furlough). This time employees will be fired, eliminating thousands of govt union jobs. pic.twitter.com/bygL7UKYAg — Wall Street Mav (@WallStreetMav) September 29, 2025 Stephen Miller confirms here: JUST IN: The White House is planning for MASS LAYOFFS if the Democrats allow the government to shut down, according to Politico. Politico: “The Office of Management and Budget move to permanently reduce the government workforce if there is a shutdown.” “In the memo, OMB told… pic.twitter.com/zbbXQj13Pw — RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) September 25, 2025 Look at some of these beautiful numbers... HHS - 41% of jobs could go! CDC - could lose 64% of jobs! NIH - 75% of jobs! US GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN TO SLASH HEALTH AGENCIES 41% of Health and Human Services staff, over 32,000 workers, will be furloughed if Congress fails to avoid a shutdown. CDC will lose 64% of staff, crippling opioid, HIV, and diabetes prevention programs. NIH faces a 75% cut,… pic.twitter.com/7JLepki0m0 — Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) September 29, 2025 It's brilliant folks! And I almost considered not publishing this article so I didn't tip off Chuck Schumer but let's be honest, he has no good options here and as I said he's not smart enough to figure it out anyway! Here was President Trump earlier today: Under a new White House plan, potentially tens of thousands of federal employees could be laid off for good if there is no deal to fund the government before the deadline expires. @edokeefe reports. https://t.co/mWCenFh96J pic.twitter.com/yLwZd9a3S8 — CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) September 25, 2025 Speaker Thune fully explains: pic.twitter.com/WMMdg7IXmE — Noah Christopher (@DailyNoahNews) September 29, 2025 TRANSCRIPT: But their whole thing is, "It's up to you." That's their message. Uh, what do you say to that? Well, I- I don't know where they come up with that because we are Republicans united, House Republicans, Senate Republicans, President Trump. The House Republicans have passed a short-term funding resolution that is clean, nonpartisan, and came over to the Senate. It's sitting at the desk in the Senate. We could pick it up and pass it tonight. The president would sign it into law. The government stays open. It's that simple. And what they're trying to do is create a, uh, counter-narrative that, uh, suggests that they can add trillions of dollars of spending, uh, free healthcare for illegals to this thing, and it's just flat, you know, there, there, there's just, there isn't a, um, a world in which they're being realistic. This is a totally unserious proposal. You wrote an op-ed and you said, in fact, uh, the Democrats voted 13 times for clean funding bills while President Biden was in office. So what is the explanation, uh, why not this time to continue negotiating the appropriations bills? Well, we, this is And that's exactly what we wanna do, and I've made this very clear. You pass a short-term funding resolution that will enable us to finish the other appropriations bills through the normal regular process. So we wanna fund the government the way that it should be funded, which is through regular order. And that's the appropriations committee marking up bills, reporting 'em to the floor, opening it up to the amendment process. That's the way it used to work. Um, in Chuck Schumer- Schumer's universe, we didn't do appropriations bills. It was all written behind closed doors in his office. And now he's upset because he isn't being consulted on everything because we're doing things the way we should be doing 'em, allowing Republican senators and Democrat senators to work together to pass these bills. And what we need is to fund the government, give us some time to, to do the rest of the appropriations bills. And if there are other issues they wanna talk about, one of which is this premium tax credit issue, we're wel- you know, we welcome that conversation. But you can't hold the federal government hostage. Release the hostage, and then we can start talking about these other things. You know, Leader Jeffries said, um, in the Oval Office, there was a frank and direct discussion. In Washington, that translates to heated at times. Was it heated? Well, I mean, I think it was, uh, it was- Lively? It was lively. It was spirited. And, um, you know, obviously they're in a tough spot politically. And I, and I get it. I mean, they've got a base that is demanding that they fight anything related to President Trump. This, you know, you mentioned the 13 times they did this. When they, when they had the majority, the Democrats did, you had Joe Biden in the White House, passed 13 short-term continuing resolutions. Well, what's changed? Donald Trump's the president. That's what's changed. But, you know, on the health issue, health providers could lose 32 billion if ACA credits at the center of the shutdown fight expire. The lapse in Obamacare subsidies could also lead to an additional 7.7 billion in unpaid medical bills for uninsured patients, from uninsured patients. Big deal, right? For a lot of people. Well, the premium tax credit issue is something we're willing to have a conversation about. But the fact of the matter is, it is rife with waste, fraud, and abuse. It needs reforms. It is a program where the government pays, makes direct payments to insurance companies. Insurance companies get subsidies to cover more people, so through their agents and brokers, they go out and auto enroll people, many of whom don't even know they have coverage. And of the 23 million people who were covered in the exchanges last year, 12 million never filed a claim 'cause a lot of 'em don't even know they have coverage. And there's no income caps on it. There's a couple in West Virginia making $580,000 a year that's getting subsidies from the federal government for their healthcare. Um, there are, you know- But you're willing to work on this issue in particular? Yeah, I mean, part of this is the, the base Obam- Obamacare program is not gonna be affected. What's gonna be affected is the enhancements that the Democrats added when they had the majorities. So we're- What about- But we're willing to have that conversation. But you gotta do that in, you can't do that in the context of a hostage-taking situation, which is where we are right now. What about the OMB director's letter, uh, Russ Vought, in which he asks the department heads or tells them there might be possible permanent layoffs, uh, saying, "Agencies are directed to use this opportunity to consider reduction in force notice for all employees that don't fit under, uh, being funded by the funding that continues." Right. Well, and that's, and that's exactly why we oughta keep the government open. So that's a real threat? Well, I mean, I think that Look, if you, you have to manage a shutdown. If you're Russ Vought, you have to figure out in the middle of a shutdown, "What am I gonna do? How am I gonna shift money around?" It is the American people that get hurt by this. There is no reason for a government shutdown. Republicans are united, House Republicans, Senate Republicans, the president of United States, all agree to keep the government open. All it takes is Chuck Schumer to agree to put the bill that's sitting at the Senate desk. The House has passed it. We can pass it. President signs it into law. Government stays open. You know, we saw this train coming down the tracks. I interviewed you in July and asked specifically about this. Take a listen. You're gonna need Schumer's support to keep the government open. We are. And we, and we- And so how are you gonna get it? Well, I mean, we, it, at some point, you hope that in the interest of the country, that they will work with us on issues like funding the government. But it's been very hard because at least right now, they're, anything that the president wants, they're against. Said anything the president wants, they're against. And we're at this moment. Are you in the same place? Well, this is a perfect example of what I was talking about because it is. This is a clean, short-term, bipartisan funding resolution, something we did 13 times when the Democrats had the majority. And all we have to do is pick it up and pass it and then we can go to work on the other appropriations bills and the other things that Democrats want to address. But they've tried to introduce, you know, a trillion dollars in new spending, free healthcare for illegals, uh, as part of their proposal. And we can't do that by tomorrow night at midnight. And we're not gonna do most of that stuff anyway. But if they wanna do something on premium tax credits, uh, we're open to having that conversation. Su- But you can't do it in this context. Schumer is running scared from his political left. I mean, it's that simple. And again, this is all about who's in the White House. They did this 13 times when Biden was in the White House. So chances right now, standing in the White House driveway, that the government shuts down, where do you put it? Well, I mean, it's up to them and, uh, I don't know- So above 50%. Well, if the Democrats are coming out and saying flatly, um, "We will vote," repeatedly, and they will have to because we won't force 'em to vote 'cause the bill is sitting in the Senate to, to keep the government or to shut the government down, not to fund the government. It's up to them. The ball is in their court and, um, this is-. Share!