Jeffries vows to use government shutdown fight to combat Trump orders

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Monday that Democrats will use the coming battle over government funding as a vehicle to block President Trump’s early efforts to gut federal programs — a warning that raises the chances of a shutdown in the middle of next month.

In a letter to House Democrats, Jeffries hammered the administration for issuing an order — since rescinded — to freeze federal aid that Congress had previously allocated. Jeffries suggested Democrats will oppose any federal spending bill that doesn’t explicitly prevent Trump from freezing, slashing or otherwise altering those programs, including Medicaid, which saw its services disrupted amid the chaos over the freeze.

The Democratic leader said he’s already delivered the message to House GOP leaders that, absent those assurances, Republicans will be on their own to prevent a shutdown.

“I have made clear to House Republican leadership that any effort to steal taxpayer money from the American people, end Medicaid as we know it or defund programs important to everyday Americans, as contemplated by the illegal White House Office of Management and Budget order, must be choked off in the upcoming government funding bill, if not sooner,” Jeffries wrote. 

Jeffries and the Democrats are in the minority, but they have plenty of leverage to dictate some terms of the coming government funding fight. That’s because Senate Democrats still have the power of the filibuster, which will require bipartisan support to overcome, while the GOP’s majority in the House is so slim that even partisan messaging bills will frequently be a challenge to pass. 

Indeed, Jeffries’s warning arrives as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and other GOP leaders are already struggling to unite the feuding factions of their restive conference behind, not only a government spending bill, but also a much larger package of tax cuts, immigration reforms and energy policies that Trump had promised on the campaign trail. Somewhere in that mix, they also need to raise the debt ceiling — an unpopular idea among many House conservatives.

Without congressional action, large parts of the government will shut down on March 14. 

Democratic leaders have come under fire from some Trump critics outside the Beltway who contend the party hasn’t moved swiftly or aggressively enough to push back against the early actions of the second Trump administration, which is moving at a sprinter's pace to overhaul the face and operations of the federal workforce. 

Jeffries’s letter on Monday seeks to counter those criticisms, laying out a 10-part battle plan for combating the president’s unprecedented unilateral actions. 

Jeffries said Democrats will soon introduce legislation to block “unlawful access” to information systems operated by federal agencies like the Treasury Department — a response to a scandal that erupted over the weekend when the government efficiency operations under Elon Musk were given access to Treasury’s sensitive payment systems. 

Jeffries is also vowing to step up the Democrats’ messaging activities — with a focus on Trump’s so-far unmet promise to slash consumer costs — and litigation efforts in the face of executive orders the party deems to be illegal. That list includes Trump’s efforts to end birthright citizenship, fire a number of inspectors general and cut the federal workforce across the various agencies.

Behind Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), Jeffries said Democrats are also poised to lean in on their efforts to reform the nation’s immigration system amid Trump’s vow to step up deportations. That effort, Jeffries wrote, will feature “high-level constituent services to impacted communities and defend the Dreamers, farmworkers and families who contribute to our economy in a significant way.”