Donald Trump is baffled — and furious — that the Democrats still won’t cave.
Nearly five weeks into the government shutdown, the president has gone from confident to confused, watching his plan to break the opposition collapse under the weight of his own cruelty.
According to Politico, Trump, 79, believed the shutdown would last “ten days at most.” His strategy was simple — and brutal: unleash Russ Vought, his self-proclaimed “grim reaper” at the Office of Management and Budget, to illegally fire thousands of federal employees and choke off vital programs. The idea was that Democrats, desperate to stop the bleeding, would surrender and sign the GOP’s budget bill.
Instead, Democrats refused to blink. The firings sparked lawsuits, the public turned against the White House, and the party Trump branded “lunatics” has held firm, demanding a single concession: extend Affordable Care Act subsidies so millions of Americans can keep their health coverage.
Trump’s response? Fury, confusion — and a Gatsby-themed Halloween party.
“What’s Wrong With Them?”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with them,” Trump complained during remarks on Friday. “They’ve never done a thing like this. They’ve become crazed lunatics. All they have to do is say, ‘Let’s go. Let’s open up our country.’ And everything snaps back into shape. So there’s something wrong with them… It’s their fault. Everything is their fault. It’s so easily solved.”
But it’s not Democrats who are cracking. It’s Trump.
As his administration faces mounting backlash for allowing 42 million low-income Americans to lose access to food assistance under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the president appears genuinely confused about how government works.
The SNAP program expired at midnight on November 1 after Republicans blocked bipartisan efforts to extend emergency funding. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) admitted Republicans are holding the program hostage as leverage.
“If you do just part of this,” Johnson said Thursday, “it will reduce the pressure for them to do all of it.”
In other words, starving Americans is a strategy.
The Courts Step In
By Friday, half the country had joined lawsuits demanding the government continue SNAP payments. In a stunning rebuke, two federal judges ruled that the program must keep operating — even during the shutdown.
Massachusetts District Judge Indira Talwani wrote that the administration “erred” in claiming that emergency funds couldn’t be used.
The ruling left Trump sputtering.
From his gold-trimmed ballroom at Mar-a-Lago, dressed in a tuxedo and surrounded by guests in flapper dresses and sequined masks, Trump posted a confused Truth Social message that stunned even his supporters:
“Our Government lawyers do not think we have the legal authority to pay SNAP with certain monies we have available, and now two Courts have issued conflicting opinions on what we can and cannot do. I have instructed our lawyers to ask the Court to clarify how we can legally fund SNAP as soon as possible.”
Translation: The president of the United States is unsure how to feed the poor — and wants a judge to explain it to him.
A Party Amid Hunger
As Trump vented online, Mar-a-Lago pulsed with champagne and jazz. Guests dined on steak tartare and lobster sliders beneath glittering chandeliers, while government workers nationwide stood in food bank lines.
A source close to the White House told Politico, “Trump’s had it with these people, because he knows they’re playing politics. Nobody thought it was going to last this long.”
In truth, it’s Trump who misplayed the politics. His decision to weaponize hunger as leverage has turned into a public relations nightmare. Even some Republicans are beginning to panic as polls show overwhelming opposition to cutting food assistance during a shutdown.
Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture has been ordered to report to Judge Talwani by Monday, detailing whether it will pay full or reduced SNAP benefits using contingency funds or by redirecting money from other programs.
Brooke Rollins, Trump’s Secretary of Agriculture, initially claimed that “emergency funds are not allowed to flow if the underlying program is unfunded.” The courts disagreed — sharply.
“Great Again” for Whom?
The episode captures the dysfunction at the heart of Trump’s second presidency: chaos as strategy, cruelty as governance, and confusion as policy.
The president still insists Democrats are to blame for the suffering, telling aides he can’t understand why “they won’t just give me what I want.” But as one senior Republican told The Daily Beast, “He thought they’d fold when people went hungry. Instead, they’ve turned him into the villain.”
And as SNAP recipients breathe a temporary sigh of relief, the man in charge remains lost in his own contradictions — desperate for control but undone by his own rhetoric.
For now, the shutdown grinds on, the courts are feeding Americans instead of the government, and the president is pacing the halls of Mar-a-Lago, angry that even hunger isn’t bending the opposition to his will.
As one former Obama official put it: “Trump wanted to prove he could break the system. Instead, he’s just proving he doesn’t understand it.”