Trump Turns Shutdown Into Weapon Against Blue America

LOS ANGELES —The government shutdown is opening a new front in Donald Trump's scorched-earth approach to power, with the president weaponizing the impasse to punish heavily-Democratic cities and states.

Trump appeared jubilant Thursday at the “unprecedented opportunity” to slash “Democrat Agencies.” His administration cut $8 billion in green energy projects — all in states that voted for his 2024 rival, Kamala Harris. Major infrastructure projects in New York — not only his estranged home state but also that of Democrats’ top legislative leaders — have been put on ice.

It may be a bare-knuckle negotiation tactic to pressure recalcitrant Democrats to drop their demands to restore health care funding. But his detractors see the shutdown as just the latest stop on Trump’s vengeance tour — which to an unprecedented degree has used the levers of government to torment the people, places and institutions that Trump sees as adversaries.

“The continuing through line is the president is going to use every means in his power to silence and intimidate his critics,” said Sen. Adam Schiff, a frequent target of Trump’s ire who denounced the White House’s clean energy freeze as punishing “political enemies” — a list that has swelled to include late night comics, universities, the former FBI director, the current New York attorney general, major Democratic donors, blue-tinted states and, of course, himself.

“This is an effort to intimidate the whole of society,” Schiff said in an interview.

Trump supporters say the president is not the first to leverage the government against political opponents, pointing to the myriad state and federal investigations he has faced in jurisdictions controlled by Democrats.

A senior Trump administration official confirmed the infrastructure funding freezes were a direct response to the shutdown. The White House did not respond to an inquiry about Trump’s motives.

Democrats were already queasy at the prospect of Trump capitalizing on a government shutdown. Explaining his opposition to a shutdown in March, Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, said a funding stalemate would enable Trump and then-ally Elon Musk to supercharge their effort to slash government bureaucracy.

This time, Schumer and his House counterpart Hakeem Jeffries have united behind a strategy of withholding support to keep the government open unless the GOP agrees to extend some health care subsidies. But for some Democrats, the concern still lingers.

A shutdown “would be the ideal outcome for Project 2025,” Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman told reporters, pointing to the sprawling conservative policy blueprint which takes aim at the heart of Democrats’ decades-long policy gains.

So far, the most eye-catching shutdown moves are aimed at states that voted against Trump in the last election — especially the twin bulwarks of blue America, New York and California.

Just hours after the shutdown took effect, Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, announced that money for two New York infrastructure projects – the Hudson tunnel and the Second Avenue subway — was put on hold “based on unconstitutional DEI principles.”

The announcement was swiftly rebuked by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul as “political payback.” It also got an unenthused reception from Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, who represents a swing House seat.

It’s a familiar position for the state and some of its prominent residents, whom Trump has repeatedly singled out.

“New York is his home. It’s where he started his businesses, and I think it particularly irks him that he doesn’t do well politically in New York,” said Rep. George Latimer, a first-term Democrat from Westchester County.

Trump has publicly urged U.S. attorneys to prosecute state Attorney General Letitia James amid mortgage fraud allegations that she’s denied. James’ civil fraud case against Trump led to a Manhattan trial judge finding last year that the president and other defendants inflated his net worth and the value of his real estate properties. Trump was ordered to pay a massive financial penalty in that case that with interest has reached more than $500 million. He is appealing the verdict.

The president has also tried to put his thumb on the scale in the race for New York City mayor. His Department of Justice moved to dismiss corruption charges against incumbent Eric Adams this year. Trump allies also discussed a possible administration post for the mayor in an effort to aid ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo and complicate the path to victory for democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani. And the president has floated the possibility of withholding federal funds if Mamdani, the frontrunner, prevails in the race next month.

“For Donald Trump the purpose of government isn’t to serve the public, it’s to attack his opponents,” said Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres. “Blue states like New York are front and center. Donald Trump has dethroned Richard Nixon as the most vindictive president in history.”

One New Yorker who has been able to stitch together a semblance of a working relationship with Trump is Hochul. The Democratic governor has met with him twice to discuss a controversial Manhattan toll program that he vowed last year to end by rescinding federal approval. So far, the president has kept the toll in place, but has pressed state officials to approve gas pipeline projects environmental advocates oppose.

Yet Hochul has also countered the administration. On Wednesday she won a temporary court order blocking the federal government from slashing nearly $34 million in Department of Homeland Security antiterrorism funds to New York City subways.

"I have no doubt he’s going to do more of this,” Latimer said. “We have a president who is hostile to our state and our politics. We’re going to have to do our best to get to the other side of it. But the president has a lot of power and he’s choosing to use it that way."

On the West Coast, California is used to being in Trump’s crosshairs, dating back to his first term when he baselessly insisted the state was the site of mass voter fraud.

“Trump clearly has it in for California. We're the opposite of his vision of America,” said Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla, the state’s senior senator.

Trump’s second go-round in the White House has brought a steady drumbeat of pressure bearing down on California. He has gutted the state’s climate standards, used Los Angeles as a marquee testing ground for his immigration crackdown and domestic deployment of the military and has demanded University of California Los Angeles pay more than $1 billion to restore federal research funding.

California’s ruling Democrats have seen these policy moves as hostile acts. But others see a distinction between Trump’s salvos at the state government and how he views Californians as a whole.

“We've actually been able to work with the administration to deliver very positive things for the people of California, and that often means doing what we can to rein in the government of California,” said Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley, citing his legislation that revoked California’s ability to ban gas-powered cars. “That's a very clear example of how the administration worked with me to benefit the people of California and stop our state government from harming them.”

California is also the geographic heart of Trump’s de facto enemies list, the largest concentration of individuals and companies that have found themselves at the receiving end of a furious presidential Truth Social post.

At the top is its governor, Gavin Newsom, who has eagerly stepped into the role of chief Trump antagonist with his trollish social media presence and Trump rage-bait merch. Newsom even took a page out of the president’s playbook Thursday by threatening state funding to any university that signed a novel compact floated by the administration to entice schools to adopt the president’s educational priorities.

“CALIFORNIA WILL NOT BANKROLL SCHOOLS THAT SELL OUT THEIR STUDENTS, PROFESSORS, RESEARCHERS, AND SURRENDER ACADEMIC FREEDOM,” Newsom wrote on X, mimicking Trump’s signature social media style.

Others called out by Trump have been more circumspect. Last month, Trump singled out LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, a prolific Democratic donor and one of Silicon Valley’s fiercest Trump critics, as a potential target for the Justice Department to investigate. He had just finished signing a presidential memorandum to counter “domestic terrorism and organized political violence,” telling reporters he wanted to crack down on backers of the “left-wing” groups he believed were behind such acts.

“I hear names of some pretty rich people that are radical left people,” Trump said. “Maybe I hear about a guy named Reid Hoffman, somebody’s a pretty rich guy, I guess.” Hoffman did not immediately comment on the remarks.

Also mentioned was George Soros, the billionaire investor who has been a fixation among conservatives for his lavish giving to progressive causes. The long-running scrutiny did not appear to deter Soros’ group, now run by his son Alex, from donating $10 million in support of Newsom’s ballot measure to redraw California’s congressional maps, which the governor has framed as a salvo against the Trump presidency.

Hoffman, meanwhile, has not reported any donations to federal campaigns or within California this year, after going all in on Harris and spending millions of dollars to oppose Trump.

Harris has also experienced retribution after her bitterly-fought campaign against Trump. In August, Trump ended Secret Service protection for the former vice president, cutting short the extended protection that his predecessor, Joe Biden, had put into place. The California Highway Patrol has since been providing protection for Harris as she criss-crosses the nation on her book tour.

Now, the federal government shutdown is reverberating through California, most significantly by imperiling a massive hydrogen hub that aims to replace fossil fuels — a decision Padilla denounced as “vindictive.” (The impacts of this and other energy cuts may ripple into dozens of GOP districts across the country.)

“By and large, during a shutdown, a president seeks to minimize the pain on the American public. That's not the case this time,” Padilla said. “Donald Trump, Russell Vought and Stephen Miller and everybody around him are very intentional about exploiting the shutdown to make it more painful for people and constituencies that they deem the enemy. That's absolutely un-American.”

Blake Jones and Christine Mui contributed to this report.