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Top Republican officials appear to be at odds with each other over how to portray the fallout from the ongoing government shutdown.
Senate Democrats are still refusing to budge from their demands for Obamacare subsidy extensions to be included in a short-term federal funding bill, so it is likely the government will stay shut down at least until next week.
It has given President Donald Trump and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) wide discretion over what agencies and project operations will look like, as well as the federal workforce.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has sought to portray those decisions as difficult tasks for Trump and OMB Director Russ Vought, particularly the administration’s push to permanently lay off federal workers the longer the shutdown goes on.
HERE’S WHAT TRUMP WANTS TO DO TO RESHAPE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DURING THE SHUTDOWN
Speaker Mike Johnson, left, and President Donald Trump, right, have taken different approaches to portraying the federal cuts amid the ongoing government shutdown. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images; Francis Chung/Politico/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Johnson told Fox News Digital in an interview earlier this week that Trump is “very bothered” by the position Democrats have put the government in and is concerned about its lasting impact on Americans.
He also told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow on Thursday that Vought is in an “unenviable” position, and while there “could be some good that comes out of it, if we limit the size and scope of government” that “it is not a job that he relishes.”
And while Trump has heaped blame on Democrats for the shutdown’s impact on Americans, he’s struck a different tone when discussing its political fallout in recent days.
Trump posted on Truth Social Thursday that he would meet with Vought “to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut.”
“I can’t believe the…
