President Donald Trump and GOP lawmakers must be worried about being held responsible if the government shuts down at the end of the month, because they’re spreading coordinated lies about Democrats’ requests in order to deflect blame.
Trump, who canceled a negotiation meeting with Democratic lawmakers, falsely claimed that Democrats want Republicans to add funding for "transgender surgeries" and "$1 trillion dollars in new spending to continue free health care for illegal aliens"—neither of which is even remotely true.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has joined in the right-wing lies in an attempt to blame the looming government shutdown on Democrats.
GOP lawmakers had enough shame to drop the transgender surgery lie, but they’ve been spreading the falsehood that Democrats are demanding to add health care for undocumented immigrants in order to keep the government open.
"Democrats are holding the AMERICAN government HOSTAGE — in an attempt to give FREE health care to NONCITIZENS, which was just outlawed by Congress,” House Speaker Mike Johnson wrote on X. “This isn’t governing. It’s putting illegal aliens FIRST and Americans LAST.”
And GOP Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina added to the insane lies.
“Why are Democrats jeopardizing services Americans depend on just to put illegals and even dead people back on taxpayer-funded healthcare?” he wrote on X.
Of course, Democrats are not actually demanding funding for transgender surgeries or health care for undocumented immigrants.
They are, however, demanding that Republicans actually negotiate with them to get their votes. And in exchange, they want the GOP to agree to extend subsidies for low-income Americans’ health insurance plans on the Affordable Care Act marketplaces, which are set to expire at the end of the year.
If the subsidies are not extended, premiums will skyrocket and millions will lose their health insurance. In fact, Republicans are worried that not extending those subsidies could hurt them politically in the 2026 midterms—but not enough to negotiate with Democrats to extend them.
But despite Republicans’ best efforts to pin a potential shutdown on Democrats, polling shows that more than one-third of Americans would blame Trump or the GOP.
A YouGov poll released Friday found that a combined 37% of Americans would blame Trump and Republicans for a shutdown, 25% would blame Democrats, and 26% would blame everyone equally.
Ultimately, convincing voters that Democrats are at fault if the government shuts down will be quite a tall order—especially when it’s built on idiotic lies about trans people and immigrants.
