U.S. President Donald Trump’s hardball tactic of ordering permanent layoffs Friday amid a government shutdown hardened Democrats’ deep distrust of Republicans and risks prolonging a standoff that is already the fourth longest in American history with no end in sight.
Sen. Patty Murray, a senior Democrat, slammed the firings announced by Trump budget chief Russell Vought as illegal and "nothing new” from an administration that has ignored spending laws since Trump returned to power in January.
"No one should be intimidated by these crooks,” she fumed on Friday. "The way we reopen government is compromise, a simple concept every American understands — and no amount of threats will change that.”
The shutdown is the most acute symptom of a general lack of goodwill on Capitol Hill, where bipartisan deal-making has increasingly gone out of vogue. Since Trump returned to office in January, he has steamrolled Democrats and their priorities via executive actions including ordering mass layoffs and slashing billions in spending.
The GOP-controlled Congress has mostly ignored Democrats too, passing a massive partisan
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