Trump admin uses government sites to blame Democrats for shutdown
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President Trump in Quantico, Virginia, on Tuesday. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images
With no immediate end to the government shutdown in sight, Republicans and Democrats are ramping up their blame game blitz and are already using it as midterm messaging fodder.
The big picture: But with the GOP controlling the White House and Congress, they're using government websites to air their grievances — and in doing so consumer advocacy group Public Citizen alleges the Trump administration has violated the Hatch Act, which limits federal workers' partisan political activities.
Driving the news: While the State Department's website initially carried a generic message about limited updates due to a "lapse" in funding, on Wednesday it was updated to blame "the Democrat-led shutdown."
The White House is running a web page with a "shutdown clock" ticking above the words, "Democrats Have Shut Down the Government."
The Small Business Administration's website displayed a message into Thursday blaming Democrats for the shutdown that its says is "preventing" the SBA "from serving America's 36 million small businesses."
- It claims that every day "Senate Democrats continue to oppose" the bill that would have kept the government funded through Nov. 20, "they are stopping an estimated 320 small businesses from accessing $170 million in SBA-guaranteed funding" and many services are now unavailable.
- The post adds the SBA has a "Lapse Plan and as soon as the shutdown is over, we are prepared to immediately return to the record-breaking services we were providing under the leadership of the Trump Administration."
The Justice Department's site includes a banner saying, "Democrats have shut down the government."
The Department of Housing and Urban Development's page contained a popup Tuesday reading: "The Radical Left are going to shut down the government and inflict massive pain on the American people unless they get their $1.5 trillion wish list of demands."
- After the shutdown, it read: "The Radical Left in Congress shut down the government."
Friction point: Public Citizen filed complaints against the SBA and HUD posts, which it says are a "blatant violation" of the Hatch Act.
- "To place the sole blame on the Democrats because they don't want cut Medicaid and healthcare for Americans is electioneering," said Craig Holman, Public Citizen's government affairs lobbyist, in a Wednesday night phone interview.
- "Posting on a website directly trying to affect the [midterm] election in 2026 is an obvious violation," alleged Holman, who filed the complaints to the Office of Special Counsel, which did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment.
- Holman, who said "litigation" would be his next step if the complaints are ignored, also took issue with several agencies encouraging furloughed workers to use out-of-office automessage templates blaming Democrats for the shutdown.
- He said this may violate the Anti-Lobbying Act and was probably a "lower-level violation" of the Hatch Act.
Asked about that allegation, HUD spokesperson Kasey Lovett told Axios in a statement that the "Radical Left has shut down the government. As a result, HUD's Office of Public Affairs is operating in a limited capacity, which impacts our ability to promptly engage with the mainstream media."
- SBA spokesperson Caitlin O'Dea defended the agency's action, echoing the agency's post blaming Democrats for businesses affected by the shutdown.
Zoom out: On the airwaves and via social media feeds, Republicans echoed the sentiments shared via official government channels, with Vice President JD Vance blaming the "far-left faction" of Senate Democrats for the lapse on "CBS Mornings" Wednesday.
- On Fox Business, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said the shutdown could "provide an opportunity" to further "downsize" the government, adding with a smile, "in a way Chuck Schumer has now handed the keys to the kingdom to the executive branch."
The other side: Democrats have also been quick to point fingers at the "Republican Shutdown," as minority leaders Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) are calling it.
- Democrats centered their attacks around the expiration of the Affordable Care Act's enhanced tax credits at the end of the year. Renewing those credits were a key demand from Democrats during negotiations to prevent a shutdown.
- If the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies expire at year's end, premium payments for subsidized enrollees are set to more than double, according to a KFF analysis.
- "Democrats are fighting to protect your healthcare," said Jeffries in a Wednesday post. "Donald Trump and Republicans have shut down the government because they want to take your healthcare away."
State of play: The risks of the shutdown are far more than just the loss of political points.
- Around 750,000 federal employees could be furloughed daily, according to the Congressional Budget Office's estimate, and the Trump administration has threatened to use the shutdown to conduct mass firings — a twist unions have sued to stop.
Go deeper: How the government shutdown could disrupt daily life
Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout.
