Fact-checking what politicians are saying about the 2025 government shutdown

Fact-checking what politicians are saying about the 2025 government shutdown Politics Oct 2, 2025 6:42 PM EDT

This article originally appeared on PolitiFact .

In 2013, then-businessman and reality TV star Donald Trump shared his vision on Fox News about the role a president should play in a shutdown: “You have to be nice and be angry and be wild and cajole and do all sorts of things, but you have to get a deal.”

Now as president, Trump has taken a different approach. After failing to reach a bipartisan agreement, he mocked Democrats by posting an expletive-laced video generated by artificial intelligence and set to mariachi music falsely showing U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries wearing a sombrero and U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer saying that “nobody likes Democrats anymore,” so the party