President Donald Trump is rewriting the federal government’s shutdown playbook, keeping politically symbolic programs alive and pausing others he opposes.

While large swaths of the federal workforce remain furloughed, the administration has kept certain agencies and initiatives running by stretching legal definitions of what counts as “essential.”

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Meanwhile, he’s announced he will inflict pain in a way that would hurt his opponents the most. Aside from cutting programs in blue states, Trump said Office of Management and Budget Director R

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