The Trump administration is doubling down on its shutdown ultimatum to Democrats: Surrender to our backward austerity bill, or we’ll rip more funding and resources from the hands of your constituents.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked Thursday about Trump’s promise to work with Office of Management and Budget Director (and Project 2025 architect) Russ Vought to ax so-called “Democrat Agencies” in the government. “Is that real?” a Fox News host asked Leavitt. “Or is that a negotiating tactic?”

“Oh it’s very real. And the Democrats should know that they put the White House and the president in this position,” Leavitt replied. “And if they don’t want further harm on their constituents back home, then they need to reopen the government. It’s very simple: Pass the clean continuing resolution, and all of this goes away.”

This language reads like a hostage letter, and it essentially is. The Trump administration has already frozen $18 billion in infrastructure projects in New Jersey and New York, and announced cuts to $8 billion in energy funding from 16 blue states as well. The limits of this wanton retribution are unclear, as the Trump administration seems giddy to do real harm to American citizens and communities represented by Democrats who refuse to silently fall in line.

Leavitt: "Democrats should know that they put the White House and the president in this position. And if they don't want further harm on their constituents back home, then they need to reopen the government. It's very simple." pic.twitter.com/OMIIL9IY2z

President Donald Trump’s new scheme to transform the federal government into a pharmacy is already raising red flags for legal and health experts.

Earlier this week, Trump announced the launch of TrumpRx, a strangely socialist-sounding service where consumers can procure cheap prescription drugs from the U.S. government—just days before Trump’s 100 percent tariff on pharmaceutical products is set to cause prices to skyrocket. Pfizer has agreed to provide prescription medicine through the purchasing platform at a “significant discount” of on average close to 50 percent, according to a press release from the company.

But not everyone is convinced.

Stacie Dusetzina, a health policy professor at Vanderbilt University, told Mandatory that TrumpRx was “more of a gimmick” to make drug companies happy. In reality, the site is likely “not going to help the average person” who purchases medications through their insurance. Even with the discounts, prescriptions could still cost thousands of dollars, likely much higher than a typical insurance co-pay.

The White House did not clarify how exactly prices would be determined, and Pfizer’s press release noted that the “specific terms of the agreement remain confidential.”

It’s not just consumers who would be sold short. Independent pharmacists have voiced concerns that the service could hurt their businesses. And The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board excoriated Trump’s move Wednesday as “political extortion” of drug companies, threatening them with gargantuan tariffs if they failed to cut a deal with his administration.

Eliza Orlins, a career public defender and former candidate for Manhattan district attorney who produces social media news explainers, posted a video Wednesday in which she begged her followers not to enter their personal information into the TrumpRx website. “This is one of the scariest things I’ve seen in 2025—and that’s saying a lot,” she said.

“In order to use the site, you’d have to tell the government exactly what medications you take, what conditions you have, when you refill them,” she explained, noting, “And the White House hasn’t said data they collect, how it will be stored, who gets access, or what happens when the program ends.”

Orlins argued that the discount Trump had promised came at a cost. “That cost is your privacy. Because once you hand over this information, it is theirs forever, and you will never know where it went,” she said.

The Trump administration has a history of playing it fast and loose with Americans’ private information. In August, a whistleblower revealed that DOGE employees had uploaded a copy of a Social Security database onto a cloud server, making the information vulnerable to leaks and hackers. It could also be unwise to let the government know your medical information considering the administration’s attitudes about vaccines and antidepressants.

The copy-and-paste shutdown message broadcast by several executive branch agency chiefs earlier this week affected more parts of the government than previously understood.

Treasury Department employees and workers at the IRS also received near mirror images of the ethics-violating directive, according to an internal email shared with The New Republic.

The email, headed, “Planning for Potential Lapse in Funding,” issued guidance for Treasury Department workers on the eve of the government shutdown, including staff furloughs and continued work plans. But it also overtly blames the shutdown on Democrats, in apparent violation of the Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch.

It was signed by the assistant secretary for management at the Treasury, John York, a former policy analyst for the right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation.

“President Trump opposes a government shutdown, and strongly supports the enactment of H.R. 5371, which is a clean Continuing Resolution to fund the government through November 21, and already passed the U.S. House of Representatives,” the email reads. “Unfortunately, Democrats are blocking this Continuing Resolution in the U.S. Senate due to unrelated policy demands. If Congressional Democrats maintain their current posture and refuse to pass a clean Continuing Resolution to keep the government........

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