President Trump on Friday issued a self-congratulatory social media post, announcing the restoration of counterterrorism funds to New York—which his administration cut in the first place.

The Department of Homeland Security last Saturday moved to slash $100 million in federal homeland security funding, on top of an $87 million reduction announced in August, to New York. Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, described the move as dangerous and apparently “politically motivated.”

In a lawsuit filed Monday, New York—and a coalition of other states being defunded—sought to claw back funding, which they said was cut in retaliation for their refusal to cooperate with Trump’s deportation program. On Tuesday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the DHS cuts.

On Friday, Trump announced that New York’s funds would be restored in a vainglorious Truth Social post. “I am pleased to advise that I reversed the cuts made to Homeland Security and Counterterrorism for New York City and State,” he wrote. “It was my Honor to do so. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DJT.”

According to The New York Times, the president had no idea the funds were being cut until Hochul called him to object on Sunday. While he may have intervened to reinstate them, the funds were seemingly only being withdrawn in the first place pursuant to his day-one executive order directing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to “ensure that so-called ‘sanctuary’ jurisdictions … do not receive access to Federal funds.”

Republicans are scrambling to downplay just how much enjoyment President Donald Trump is evidently extracting from preparations to fire federal workers by the thousands amid the government shutdown.

Speaking at a press conference Friday about Trump’s plans to make massive cuts to essential programs amid the government shutdown, House Speaker Mike Johnson admitted that the president was “trolling” Democrats. But at the same time, Johnson claimed that Trump and White House Budget Director Russell Vought took “no pleasure” in making the cuts.

“Now, are they taking great pleasure in that? No. Is [Trump] trolling the Democrats? Yes. I mean, yes! Because that’s what President Trump does, and people are having fun with this,” Johnson said, likely referring to the trough of (often racist) AI slop the president has offered up to mock Democrats in the wake of the government shutdown.

Fox News congressional correspondent Chad Pergram pressed the speaker on his claim. “Square something for me. How can you say, ‘They take no pleasure in this,’ and then the next minute say, ‘Oh, they’re just having fun and trolling people?’” he asked.

“So, the effects are very serious on real people, real Americans. We support federal employees who do a great job in all these different areas. But what they’re trying to have fun with, trying to make light of, is to point out the absurdity of the Democrats’ position,” Johnson said. “And they’re using memes and all the, you know, tools of social media to do that. Some people find that entertaining. But at the end of the day the decisions are hard ones, and I tell you they’re not taking any pleasure in that.”

Earlier this week, Johnson admitted that Trump’s posting was “not [his] style,” and seemed to agree with a Democratic colleague that the president had become “unhinged.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also struggled Friday to downplay how much fun Trump was having in the supposedly uncomfortable positions Democrats had put him in. “Democrats have given this administration an unenviable choice to have to take a look at the balance sheet and identify where these cuts and layoffs can be made,” Leavitt said.

ABC’s Mary Bruce hit back at Leavitt’s claim, pointing out that the president had described the shutdown as an “unprecedented opportunity” to lay off additional federal workers, and gleefully posted a pathetic parody video to Truth Social comparing Vought to the Grim Reaper.

“So which is this,” Bruce asked. “Is this an opportunity to fire more workers, or an unfortunate consequence?”

“Look, the president likes to have a little fun every now and then, and I think both things can be true at the same time,” Leavitt replied. “The Democrats have given the administration this opportunity, and we don’t like laying people off, nobody takes joy in that around here. And if you think that, then I think that’s very sad, you view the White House and our staff as wanting to put people out of work. Nobody wants to do that, but sometimes in government you have to make tough decisions.”

Of course, the Democrats aren’t forcing Trump to lay off federal workers. In fact, during the last shutdown in 2018, under Trump’s first administration, he did not make sweeping cuts to the federal workforce.

This time around, he’s using funding to essential programs and agencies as a political lever to intimidate Democratic lawmakers, while manifesting Vought’s dreams of downsizing the government. It’s worth noting that Trump’s not the only one having fun: the Republican Party has made it clear they are fully on board with the racist memes.

MAGA influencer and conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec—who helped spread election fraud rumors in Pennsylvania in 2024—has been voting in Pennsylvania for nearly a decade while living in Maryland.

Slate has reported that Posobiec, also of “Pizzagate” fame, voted in Pennsylvania from 2004 to 2024. But when Posobiec resigned from his Navy Intelligence job and “remained” in Maryland in 2017, the same year his political influencing really started to take off, he continued to vote in Pennsylvania via absentee ballots and later in person. Posobiec used his parents’ Pennsylvania home........

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