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Happy Thursday. It’s Yom Kippur and the Senate doesn’t have any votes scheduled today.

The president is meeting with his budget chief on Day 2 of the government shutdown. (More on that below.)

In today's issue:

• Meme wars take up shutdown oxygen

• Johnson tells Jeffries: ‘Just ignore it’

• Feds brace for mass layoffs

• GOP locks in on moderate Democrats

• Kimmel, Colbert show united front

• Taylor Swift’s new album debuts at midnight

🐱 THE MEME WARS

Is this what it takes to win the messaging battle in 2025?:

Washington leaders have a new and unexpected weapon in their political arsenal for the 2025 government shutdown: trolling with memes.

President Trump’s signature casual social media style has been a staple of his political era, but only recently have other political figures taken a page from his playbook.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) was among the first to do so, igniting a splashy meme war with the president earlier this summer, filled with AI-generated videos like a 📹 toddler-sized version of Trump wearing a diaper. They’re often cringy and campy — intentional versions of a “Photoshop fail” — but that’s the point.

This meme war has only intensified with the government shutdown. The White House posted an AI-altered video this week 📹 featuring Democratic leaders in sombreros, which infuriated Democrats. The White House has been leaning into inflammatory social media posts for months, but even the harshest critics appear to be taken aback by this one.

Democratic leaders responded by decrying the AI videos from Trump in social media posts, television appearances and even remarks on the steps of the Capitol.

Vice President Vance was asked to respond to the sombrero video on Wednesday and he used that........

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