CNN called attention to Donald Trump staying largely out of the public eye on day one of the first government shutdown of his second term.
Anchor Erin Burnett kicked off OutFront noting that the president, who “loves to be seen,” had not made any in-person statements to the public Wednesday. Though Trump has been posting occasionally on Truth Social and did tape an interview with OANN, his withdrawal from the spotlight still stood in contrast to how he has presented himself over the last few weeks.
“We have not seen Trump today. We have not heard from Trump today. We haven‘t heard his voice,“ Burnett began. ”On the first day of a government shutdown, as the Trump administration says layoffs are imminent, there is no sign of the president of the United States. And it is no secret to anyone, anywhere in the world that Trump loves to be seen.“
Burnett then showed Trump doing various things in front of cameras—signing executive orders, speaking to reporters outside the White House, and attending a state dinner in the U.K., for instance—over the last few weeks.
“He loves to seize the moment, but today we have not seen him anywhere as of 7:00 p.m. Eastern, as a government shutdown enters its 19th hour with no end in sight, and Trump‘s team is threatening imminent layoffs,” she noted.
That may be because Trump doesn’t want the public to associate him with the shutdown, CNN Chief National Affairs Correspondent Jeff Zeleny said.
“[Trump’s absence] signals first and foremost, he does not want to be out front or the face of this shutdown, at least in its opening day,” Zeleny said. “Of course that could change and likely will change as the hours and days go forward.”
Zeleny added that Trump’s removal from the spotlight “does not mean the president and his administration officials are not doing things behind the scenes, because they are,” citing the administration moving to withhold about $26 billion in previously approved funding, the majority of which was for Democratic-leaning states.
“After talking to a variety of officials here at the the White House and around the president, they also believe that there may be a possibility to get a few Democrats on board to vote for this,” Zeleny continued, referring to the GOP’s government funding proposal.
“They believe that the pain point is significant enough. That is one reason, according to an official, that the president was not out front poking people directly.”
When reached for comment, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson did not respond directly to Trump’s absence.
“The Trump Administration wants a straightforward and clean CR to continue funding the government – the exact same proposal that Democrats supported just 6 months ago, 13 times under the Biden Administration," Jackson told the Daily Beast in a statement. “But radical Democrats shut down the government down because they want a nearly $1.5 trillion wish list of demands, including free health care for illegal aliens. The Democrat’s radical agenda was rejected by the American people less than a year ago at the ballot box, now they shut down the government and hold the American people hostage over it.”
Yet the Democratic budget proposal wouldn’t change the law to allow unauthorized immigrants to buy health insurance on federal government exchanges, as The New York Times notes.
Later in the CNN show, former Washington Post columnist Philip Bump said it’s possible Trump “understands that resolving this means not getting in a fight with Democrats beyond what he already has.”
“It may be a reflection, too, that he’s distracted by something else, which also happens with President Trump,” Bump added.
After publication of this story, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung sent the Daily Beast another statement, this one alluding to Trump’s OANN interview.
“The President sat down for an hour-long television interview to discuss the Democrat Shutdown, which will be watched by more viewers than Eric Burnett could ever hope for,” he wrote, misspelling Burnett’s first name. “The upcoming changes at CNN can’t come soon enough so Erin’s show can finally be cancelled due to her lies and dismal ratings.”
Cheung didn’t provide examples of what he considered to be “lies” by the veteran broadcaster.
