President Trump teased top Democratic leaders with “Trump 2028” hats during their high-stakes Oval Office meeting ahead of the current government shutdown.
The commander in chief posted a handful of humiliating photos on Truth Social late Tuesday showing Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) sitting behind the strategically placed merchandise.
In one photo, a gleeful Trump could be seen smirking as he pointed at Jeffries from behind the Resolute Desk where the hats were on full display.
Jeffries later told CNN the 2028 hats just “randomly appeared in the middle” of the meeting.
“He did not try to hand Leader Schumer and I the Trump 2028 hat. They just randomly appeared in the middle of the meeting on the desk. It was the strangest thing ever,” he said.
“I just looked at the hat, looked at JD Vance, who was seated to my left, and said, ‘Don’t you got a problem with this?’ and he said, ‘No comment.’”
“And that was the end of it,” Jeffries added.
The president had also mocked Jeffries with a digitally-altered video of the House Minority Leader wearing a sombrero as a mariachi band of Trumps serenaded the Brooklyn Democrat.
Trump posted the spate of goading posts just hours before the federal government partially shut down at midnight Wednesday after all but three Senate Democrats voted down a short-term funding bill.
The shutdown is the first since December 2018, which saw non-essential government operations cease and tens of thousands of federal employees furloughed or forced to work without pay for 35 days until lawmakers agreed on a stopgap funding measure.
