President Trump has embraced the government shutdown as an “unprecedented opportunity” to punish his political opponents while slashing the federal workforce and cutting off funding to whole government agencies. On Thursday, Trump said budget chief Russell Vought will have the power to decide if cuts should be “temporary or permanent.” And he said he would continue to target projects and agencies favored by Democrats.

President Donald Trump: “Well, there could be firings, and that’s their fault. And it could also be other things. I mean, we could cut projects that they wanted, favorite projects, and they’d be permanently cut.”

Democrats are demanding the reversal of cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act that will result in some 15 million people losing their health insurance coverage over the next decade. This is House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries: “This is day two of Donald Trump’s shutdown, but it is day 256 of the chaos that the Trump presidency has unleashed on the American people. Republicans have shut the government down because they don’t want to provide healthcare to working-class Americans.”

Meanwhile, the Labor Department will delay publication of its monthly jobs report that was scheduled for release today. It was expected to show a slowdown in hiring in September. Economist Erica Groshen, who formerly led the Bureau of Labor Statistics, told The Washington Post, “It’s a bad time to be missing data. We are flying blind right as the economy could be turning.”