California Governor Gavin Newsom is torching President Donald Trump for spending back-to-back weekends at his Virginia golf club while hundreds of thousands of federal workers brace for short paychecks, furloughs, and pink slips. The shutdown began October 1 and is rolling into a second week with museums closed, services curtailed, and lawmakers still squabbling over health care subsidies and spending powers, yet the president found time to get in his rounds, cameras rolling as his motorcade pulled into Trump National, Sterling.
Newsom’s press office posted the golf photo and let fly, writing that Trump “shut down YOUR government,” “increased the cost of YOUR health care,” and “raised YOUR taxes,” before delivering the kicker, “Now he’s golfing.” The California governor’s shot landed as national outlets noted the president, 79, hit the links on both shutdown weekends, a split-screen the White House cannot love.
While Trump fine-tunes his short game, his budget enforcer Russ Vought is turning the screws in Washington. Agencies have begun “substantial” layoffs timed to the funding lapse, with court filings citing roughly 4,200 terminations on a single Friday. At Education, hundreds of staff were cut, including civil-rights and special-education oversight teams. At CDC, a chaotic round of notices targeted core public-health units before the administration partially reversed course amid backlash, lawsuits, and claims of “incorrect notifications.” Even after the walk-backs, hundreds remain out, and morale is cratered.
He shut down YOUR government.
He increased the cost of YOUR health care.
He raised YOUR taxes, while cutting taxes for billionaires.
Now he’s golfing. https://t.co/agyGPnMlIL
— Governor Newsom Press Office (@GovPressOffice) October 12, 2025
Vought’s broader effort to consolidate executive power has Democrats warning of illegal “pocket rescissions,” a maneuver that blocks congressionally approved spending by letting it lapse, a budgetary end run that watchdogs say flouts federal law. In practice, that means projects stall, grants dry up, and the pain spreads while the standoff drags on.
Federal employees are receiving reduced paychecks, the last many will see until the government reopens, and lines are already forming at HR offices that are themselves understaffed and overwhelmed by buyouts and retirements. The nation’s marquee cultural institutions, including the Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo, have shut their doors, and basic services are slower or suspended. This is the kind of cascading disruption that compounds by the day.
Politically, the shutdown mess is splashing everyone, but it is not splashing them equally. A Reuters/Ipsos survey finds majorities blaming both parties and Trump, with Republicans taking slightly more of the heat, while CBS polling shows all sides underwater on their handling. A Morning Consult cut suggests Democrats are picking up more blame than before, yet other trackers, including Economist/YouGov, still show more voters faulting Trump and the GOP. Translation: voters hate the shutdown, they do not buy that it is worth it, and they are not rewarding anyone for the drama.
Newsom is seizing the moment, casting Trump’s weekend golfing as a symbol of warped priorities while workers go without. The White House counters that the president has safeguarded military pay and is forcing a long-overdue reckoning with bloated federal payrolls, yet that spin is competing against scenes of locked museums, shrinking agencies, and workers in limbo. If this stalemate stretches on, it could become the longest shutdown in U.S. history, a record nobody wants, and the image that may stick is a president lining up a putt while the government he leads stays closed.
