Trump Directs Hegseth to Pay Troops During Shutdown Standoff

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) - In a dramatic and unorthodox move that seeks to bypass a deadlocked Congress, President Donald Trump announced on Saturday that he has directed the Pentagon to use "all available funds" to ensure that military service members receive their paychecks on October 15, despite the ongoing government shutdown.

The president's directive, which he framed as a necessary action to prevent Democrats from holding the military "HOSTAGE," represents a significant escalation in the high-stakes political battle that has left the federal government shuttered for 11 days.

By finding a way to pay the troops while most other government workers go without, President Trump is attempting to insulate a key constituency from the shutdown's financial pain, a move that is likely to both intensify the partisan blame game and raise complex questions about the limits of executive budgetary authority.

"Chuck Schumer recently said, ‘Every day gets better’ during their Radical Left Shutdown," President Trump wrote in a fiery post on his Truth Social platform, as reported by Fox News. "I DISAGREE! If nothing is done, because of ‘Leader’ Chuck Schumer and the Democrats, our Brave Troops will miss the paychecks they are rightfully due on October 15th."

He then announced his direct intervention: "I directed Secretary [of War Pete] Hegseth to use all available funds to get our Troops PAID on October 15th. We have identified funds to do this, and Secretary Hegseth will use them to PAY OUR TROOPS."

He concluded with a clear and potent political message: "I will not allow the Democrats to hold our Military, and the entire Security of our Nation, HOSTAGE, with their dangerous Government Shutdown."

The source of these "identified funds" has been a subject of immediate inquiry. According to both The New York Times and The Washington Post, the White House budget office has stated that the money will be sourced from research and development funds that were previously approved for the Department of War for a two-year period.

However, officials offered no further details about the specific accounts being tapped or the total amount of money the administration has at its disposal. This budgetary maneuver, as described by The New York Times, appears "unorthodox," and it remains unclear how long the administration can rely on such accounting moves to continue paying the troops if the shutdown stretches on.

Typically, in a government shutdown, military personnel do not receive their wages, a politically hazardous situation that often serves as a powerful catalyst for Democrats and Republicans to broker a spending deal.

In the past, lawmakers have had to pass special, standalone legislation to ensure that the military gets paid during a federal stoppage. President Trump's decision to act unilaterally circumvents this process entirely, a move that aligns with a broader pattern of his administration pushing the limits of executive power during the current shutdown.

As noted by The New York Times, the president and his aides have been strategically lessening the pain of the closure for some while maximizing it for others, particularly Democrats, whom he is trying to pressure into supporting a short-term spending deal to reopen the government.

The government shut down on October 1 after Congress failed to pass a spending bill, a failure rooted in a deep partisan divide over healthcare policy.

As reported by Fox News, Democrats have been deeply concerned that expiring Affordable Care Act tax cuts could lead to a spike in insurance premiums and that proposed cuts to Medicaid could leave vulnerable people without coverage.

They have insisted that any deal to reopen the government must address these issues. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, in remarks recently shared with Fox News Digital, has framed the fight in these terms: "Each day our case to fix healthcare and end this shutdown gets better and better, stronger and stronger because families are opening their letters showing how high their premiums will climb if Republicans get their way."

President Trump and the Republican leadership, however, have insisted that Democrats must first agree to a "clean" stopgap bill to fund the government before any negotiations on other issues can begin.

"I am happy to work with the Democrats on their failed healthcare policies, or anything else, but first they must allow our government to re-open," the president wrote on Truth Social, a statement reported by Fox News. This fundamental disagreement has created an impasse, with both sides digging in their heels.

The political rhetoric has become increasingly sharp. Republicans have blamed Senator Schumer for the shutdown, suggesting it is a strategy to appease the progressive wing of his party.

"Chuck Schumer just said the quiet part out loud: Democrats are gleefully inflicting pain on the American people over their push to give illegal aliens free healthcare," White House deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital.

This accusation followed a comment Schumer made to Punchbowl News, where he reportedly said, "Every day gets better for us," regarding the Democrats’ shutdown strategy.

It is in this highly charged and polarized environment that the issue of military pay has become a political football. Earlier in the week, as reported by The New York Times, President Trump had expressed his support for separate legislation to pay the troops, siding with House Republicans who have military bases in their districts.

However, the Republican leadership in the Senate pushed back, insisting that the only necessary measure was for Democrats to pass the existing stopgap bill.

"You’ve got a military pay bill right here," Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on Friday, brandishing a copy of the House-passed bill, as reported by both The New York Times and The Washington Post. "This pays the military."

With the Senate not set to return to Washington until Tuesday and House Speaker Mike Johnson keeping his chamber in recess, it became clear that without some form of executive action, the more than one million active-duty service members would almost certainly miss their October 15 paycheck. President Trump's directive on Saturday is a direct response to this reality.

However, the president's order appears to have a significant and potentially contentious omission. As detailed by The Washington Post, the directive does not seem to apply to the members of the U.S. Coast Guard, a military service that falls under the Department of Homeland Security, not the Department of War.

This sets the stage for a repeat of the controversial situation that occurred during the 35-day shutdown in the first Trump administration, when Coast Guard members were forced to work without pay while Defense Department personnel received theirs.

The White House did not respond on Saturday to questions about whether a separate effort would be made to ensure that Coast Guard personnel are also paid. As the shutdown enters its third week with no end in sight, President Trump's decision to pay the military has been both praised as a necessary act of support for the troops and criticized as a divisive political maneuver, a move that solves one immediate problem while potentially deepening the partisan chasm that created it in the first place.