The White House on Sunday tweeted a link to a website that mocked Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries over the government shutdown.Nathan Posner / Anadolu / Getty Images
The White House has launched a spoof MySpace-style webpage that mocks Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and blames them for the government shutdown.
The page, called “MySafeSpace,” appeared on the White House website over the weekend as the shutdown entered its second month on Saturday, with President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans continuing to blame Senate Democrats for not voting in favor of a GOP-backed stopgap funding resolution to reopen the government.
The parody profile links to a “voting record” that redirects users to an article on The Hill titled “Senate Democrats block government funding bill for 13th time.”
Any bill to reopen the government needs at least 60 votes in the Senate, meaning that at least some Democrats would have to vote with the Republican majority to reopen the government. Democrats also initially proposed their own bill to temporarily fund the government, but it also never received 60 votes. That bill would have funded the government through Oct. 31, extended Affordable Care Act subsidies and reversed certain Medicaid cuts that Republicans enacted earlier this year.
Schumer and other Senate Democrats have said that they will not vote alongside Republicans on a temporary funding bill until they reach a deal to extend ACA subsidies that are set to expire at the end of this year. If they expire, health care costs could double or triple for Americans who rely on the ACA.
Representatives for Schumer and Jeffries did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the “MySafeSpace” site.
In response to a request for comment, the White House pointed to a Sunday post on X from the official White House account that said, “Welcome to mysafespace … Where Democrats go when opening the government feels too hard.”
The parody website links to several “Hakeem Shutdown Blog” entries, which redirect to White House press releases and statements. It also includes links to music, movies and TV shows it says are Democrats’ favorites, including the songs “What I’ve Done” by Linkin Park, “Shut it Down” by Drake, and “Shut it Down” by Pitbull.
It also has a section for “Hakeem’s Top 8 Friends,” which includes “Joe Biden,” alongside a picture of an autopen, “Chucky,” alongside a photo of Schumer, “Tampon Tim,” alongside a photo of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and “Maryland Man,” alongside a photo of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man who was wrongly deported to El Salvador earlier this year and is at the center of a monthslong legal saga.
Trump administration officials have long accused Biden administration officials of using an autopen to sign official documents that then-president didn’t know about while he was in office. Former Biden White House officials have repeatedly denied these claims.
The “MySafeSpace” site also features a patterned background of sombreros and an edited photo showing Jeffries wearing a sombrero. The “videos” link redirects to an edited video the White House posted on Twitter last week, where Jeffries and Schumer are edited into the White House’s Halloween celebration wearing sombreros. It also refers to Jeffries as “Sombrero Guy,” “Temu Obama” and “Dollar Store Obama.”
Trump has posted spoof photos of Jeffries wearing a sombrero multiple times throughout the shutdown. For the most part, Republican leaders have called the sombrero images and videos funny or called on Jeffries to “ignore” them.
The “About Me” section of the parody site says, “Hey we’re Democrats in the House and Senate. We love DEI, transgender for everyone, and handing out taxpayer benefits to illegal immigrants. We couldn’t care less if our men and women in uniform get paid or if our neighborhoods are safe — we just love playing politics with people’s livelihoods!!”
The website also includes a “heroes” section, with text that says, “Anyone who identifies as a radical leftist. Transnational gangs, illegal immigrants.”
Republicans have claimed that Democrats are not voting to reopen the government because they want to fund health care for undocumented immigrants. The claim is misleading — it is already illegal for undocumented immigrants to receive federally subsidized health care.
Paying troops during the shutdown has been another point of contention for Republicans and Democrats, though the White House last week said it had found the funds to pay troops for a second time during the shutdown.
The new website comes as the president has increasingly reposted what appears to be AI-generated content mocking his political foes, including a video of him dumping on No Kings protesters.
