Overview

• At a White House briefing, Vice President JD Vance said “the sombrero memes will stop” if Hakeem Jeffries helps pass funding to reopen the government.
• Staff played the Jeffries video on loop in the Brady briefing room, and deputy communications director Kaelan Dorr posted that “the sombreros will continue until the government reopens.”
• Jeffries and other Democrats condemned the AI videos as racist or bigoted, while Vance described them as a joke and questioned the racism charge.
• The shutdown entered a second day after stopgap talks failed, with any resolution requiring bipartisan votes in the Senate.
• Republicans link the dispute to health-care provisions they say aid undocumented immigrants, a claim Democrats dispute, as Speaker Mike Johnson urged Jeffries to ignore the memes as a “sideshow.”