Punchbowl News reported that Trump offered Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) the hats, but they declined. Jeffries asked Vice President JD Vance how he felt about the hats, and he said, “No comment.” The room then erupted in laughter.

Jeffries, when asked about the hats on Tuesday evening after Trump posted the photo, denied that the hats had been offered to the Democratic leaders but instead “randomly appeared in the middle of the meeting on the desk. It was the strangest thing ever.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) also attended the meeting.

The meeting, which proved unsuccessful in fending off a shutdown, was held on Monday. It’s unclear why Trump chose to post the photo, as both sides stalemated on funding the government and the White House acknowledged the pending shutdown.

White House communications director Steven Cheung coined the shutdown as the “Democrat shutdown.”

“The party that votes against a clean CR ALWAYS gets blamed for the government shutdown. In this case, it’s Senate Democrats who voted against the clean CR that passed the House of Representatives. This is their shutdown. The Democrat Shutdown,” he posted on X.

The funding bill passed in the House but could not get the requisite 60-vote support to pass the Senate.

The president has toyed with running for a third term in the past but said in August that he would “probably not” do so. “I’d like to run,” he said. “I have the best poll numbers I’ve ever had.”

FEDERAL AGENCIES RELEASE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN CLOSURE PLANS: WHAT TO KNOW

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) suggested he wanted Trump to run for a third term in an interview with Fox News last week. “Trump 2028. I hope this never ends,” he said.

Trump’s latest reference to another term in office could be an attempt to provoke the Democrats who were in his office. The president posted another AI-altered video on Tuesday evening of Jeffries with a sombrero and fake mustache after posting a similarly altered video a day prior.