Washington (AFP) - President Donald Trump has appointed himself troller-in-chief during a US government shutdown, mocking rival Democrats with racially tinged memes and hoping they take the blame for the crisis.

From ambushing top Democrats with “Trump 2028” hats in the Oval Office to an AI-generated video of House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries in a sombrero, the social media onslaught has been extreme even by the Republican’s standards.

But there is a serious strategy behind the socials – don’t negotiate, threaten mass layoffs and hope the Democrats cave.

Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday defended Trump’s memes and denied claims by Jeffries, who is Black, that the sombrero image was racist.

“I honestly don’t even know what that means. Like is he a Mexican American that is offended by having a sombrero meme?” Vance told reporters at the White House.

“The American people recognize that he did not actually come to the White House wearing a sombrero and a black curly animation mustache. Like, give the country a little bit of credit.”

Yet as the clock ticked down to the deadline for a first shutdown in nearly seven years, Trump seemed more interested in trolling than dealmaking.

Hours before the deadline on Tuesday, Trump posted three pictures on his Truth Social network of his meeting a day earlier with Jeffries and Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

In the foreground? Red “Trump 2028” hats placed on the iconic Resolute Desk, referring to a constitutionally banned third Trump presidential term. In one picture a grinning Trump is pointing at Jeffries.

Jeffries said the baseball caps “just randomly appeared in the middle of the meeting on the desk. It was the strangest thing ever.”

It was an extraordinary stunt from a president – even one who recently replaced a photo of his predecessor Joe Biden with a so-called “autopen.”

- ‘Sombrero memes will stop’ -

Vance, however, denied that the move was unhelpful for negotiations.

“You can negotiate in good faith while also poking a little bit of fun,” he said.

“I’ll tell Hakeem Jeffries right now, I make the solemn promise to you that if you help us reopen the government, the sombrero memes will stop.”

The video Trump posted featured fake, AI-generated footage of Schumer using vulgar language and announcing plans to entice illegal immigrants with benefits, while showing Jeffries wearing a sombrero and bushy mustache as mariachi music plays.

The White House meanwhile joined in the trolling. Footage of Democrats opposing previous shutdowns played on a loop on screens in the famed briefing room.

In a deeply polarized US political scene where winning the social-media war is at least half the battle, Republicans are hoping Trump’s memes will be an effective weapon.

It may work, with Democrats still struggling on strategy and messaging after Trump’s crushing 2024 election win.

“If you can’t laugh at this then you epitomize the problem with the Democratic Party these days,” Michael LaRosa, a former spokesman for Jill Biden, said on X about the hat stunt. “Let’s all lighten up a bit.”

Some Democrats have embraced a similar strategy.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, whose press office has deliberately copied Trump’s abrasive, all-capitals style, said as the shutdown kicked in: “TRUMP ALWAYS CHICKENS OUT (T.A.C.O.). NO SOMBRERO NEEDED!”

But Trump’s trolling of the Democrats also extends to serious, targeted threats.

Threatening mass firings during the shutdown, Trump said on Tuesday that “We can get rid of a lot of things that we didn’t want. They’d be Democrat things.”

A Siena/New York Times poll seemed to show US voters held both sides pretty much equally responsible for the shutdown, for now.

Of 1,075 people surveyed from September 22 to 27, 19 percent blamed Democrats in Congress, 26 percent blamed Trump and Republicans in Congress, 33 percent blamed both equally, while 21 said they had not heard enough to say.