In Miami, Trump touts his accomplishments as government shutdown breaks record

Claire Heddles, Miami Herald on Nov 5, 2025

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MIAMI — Trump took a victory lap in Miami on the one-year anniversary of his 2024 election victory Wednesday, but his speech at a business-focused conference in downtown was shadowed by another anniversary: the crossing of the threshold to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.

Trump’s meandering hour-long speech made little mention of the growing pain of the government shutdown on Americans — a stalemate in which Republicans are looking to him for guidance and Democrats insist they’re going to continue to “hold the line.”

His brief mention of the shutdown focused on slamming Democrats.

“They want to return to the failed Biden policies they created and also Obama policies,” he said. “The radical left Democrats are causing millions of Americans who depend on food stamps to go without benefits, they’re forcing federal workers to go without a paycheck.”

The comments come after his administration decided to only partially fund lapsed SNAP food assistance during the shutdown, after two federal courts forced him to tap emergency funds to pay out benefits. He claimed instead that, “In nine months, we have lifted over 600,000 Americans off food stamps.”

His speech comes as Miami-Dade has become a political pawn as the shutdown drags on. Three Senate Democrats flew down earlier in the week to highlight the more than 1 million Obamacare enrollees — more than any other county in the country — set to see premiums skyrocket if Republicans don’t agree to extend subsidies.

“Donald Trump is engaged in a naked political ploy to use hunger as a way to get to increase his political leverage,” Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren told the Miami Herald while in town Monday.

Trump focused instead on what he said were his accomplishments, celebrating Miami-Dade flipping red for the first time in decades in his election last year.

He praised Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who stepped on stage to hand him a “key” to the city. He said it would open doors to “presidential library real estate,” referring to the high-rise the president’s foundation plans to build across the street from the Kaseya Center. Trump himself did not talk about the planned library in Miami, which is in limbo after a judge temporarily blocked Miami Dade College from transferring land for the project.

Trump’s comments came on the first day of the eclectic, pro-capitalist America Business Forum in Miami’s Kaseya Center. There were very few red MAGA hats to be found, with the crowd instead filled with well-tailored suits and corporate tech aesthetics.

Techno-futuristic visuals, dancers with blue light sabers and pyrotechnics introduced speakers — ranging from Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado and soccer star Lionel Messi to billionaire Jeff Bezos, set to speak on Thursday.

The conference’s primary sponsor was the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which the watchdog group Human Rights Watch has accused of benefiting from human rights abuses. Trump pointed to the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S., Reema Bandar Al-Saud, saying, “She’s got a lot of cash,” and “She doesn’t care about the price of the turkeys,” at one point.

One attendee, who owns a small trucking business, said he attended the conference to make business connections — but that Trump was the big draw.

“The business world, that I think brings us together because everyone has a common thing to work for, everyone owns businesses,” Daniel Mendoza told the Miami Herald.

Trump spent part of his hour onstage celebrating rolling back business regulations and propping up the crypto industry.

One of Trump’s favorite topics throughout the speech was communism, where he counted on the capitalist crowd to eat up the contrast he drew between himself and Zohran Mamdani, the day after the democratic socialist’s mayoral win in New York.

“Now the Democrats are so extreme that Miami will soon be the refuge of those fleeing communism in New York City,” Trump said.

But as SNAP benefits partially lapse and health care prices are set to rise, disproportionately impacting Miami, Trump told the receptive crowd, “Our opponents are an economic nightmare, we are delivering an economic miracle.”

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