On Thursday, he joined House conservatives in pressuring Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to attach the SAVE Act, a proof-of-citizenship voting bill, to a must-pass measure that would extend government funding beyond the Oct. 1 deadline. But he also floated a new demand of attaching H.R. 2, the House GOP’s flagship border bill.

Johnson has expressed openness to pairing the SAVE Act with government funding but has not committed to doing so and would surely face opposition in the Democratic-controlled Senate, where leadership is likely to prefer a clean funding extension.

“I would shut down the government in a heartbeat if they don’t get it,” Trump said on the Monica Crowley Podcast. “If they don’t get these bills, they should close it down and Republicans should not approve it.”

Republicans universally supported the SAVE Act when it passed the House in July, but GOP leaders, particularly in the Senate, fear legislative gridlock could harm Republican candidates up and down the ballot in November. Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has reportedly warned that Democrats could try to attach their favored voting rights legislation to the funding bill in return.

Trump previously expressed support for a shutdown fight over the noncitizen voting bill, posting on Truth Social in July that Republicans should “let the Democrats try to explain why they are against this.” But his Thursday comments represent an escalation in rhetoric.

He called the SAVE Act “just one element” of what Republicans should demand. He named H.R. 2 but also paper ballots as among the priorities that should be attached to the spending legislation.

“You need more than the SAVE Act … borders should be in the bill, real borders, like we had, like the congressional bill of a year ago, that was the real deal,” Trump said.

“They ought to focus on borders and elections, and if you can’t get the borders right, and if you can’t get the elections right, they ought to close it up,” he told Crowley. “Just close it up and let it sit.”

H.R. 2, a sweeping bill that passed the House last year before a modified version failed on the floor in April, would, among other things, limit immigrants’ access to asylum and require the Department of Homeland Security to restart border wall construction.

His comments have emboldened hard-line Republicans, who cited his July support for the SAVE Act in urging Johnson to pair the two priorities. It also represents the latest rift between him and congressional leadership.

He lamented the modest concessions Republicans got in their fight over the debt ceiling before Johnson became speaker and the “horrible” border compromise McConnell attempted to broker with Senate Democrats earlier this year. Spokesmen for Johnson and McConnell did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

“It’s unbelievable to me how they don’t use leverage,” he said. “They have such leverage and they don’t use it. So, I’m not there, but, you know, I have influence.”

“They ought to go for getting things,” he said at another point in the interview. “They don’t get anything. They extend everything, and then it comes to, let’s say I win the election, you know when it comes due, it comes due for me, and the Democrats don’t extend. They don’t extend. They play a different game, they play a much different game. So, that’s what they ought to do. We’ll see what they do.”

Trump’s willingness to use shutdowns as leverage has backfired in the past. As president, he walked away from a monthlong shuttering of federal agencies in 2019, the longest in U.S. history, without the border wall funding he demanded of Congress.

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This term, Kevin McCarthy precipitated his ouster as speaker by pressing for and ultimately abandoning his insistence that border measures be paired with a short-term government funding bill.

The White House has promised to veto both H.R. 2 and the SAVE Act.