As the government shutdown slogs into a third week and service members and federal workers are set to begin missing out on paychecks, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and other Democrats continue to point to President Donald Trump and Republicans.

In a fundraising email sent to supporters this week, Jeffries signed off with his usual slogan, “keep the faith.”

In the email, Jeffries indicated his party would not bend on its demands before reopening the government, saying that “Democrats will continue to stand up to address the Republican healthcare crisis, and we will NOT back down until it’s fixed. America deserves better.”

In the Senate, talks have continued in the background behind closed doors, but nothing has quite yet materialized into full-blown negotiations on expiring Obamacare tax credits to find an off-ramp to end the shutdown.

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If Jeffries’ rhetoric is an indication, the Democrats are nowhere near budging.

“Republicans thought we’d back down because of their deepfake videos, threats and lies,” he wrote. “Not a chance. Cancel the Cuts. Lower the Cost. Save Healthcare. Keep the faith.”

Other House Democrats have also been actively fundraising off of the shutdown.

Rep. Janelle Bynum, D-Ore., has been particularly active, sending several fundraising emails, including one in which her team told supporters, “The stakes couldn’t be higher.”

“That’s why Janelle won’t back down from her fight to put Oregonians first and ensure our government works for the people,” wrote Bynum’s team. “If you’re with her, pitch in today to help her keep up this critical fight for hardworking Americans in the House.”

In another email to supporters, Bynum complained that “Republicans just launched an attack ad blaming me for the government shutdown.”

TOP HOUSE DEM EXPOSES PARTY’S STRATEGY TO BLAME REPUBLICANS FOR LOOMING GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

Rep. Janelle Bynum sent several fundraising emails, including one in which her team told supporters, “The stakes couldn’t be higher.” (Janelle Bynum for Congress)

“They’re targeting me for their failed leadership and the chaos they’ve created in Washington. We can’t allow their shameful attacks to go unanswered,” she wrote, adding, “Will you rush a donation now to help our team push back on National Republicans and stand up for Oregonians?”

Rep. Dave Min, D-Calif., wrote in another fundraising email that “if we want to stop these shutdowns from happening in the future, we need to take back control of Congress next year.”

“That’s why I’m turning to you: If you’re in a position to give, will you chip in whatever you can to help me defend this toss-up district next year?” he implored.

“Democrats’ demands are simple,” he wrote in another email.

“Reversal of GOP Medicaid cuts, and the extension of Obamacare tax credits to make health insurance more affordable. Neither of these should be controversial!” he wrote, providing a link to donate.

DEMOCRATS ROLL OUT NEW CAMPAIGN ADS TARGETING REPUBLICANS OVER ONGOING GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

Rep. Dave Min, D-Calif., then a state senator in Sacramento, California, Monday, July 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)

Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, cut straight to the chase and askedsupporters in an email to “chip in $10, $25, or whatever makes sense for you to stand with me against this reckless shutdown and help us take back the House next fall.”

Speaking with reporters on Friday, Jeffries tripled down on his rejection of the GOP’s continuing resolution spending bill that would reopen the government, calling it a “partisan spending bill that continues to gut the healthcare of the American people and threatens to raise the costs of living on tens of millions of people.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the offices of Jeffries, Bynum, Min and Kaptur for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Fox News Digital’s Alex Miller contributed to this report.

A judge temporarily blocked California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s attempt to take over Los Angeles County’s beleaguered juvenile halls on Friday, finding that despite evidence of a “systemic failure” to improve poor conditions, Bonta had not met the legal grounds necessary to strip away local control.

After years of scandals — including frequent drug overdoses and incidents of staff violence against youths — Bonta filed a motion in July to place the county’s juvenile halls in “receivership,” meaning a court-appointed monitor would manage the facilities, set their budgets and oversee the hiring and firing of staff. An ongoing staffing crisis previously led a state oversight body to deem two of L.A. County’s halls unfit to house children.

L.A. County entered into a settlement with the California Department of Justice in 2021 to mandate improvements, but oversight bodies and a Times investigation earlier this year found the Probation Department was falling far short of fixing many issues, as required by the agreement.

On Friday, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Peter A. Hernandez chastised Bonta for failing to clearly lay out tasks for the Probation Department to abide by in the 2021 settlement. Hernandez said the attorney general’s office’s filings failed to show that a state takeover would lead to “a transformation of the juvenile halls.”

The steps the Probation Department needs to take to meet the terms of the settlement have been articulated in court filings and reports published by the L.A. County Office of the Inspector General for several years. Hernandez was only assigned to oversee the settlement in recent months and spent much of Friday’s hearing complaining about a lack of “clarity” in the case.

Hernandez wrote that Bonta’s motion had set off alarm bells about the Probation Department’s management of the halls.

“Going forward, the court expects all parties to have an ‘all-hands’ mentality,” the judge wrote in a tentative ruling earlier this week, which he adopted Friday morning.

Hernandez said he would not rule out the possibility of a receivership in the future, but wanted more direct testimony from parties, including Probation Department Chief Guillermo Viera Rosa and the court-appointed monitor over the settlement, Michael Dempsey. A hearing was set for Oct. 24.

The attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“The Department remains fully committed to making the necessary changes to bring our juvenile institutions to where they need to be,” Vicky Waters, the Probation Department’s chief spokesperson, said in a statement. “However, to achieve that goal, we must have both the authority and support to remove barriers that hinder progress rather than perpetuate no-win situations.”

The California attorney general’s office began investigating L.A. County’s juvenile halls in 2018 and found probation officers were using pepper spray excessively, failing to provide proper educational and therapeutic programming and detaining youths in solitary confinement for far too long.

Bonta said in July that the county has failed to improve “75%” of what they were mandated to change in the 2021 settlement.

A 2022 Times investigation revealed a massive staffing shortage was leading to significant injuries for both youths and probation officers. By May of 2023, the California Board of State and Community Corrections ordered Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar shuttered due to unsafe conditions. That same month, an 18-year-old died of an overdose while in custody.

The county soon reopened Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey, but the facility quickly became the site of a riot, an escape attempt and more drug overdoses. Last year, the California attorney general’s office won indictments against 30 officers who either orchestrated or allowed youths to engage in “gladiator fights.” That investigation was sparked by video of officers allowing eight youths to pummel another teen inside Los Padrinos, which has also been deemed unfit to house youths by a state commission.

In court Friday, Laura Faer, an attorney from the attorney general’s office, said that while she understood Hernandez’s position, she expressed concern that teens are still in danger while in the Probation Department’s custody.

“The youth in the halls continue to be in grave danger and continue to suffer irreparable harm every day,” she said.

Faer told the court that several youths transferred out of Los Padrinos under a separate court order in recent weeks showed up at Nidorf Juvenile Hall with broken jaws and arms.

She declined to comment further outside the courtroom. Waters, the Probation Department’s spokesperson, said she was unaware of the situation Faer was describing but would look into it.

Despite the litany of fiascoes over the last few years, probation leaders still argued in court filings that Bonta had gone too far.

“The County remains open to exploring any path that will lead to better outcomes. But it strongly opposes the DOJ’s ill-conceived proposal, which will only harm the youth in the County’s care by sowing chaos and inconsistency,” county lawyers wrote in an opposition motion submitted last month. “The DOJ’s request is almost literally without precedent. No state judge in California history has ever placed a correctional institution into receivership.”

Under the leadership of Viera Rosa, who took office in 2023, the Probation Department has made improvements to its efforts to keep drugs out of the hall, rectify staffing issues and hold its own officers accountable for misconduct, the county argued.

The department has placed “airport-grade” body scanners and drug-sniffing dogs at the entrances to both Nidorf and Los Padrinos in order to stymie the influx of narcotics into the halls, according to Robert Dugdale, an attorney representing the county.

Dugdale also touted the department’s hiring of Robert Arcos, a former high-ranking member of the Los Angeles Police Department and L.A. County district attorney’s office, to oversee security in the facilities.

The motion claimed it was the Probation Department that first uncovered the evidence that led to the gladiator fight prosecutions. Bonta said in March that his office launched its investigation after it reviewed leaked footage of one of the incidents.

“During today’s hearing, Judge Hernandez repeatedly made clear what we’ve been saying all along: Youth safety at Los Angeles County’s juvenile halls remains a serious and urgent issue,” Bonta said in a statement Friday.

The attorney general added: “We appreciate and share the Court’s desire to move swiftly to ensure that the County makes necessary changes to comply with the 2021 judgment. We remain committed to protecting the rights and safety of youth detained in the juvenile halls.”

Maine Democratic Gov. Janet Mills appeared to announce the launch of her campaign for the Senate on X on Friday, but then quickly deleted the post. 

In a since-deleted announcement video, the 77-year-old Maine governor asked, “Folks, do you want Democrats to take back the Senate? Well, I’m Gov. Janet Mills, and I’m running to flip Maine’s Senate seat blue.”

In the video, Mills took aim at incumbent Sen. Susan Collins, a moderate Republican, saying she has “sold out Maine and bowed down to special interests and to Donald Trump, but that ends now.”

The video directed supporters to donate to an ActBlue page that has also since been deleted.

On the donation page, Mills touted her bona fides, saying, “I’ve spent my career standing up for Maine families as prosecutor, Attorney General, and Governor. I’ve taken on Big Pharma, expanded health care access, and took Donald Trump to court – and won.”

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After the posts were deleted, reactions started to flood in online.

“In a now deleted tweet at 4:30pm on a Friday before a holiday weekend, Janet Mills confirms she is in fact running for Senate … Some poor digital staffer is about to get fired!” posted National Republican Senatorial Committee staffer Joanna Rodriguez.

A progressive political commentator named Jack Cocchiarella commented, “If you thought democratic politics was missing geriatric candidates with no charisma, wait until you meet 77 year old Janet Mills Chuck Schumer’s pick for Senate. She posted this launch video today then deleted it after two hours.”

Mills’ announcement has been long anticipated. She is seen as the favored candidate by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

The top Democrat in the Senate urged Mills to run and sees her as the best candidate to defeat Collins, the only Republican senator up for re-election next year in a state the Democrats carried in the presidential election. A Collins defeat would be essential for the Democrats to have any chance of winning back the Senate majority.

DEM GOVERNOR’S BURIED COCAINE INVESTIGATION DOCS HIT WITH OFFICIAL INQUIRY AS QUESTIONS SWIRL OVER SENATE RUN

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, pushed back against Majority Forward, a Democratic PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., for ads that suggest she has spent her career in Washington trading stocks to enrich herself.  (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

But before she reaches the general election, Mills first has to navigate a likely competitive and divisive primary among a crowded field of contenders that includes a much younger rising star on the left who’s backed by longtime progressive champion Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

Mills, a former elected county district attorney and former state lawmaker, made history serving as Maine’s first female attorney general.

She later won election in 2018 as Maine’s first female governor, and in 2022 comfortably defeated former Republican Gov. Paul LePage by double digits to win re-election. 

While she will be considered the frontrunner for the Democratic Senate nomination, thanks in part to her vast name recognition in blue-leaning Maine, she could face a serious challenge from 41-year-old Graham Platner, a U.S. Marine and Army veteran and oyster farmer who launched his campaign in August.

Platner, who hauled in over $3 million in fundraising during the first six weeks after declaring his candidacy, is backed by Sanders, the two-time Democratic presidential nomination runner-up, who recently stopped in Maine to headline a campaign rally.

In a warning to Mills, Sanders said on social media last week that “Graham Platner is a great working class candidate for Senate in Maine who will defeat Susan Collins.”

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Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has thrown his support behind Graham Platner, a U.S. Marine and Army veteran and oyster farmer, who launched a Democratic run for the Senate in August. (Joe Maher)

“It’s disappointing that some Democratic leaders are urging Governor Mills to run. We need to focus on winning that seat & not waste millions on an unnecessary & divisive primary,” Sanders added.

Other candidates vying for the Democratic Senate nomination include Dan Kleban, a co-founder of the Maine Beer Co., and former congressional staffer Jordan Wood, who raked in roughly $3 million during the July-September third quarter of fundraising.

Phil Rench, a former senior engineer for Elon Musk’s SpaceX, is running as an independent candidate.

Collins first won election to the Senate in 1996 and won comfortable double-digit re-elections in 2002, 2008, and 2014.

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President Donald Trump and Maine Gov. Janet Mills clashed at the White House over executive order compliance earlier this year. (Pool via AP; Win McNamee/Getty Images)

She currently chairs the influential Senate Appropriations Committee.

In her 2020 re-election, Collins faced off against Democratic State House Speaker Sara Gideon, in a hotly contested race that became the most expensive in Maine history. While polls indicated Collins trailing her Democratic challenger, she ended up winning the election by more than eight points.

Fox News Digital reached out to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for comment but did not immediately receive a response.