WASHINGTON (AP) – With hours left before a midnight government shutdown, the House of Representatives late Friday will temporarily fund federal operations and disaster relief, but President-elect Donald Trump’s debt demands The House of Representatives was voting on House Speaker Mike Johnson’s new plan to repeal the . Restrictions will increase for the new year.
Johnson insisted that Congress would “do its duty” and not allow federal government operations to shut down ahead of the Christmas holiday season. However, the results were uncertain. President Trump has insisted that any deal would include raising the debt ceiling. If not, the shutdown “starts now,” he said in an early morning post.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said before the vote: “We will not shut down the government.”
This is the third time that embattled House Speaker Johnson has attempted to accomplish one of the federal government’s basic requirements: keeping it open. And this raises the question of whether the House speaker can continue to hold on to his job in the face of angry Republican colleagues and work with Trump and billionaire ally Elon Musk, who has called for legislative drama this time. It raises tough questions.
Prime Minister Johnson had little choice but to ignore President Trump’s last-minute push to raise the debt ceiling. The Speaker knows he won’t have enough support within the Republican majority to pass any funding package, as many Republicans favor cutting the federal government and won’t allow further debt growth.
Instead, Republicans will take full control of the White House, House and Senate next year, with big plans for tax cuts and other priorities, but Democrats won’t have the votes needed to maintain day-to-day operations. This indicates that there is a need to rely on of governance.
“So is this a Republican bill or a Democratic bill?” mocked Musk on social media before the vote.
The new 118-page package under consideration would fund the government at current levels through March, adding $100 billion in disaster relief and $10 billion in agricultural aid to farmers.
President Trump’s debt ceiling demand, which Republican leaders have said will be discussed as part of tax and border policy in the new year, will go away.
This is essentially the same deal that most Democrats and some of the most conservative Republicans opposed and ended in a fiasco the night before, minus President Trump’s demand for a two-year debt ceiling increase. It’s the same.
Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries had been in contact with Johnson, but Democrats were reluctant to accept this latest effort ahead of the evening vote after the Republican chairman reneged on an initial bipartisan compromise. He was calm.
“Welcome to the MAGA swamp,” Jeffries posted.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said Musk, the world’s richest unelected official, appeared to be calling the shots for Trump and the Republican Party. .
“Who is in charge?” she asked during the debate.
Mr. Trump, who has not yet taken office as president, is intervening and coordinating the situation at Mar-a-Lago with Mr. Musk, the new head of the incoming administration, which shows both the strength and limits of his influence on Congress. are. Government efficiency.
“If there’s going to be a government shutdown, let’s start it now,” President Trump posted on social media early in the morning.
Trump is not afraid of a government shutdown, as much as Johnson and other members of Congress see it as a political loser that harms the lives of Americans. The incoming Trump administration has vowed to cut the federal budget and lay off thousands of employees. Trump himself caused the longest government shutdown in history during his first term in the White House, lasting a month over the 2018-2019 Christmas holidays and New Year’s.
More important to the president-elect is his demand that the thorny debt ceiling debate be taken off the table before he returns to the White House. The federal debt ceiling is set to expire on January 1, but President Trump does not want to spend the first months of his new administration busy with tough negotiations in Congress to increase the nation’s borrowing capacity. This will give influence to the Democratic Party, which will be in the minority next year.
“Congress needs to either repeal the ridiculous debt ceiling, or maybe extend it until 2029,” President Trump wrote in a post, stepping up his calls for a five-year increase in the debt ceiling. “If you don’t have this, you should never close a deal.”
Prime Minister Johnson initially tried to evade Trump’s demands and then tried to appease him, but all efforts failed.
Trump and Musk unleashed an army of opponents and social media on Johnson’s original plan. The plan, a 1,500-page bipartisan compromise that Mr. Johnson struck with Democrats, included disaster aid for hard-hit states but did not address the debt ceiling situation.
The second plan backed by President Trump, a 116-page slimmed-down bill introduced Thursday, includes a two-year debt ceiling increase through 2027 that he wants, but which most Democrats reject. They rejected it as a serious initiative and ended in a major defeat. The national deficit will pile up.
On Friday morning, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance and Russ Vought, President Trump’s nominee to be the next Director of the Office of Management and Budget, arrived early at the Speaker’s Office on Capitol Hill. The Remain faction of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus was gathering there. Meeting with Johnson.
However, several conservatives, unusually, left the meeting without commenting on their future course.
Later, during a lunchtime meeting of House Republicans in the basement of the Capitol, Mr. Johnson asked for a show of hands to decide the way forward, Republican Rep. Ralph Norman said.
Government officials have already been told to prepare for a federal government shutdown and millions of employees and military personnel going into the holiday season without pay.
President Joe Biden has played little public role in debates as he enters his final weeks in office, drawing criticism from President Trump and Republicans who have sought to shift blame for the government shutdown onto Biden. .
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday that Biden is consulting with Schumer and Jeffries.
But she said: “Republicans ruined this deal. They did and we need to fix this.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called the original agreement “the quickest, simplest and easiest way to ensure the government continues to function while providing critical emergency aid to the American people.”
The speaker’s election is the first vote in the new Congress, which convenes on January 3, and Mr. Johnson will need the support of nearly every House Republican majority to ensure he retains the gavel. Democrats will likely vote for Jeffries.
When the speaker twisted himself in Washington, his danger became clear. Late Thursday, Trump ally Steve Bannon provoked thousands of activists at Turning Point USA’s America Fest conservative rally with an impatient remark about the Louisiana Republican.
“Obviously, Johnson is not up to the task. He has to go,” Bannon said, drawing cheers. He smiled at the reaction, tilted his head, and added: “President Trump? These are your people.”
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