3 days Ago By By LISA MASCARO and KEVIN FREKING Associated Press
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump abruptly rejected a bipartisan plan Wednesday to prevent a Christmastime government shutdown, instead telling House Speaker Mike Johnson and Republicans to essentially renegotiate — days before a deadline when federal funding runs out. Trump’s sudden entrance into the debate and new demands sent Congress spiraling as lawmakers are trying to wrap up work and head home for the holidays. It leaves Johnson scrambling to engineer a new plan before Friday’s deadline to keep government open.
“Republicans must GET SMART and TOUGH,” Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance said in a statement. The president-elect made an almost unrealistic proposal that combined the some continuation of government funds along with a much more controversial provision to raise the nation’s debt limit — something his own party routinely rejects. “Anything else is a betrayal of our country,” they wrote.
Democrats decried the GOP revolt over the stopgap measure, which would have also provided some $100 billion in disaster aid to states hammered by Hurricanes Helene and Milton and other natural disasters. “House Republicans have been ordered to shut down the government,” said House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. “And hurt the working class Americans they claim to support.
You break the bipartisan agreement, you own the consequences that follow.” Already, the massive 1,500-page bill was on the verge of collapse, as hard right conservatives rejected the increased spending, egged on by Trump’s billionaire ally Elon Musk who rejected the plan almost as soon as it was released late Tuesday night. Rank-and-file lawmakers complained about the extra spending — which includes their first pay-raises in more than a decade — a shock after one of the most unproductive chaotic session in modern times.
A number of Republicans were waiting for Trump to signal whether they should vote yes or no. Even the addition of much-needed disaster aid, some $100.4 billion in the aftermath of hurricanes and other natural calamities that ravaged states this year, plus $10 billion in economic assistance for farmers failed to win over the budget-slashing GOP.
“This should not pass,” Musk posted on his social media site X in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. The outcome comes as no surprise for Johnson, who like other Republican House speakers before him, has been unable to convince his majority to go along with the routine needs of federal government operations, which they would prefer to slash. It all shows just how hard it will be for Republicans next year, as they seize control of the House, Senate and White House, to unify and lead the nation.
And it underscores how much Johnson and the GOP leaders must depend on Trump’s blessing to see any legislative package over the finish line..
