The U.S. Senate approved a stopgap funding measure to avert a government shutdown shortly after a midnight deadline for a bill that ignored President Donald Trump’s request to end the debt ceiling. The bill will then go to Joe Biden’s desk for his signature.
Hours after an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 366-34 in the House, the Senate passed the bill by an 85-11 vote. It was passed 38 minutes after the deadline, but the government did not trigger the closure procedure in that time.
The White House said in a statement Friday that the president supports “bringing this bill forward” and avoiding a government shutdown days before the Christmas holidays.
Passage of a funding bill that expands federal funding at current levels, adding $100 billion in disaster relief and $10 billion in farmer assistance, is likely to result in internal conflicts that will occur when President Trump returns to power. It brought an end to a week of turmoil that had heralded the coming of the United States. January 20th.
“We are thrilled with this result,” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said after the vote. He spoke with President Trump, and the president-elect said he was “certainly pleased with the outcome.”
Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries called the House’s passage of the government funding bill “a victory for the American people.” In the House vote, Democrats showed more support than Republicans to advance the bill.
“House Democrats succeeded in stopping extreme MAGA Republicans from shutting down the government, collapsing the economy, and harming working class Americans across the country.”
A government shutdown could force thousands of U.S. government workers to be furloughed and prevent them from traveling during the holidays. The last and longest federal government shutdown occurred in December 2018 during President Trump’s first term.
The criticism by President Trump and one of his top advisers, billionaire Elon Musk, sparked a Republican revolt against Johnson’s previous funding deal with Democrats. House Republicans on Thursday rejected Johnson’s attempt to pass a pared-down spending bill.
The original bipartisan bill, negotiated by House Republicans and Democrats, was attacked on Wednesday by Musk, the world’s richest man, who spent more than $250 million to elect Trump. Musk warned that lawmakers who support “exorbitant” spending bills “deserve to be voted out within two years.”
In response, Prime Minister Johnson introduced a second version of the bill, a stripped-down budget that incorporates President Trump’s new demand for an end to the debt ceiling. Trump had calculated that suspending the national debt ceiling while Biden was still in office would avoid an uphill battle in his first months in the White House.
Democrats have accused the new bill of being a cover for tax cuts that benefit wealthy supporters like Mr. Musk and creating trillions of dollars in additional debt for the United States. Several Republican lawmakers, enraged by the proposal to remove government borrowing limits, also pushed back.
The bill was defeated 174-235, a humiliating setback for President Trump.
This week’s political drama showed that Trump’s grip on the Republican Party is far from ironclad. The president-elect had been fiercely pushing for the bill’s passage, including threatening to support the primary opposition Republican candidate who opposed the bill.
Earlier Friday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre launched a blistering attack on Republicans over their handling of the budget crisis. “Republicans have messed up this deal, and they did, and they need to fix this,” she told reporters. “(Republicans) need to shut down the government and stop playing politics. And…they are following orders from their billionaire friends and we’re seeing it at the expense of hard-working Americans. Noda.”
Although Jean-Pierre did not name specific individuals, her comments appear to refer to Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
Democrats this week mocked the tech billionaire’s influence, citing “President Musk’s” interference. In a speech Friday, Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, denounced the interference of “the richest man in the world, who no one voted for,” and blamed Musk for “congress being thrown into chaos.” He said that.
Meanwhile, some Republicans have argued that Mr. Musk should be the next speaker of the House of Representatives, as Mr. Johnson seeks to retain the speakership next month with a slim majority and opposition support. It’s an accusation.
Johnson dismissed the setbacks and criticism, saying after Friday’s vote he joked with Musk that he wanted the job. Johnson said Musk told him, “This might be the hardest job in the world.”
According to the Associated Press, Musk repeatedly spread misinformation about the bipartisan proposal he helped kill. He argued that the plan would give lawmakers a 40% increase, when the maximum possible increase under the proposal was actually 3.8%. Musk also shared a false post claiming the proposal would give $3 billion for a potential new NFL stadium in Washington, D.C. The bill included a provision that would transfer the Washington Commanders Stadium land from the U.S. government to the District of Columbia, but specified that no associated federal funding would be provided.
After the House of Commons, Mr Musk posted on X that Mr Johnson “did a good job here considering the circumstances”.
“We went from having bills that weighed pounds to bills that weighed ounces,” he writes.
President Trump earlier Friday reiterated his calls for a suspension or even elimination of federal borrowing limits, a view anathema to conservative fiscal hawks, and that any shutdown should occur under Biden’s watch rather than the incoming administration. He claimed that.
Without debt covenants, President Trump continues his shaky politics of suspending caps on how much the government can borrow. Johnson was optimistic Friday that the party would find a way forward next year, the start of a new era of unified Republican governance.
“Things are going to change a lot around here,” he said, adding, “This is about closing the gap to get us to the moment where we can leave our mark on final spending decisions in 2025.” “This is a necessary step,” he added.
