Like old times: Trump sends Congress scrambling to avoid a shutdown NPR
President-elect Donald Trump hasn't been sworn in yet but he's already running Washington again in his familiar style of upheaval and intraparty drama, starting with the decision to kill a bipartisan spending bill without a strategy to avoid a government shutdown.
Trump and his newest top lieutenant, Elon Musk, upended the bipartisan agreement on Wednesday designed to keep the government running into next year largely by mounting an opposition campaign on X, Musk's social media platform.
Musk's posts provoked a number of rank-and-file Republicans to announce their opposition to the deal even before Trump made it clear he also opposed it–a maneuver that spoke to how much power Musk — the
richest man in the world — now yields in the GOP broadly and with Trump specifically. Musk's X bio now reads: "The people voted for major government reform."
The clash also provoked a sense of deja vu from Trump's first term, where the president would frequently change the policy parameters around legislation in real time and often by surprise announcement on social media. Republicans are, once again, scrambling to figure out what exactly Trump wants the party to try to pass–and if its even possible.
The meltdown also exposed how politically vulnerable Speaker Mike Johnson remains as he approaches a consequential Jan. 3 House floor vote to become the chamber's leader again....
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., went so far as to suggest Thursday on X that House Republicans should elect Musk as speaker next year — a politically possible but largely preposterous notion even if the Constitution technically allows for a speaker to not be a member of Congress.
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In a joint statement with Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, Trump said he wanted a deal to now include an increase to the debt ceiling, the nation's borrowing limit, so it would happen "on Biden's watch."
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The government will begin shutdown operations at midnight Friday, but it would take weeks for the full effect of a shutdown to be felt by everyday Americans. One thing is certain: shutdowns are a bad deal for taxpayers. They don't save any money and the shutdowns of recent years have cost billions in lost productivity.