The House shot down President-elect Donald Trump’s latest plan on Thursday to keep the government running and pause the debt ceiling just a day before a potential shutdown.
Democrats weren’t having it, pushing back against his last-minute demands and the quick fix thrown together by Republican leaders. In a rushed evening vote filled with heated exchanges over the situation, Congress couldn’t hit the two-thirds majority needed to pass the measure. Still, House Speaker Mike Johnson seemed set on giving it another shot before the clock strikes midnight on Friday.
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The result was a major blow for Trump and his billionaire friend, Elon Musk, who went off on Johnson’s bipartisan deal that both parties had worked out to avoid a government shutdown during the holiday season.
This gives us a glimpse of the chaos that’s likely to unfold when Trump makes his comeback to the White House with the GOP holding the reins in both the House and Senate. Back in his first term, Trump guided the Republicans through the longest government shutdown ever during the 2018 holiday season, and he threw a wrench in the 2020 festivities by derailing a bipartisan COVID relief bill and demanding a redo.
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Hours earlier, Trump announced “SUCCESS in Washington!” in coming up with the new package which would keep government running for three more months, add $100.4 billion in disaster assistance including for hurricane-hit states, and allow more borrowing through Jan. 30, 2027.
“Speaker Mike Johnson and the House have come to a very good Deal,” Trump posted.
However, Republicans, who had spent the last day mostly talking amongst themselves to craft the new plan, hit a brick wall when they faced off against Democrats. The Dems weren’t rushing to meet Trump’s demands—or those of his billionaire sidekick, Musk.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries made it clear that they were standing by the original deal with Johnson, calling the new proposal “laughable.”
“It’s not a serious proposal,” Jeffries said as he walked to Democrats’ own closed-door caucus meeting. Inside, Democrats were chanting, “Hell, no!”
