WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump has rejected a bipartisan plan to prevent a Christmastime government shutdown, instead telling House Speaker Mike Johnson and Republicans to essentially renegotiate two days before a deadline when federal funding runs out.
The sudden, new demands have sent Congress spiraling even as lawmakers are trying to wrap up work and head home for the holidays. House Speaker Mike Johnson is left to scramble ahead of a Friday deadline for keeping the government open.
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Congressional Democrats were quick to condemn Trump’s rejection of the spending measure, saying failing to fund the federal government would cause hardship for many people but not wealthy Americans like the president-elect.
“Why do the billionaires — Musk, Ramaswamy, Trump — want to shut down the government for Christmas?” Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said in a post on the social platform X. “Because they still get paid.”
Murphy also said a shutdown would mean difficulties for “troops, TSA agents and other federal workers who won’t get paid,” adding: “It’s their kids who will suffer this Christmas.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has added his voice to Republicans opposing the spending bill, which he called “grotesque” and “an insult to Americans’ intelligence.”
In a post on the social platform X, DeSantis wrote that his former congressional colleagues were “hiding behind disaster relief funding.”
He noted that since 2022, his state has invested more than $3.5 billion in its own preparedness and disaster funds while still weathering “several catastrophic hurricanes.”
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.
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