US in chaos and one step away from shutdown after Donald Trump rejected the bipartisan agreement reached by congressional leaders to avoid a partial government shutdown this weekend, insisting that lawmakers tear up the agreement and pass a more streamlined and less expensive.
His threatening posts undermined efforts to pass an interim spending bill to keep the government funded through mid-March while providing more than $100 billion in disaster and agricultural aid.
Trump said Congress should work out a new deal that maintains aid but leaves out other measures, and combine it with an immediate increase in the federal debt ceiling, before the debt limit expires next year. “We should pass a streamlined spending bill,” Trump said in a statement with his J.D. Vance.
“The only way to do this – he said – is with a temporary financing law without gifts to the Democrats, combined with an increase in the debt ceiling.” His statement came after many Republican congressmen, spurred by incendiary posts from incumbent government spending cutter Elon Musk, attacked the compromise deal, citing its sprawling provisions (including a raise for lawmakers) unrelated to hurricanes or to the financing of current government operations.
Trump’s sharing of the revolt has put Speaker Mike Johnson, who had approved the bipartisan agreement and who aspires to be reconfirmed in the position, in great difficulty. The double whammy of Musk’s social media bombardment and Trump’s call to scuttle the deal have left lawmakers in disarray, with leaders and rank-and-file members unsure of their next steps two days before the shutdown.
The White House attacks the Republicans’ backtracking after the bipartisan agreement to avoid the shutdown. “Republicans – reads a note from spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre – must stop playing politics with this bipartisan agreement or they will harm working Americans and create instability throughout the country. President-elect Trump and his deputy Vance have ordered the Republicans to shut down government operations and they are threatening to do just that, while undermining communities recovering from disasters, farmers and ranchers and community health centers.”
“Triggering a harmful government shutdown would harm families who gather to see loved ones and jeopardize the basic services that Americans, from veterans to Social Security recipients, rely on. A deal is a deal Republicans should keep their word.”
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