GOP scraps government funding bill after Trump demands changes

Some Trump allies in the House are now openly calling for a government shutdown after Speaker Mike Johnson’s effort to pass the bipartisan spending deal collapsed due to President-elect Donald Trump’s opposition.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia wrote, “I’m all in,” on X, in response to a post from former Speaker Newt Gingrich saying that Trump and Republicans should not be afraid of a shutdown. “The government can shut down all the way until Jan 20th as far as I’m concerned,” Greene wrote. January 20 is the day that President-elect Donald Trump will be inaugurated.

Greene added a warning shot to Speaker Johnson, writing, “WE MUST STAND FIRM WITH THE AMERICAN PEOPLE TO STOP THE MADNESS!! No matter what. Even if we have to elect new leadership.”

Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee posted to X, “Shut it down.”

Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina posted an image to X with text that reads “Shut. It. Down.” In the same post, she wrote, “At this point if there is no plan, let the September CR lapse and let’s reset Jan. 20th.”

House Democrats made clear as they emerged from their closed-door caucus meeting on Thursday that they’re not willing to bend to Republican demands driven by President-elect Donald Trump and his allies after they effectively killed a year-end spending bill to keep the government funded.

Here’s what some of them told CNN:

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Minority Whip Katherine Clark hold a news conference in the House Visitors Center at the U.S. Capitol on December 19 in Washington, DC.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said is “premature” to negotiate over the debt ceiling at this point, and added that House Democrats will not vote to protect Speaker Mike Johnson if he is in danger of losing the gavel.

“The debt limit issue and discussion is premature at best,” Jeffries told CNN on Thursday.

Jeffries continued to push for House Republicans to accept the stopgap spending package that was taking shape this week before President-elect Donald Trump came out against it. In criticizing the bill, Trump injected the politically fraught debt limit issue, saying he wanted an increase approved before Inauguration Day.

Pressed directly on whether he would rule out any other option, Jeffries dodged: “We are prepared to move forward with the bipartisan agreement that we thought was negotiated in good faith with House Republicans, along with Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans, that meets the needs of the American people at this moment in time.”

When asked about Trump ally Elon Musk’s influence in the Republican Party, and who is now in charge, Jeffries replied, “That’s a great question. I don’t have the answers right now.”

He would not answer directly whether he has spoken to Johnson, but said he is going to “continue to maintain an open line of communication.” He answered “no,” when asked about protecting Johnson if he faces an ouster led by his own party.

Incoming Republican Sen. John Curtis was visibly frustrated Thursday when he told CNN there are “no good options” left on the table for the GOP, as the deadline for funding the federal government approaches.

With no clear plan and members of his own party now calling for a shutdown, Curtis said he is “super frustrated” with the situation.

Asked about the best path forward, Curtis was blunt:

Asked about the implications of a shutdown, he said: “I’m not a fan of shutdowns.”

Remember: A bipartisan deal to extend government funding was taking shape earlier this week before President-elect Donald Trump and close allies came out against the bill, forcing lawmakers back to the drawing board before the deadline at the end of Friday.

Incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune says he is waiting to see what the talks between Vice President-elect JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson yield, as lawmakers scramble to avert a federal government shutdown.

Thune said he has not spoken to Johnson yet this morning.

Asked if Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democrats will jam the House by moving quickly today to try to pass their own spending bill, Thune said it remains to be seen.

“I think my assumption is, at least right now, most people are waiting to see if the House can come together behind a plan,” the incoming majority leader said.

On the debt limit: Thune added that he is open to ideas for dealing with the debt ceiling, as it is something that has to be addressed eventually, but would not say whether he would support doing away with it altogether.

While he said the debt limit has “limited meaning” in the “modern world,” pointing to the country’s more than $35 trillion of debt, he acknowledged it’s something financial markets pay attention to and an indicator that still needs to be taken seriously.

Remember: Johnson was forced to scrap a bipartisan government funding plan Wednesday after President-elect Donald Trump and close allies, including tech billionaire Elon Musk, came out against it. In his criticism of the would-be deal, Trump also injected the politically fraught issue of the US debt limit, saying he wanted an increase approved before Inauguration Day.

House Speaker Mike Johnson talks at a news conference at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on December 17.

House Speaker Mike Johnson is holding a key meeting with GOP lawmakers critical to advancing any funding deal as he seeks a way out of the looming shutdown.

The meeting includes Republican members from both the House Appropriations Committee and the House Freedom Caucus. Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris walked in around 11 a.m. ET, along with fellow conservative Rep. Chip Roy. Separately, Appropriations Chair Tom Cole entered the speaker’s suite.

Johnson has spent the morning huddling with his two deputies, Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Majority Whip Tom Emmer.

Entering Johnson’s office for the same meeting, Emmer wouldn’t disclose details.

Asked what direction talks are going, Emmer said “forward,” but he wouldn’t answer if the House will vote today — or if the speaker’s team is coordinating with President-elect Donald Trump’s team on a plan.

Other key stakeholders who entered the meeting included GOP Reps. David Valadao and Stephanie Bice, who serve on the Appropriations Committee, as well as Rep. Dusty Johnson, who has been key to negotiating the aid for farmers.

The state of play: Earlier Thursday, CNN reported GOP leaders are discussing a plan that involves a “clean” continuing resolution and “clean” lift of the US debt limit, with disaster relief and farm aid.

A continuing resolution, or “CR,” is the temporary spending bill that would allow the federal government to remain open, and a “clean” one would include minimal or no additional policy provisions agreed to as part of the political dealmaking process.

The situation remains highly fluid.

As Cole entered Johnson’s office, he said he still has not seen a finalized deal.

Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Chip Roy talk with reporters outside the US Capitol on Wednesday, December 18.

With House Speaker Mike Johnson’s grip on the gavel in question, GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene signaled Thursday that she would be open to supporting someone else besides Johnson — two days after telling CNN she backed the speaker.

Greene had another person in mind: Elon Musk.

While the firebrand Republican did not mention Johnson by name, it is an ominous sign for the speaker just two weeks ahead of a floor vote to keep his gavel on January 3.

Two days earlier, when pressed by CNN if she will support Johnson in January, Greene called the question “ridiculous” and said she backs him.

“I am not answering your ridiculous questions. I have already said publicly I am supporting him,” she said.

Remember: Musk, the world’s richest man and a close confidante to President-elect Donald Trump during his presidential transition, emerged as a driving force behind the move to tank a bipartisan government spending deal this week.

President Joe Biden speaks to reporters as he departs the White House enroute to Wilmington, Delaware, on December 17, in Washington, DC.

After campaigning against Donald Trump as a grave threat to democracy, President Joe Biden says it’s not his concern that Trump doesn’t “abide by the rules of the democracy we’ve established,” and Biden again committed to a smooth transition of power — including attending Trump’s inauguration.

“Of course I am,” Biden said, asked in an interview with MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas if he would attend the ceremony after Trump skipped his. “The only president ever to avoid inauguration is the guy who’s about to be inaugurated.”

Asked about inviting Trump to the Oval Office after November’s election, Biden said it was “how we’re supposed to be,” even after Trump tried to subvert the 2020 election.

Biden pointed to Trump relenting on FBI background checks for some of his cabinet picks, but said the bottom line “is that we can’t keep this up.”

“We can’t keep up this childish game of walking away when you don’t agree and not cooperating,” Biden said.

Donald Trump and JD Vance attend a remembrance ceremony on the 23rd anniversary of the September 11 terror attack on the World Trade Center at Ground Zero, in New York City on September 11.

President-elect Donald Trump and Vice-President elect JD Vance slammed the continuing resolution put forward by House Speaker Mike Johnson.

Johnson is scrambling to avoid a government shutdown when the funding deadline runs out after members of his own party retched up criticism of his plan to fund the government. Trump and Vance repeated many of those criticisms in their statement.

“Republicans must GET SMART and TOUGH. If Democrats threaten to shut down the government unless we give them everything they want, then CALL THEIR BLUFF,” Trump and Vance’s statement read.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise speaks at a news conference in the Capitol Visitor Center on Tuesday, December 10.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told reporters that leadership made “real progress” last night toward a funding deal but offered no details on the emerging measure.

Asked if he has spoken to President-elect Donald Trump, Scalise said: “We’ve been talking to a number of people, people in the coming Trump administration, Democratic counterparts, colleagues in the House.”

Asked about how Republicans would proceed without Democrats’ support, Scalise said: “I think if you see a deal come together in the House and passes, it’s likely going to pass in the Senate too.”

He didn’t answer if he has spoken with Elon Musk.

House Speaker Mike Johnson and his GOP leadership team are privately discussing a narrow spending package that would attempt to jam Democrats and force them to accept a debt limit deal with no concessions — setting up a dramatic showdown even before Donald Trump comes into office.

GOP leaders are mulling a plan that would include a “clean” debt limit with a mostly “clean” stopgap bill, with only disaster relief and farm aid attached, according to multiple GOP sources. It would strip out other key provisions Johnson and Democrats had already agreed to, such as the policy provisions related to the Baltimore bridge and RFK stadium.

Johnson is going to try to sell this plan to others in the conference this morning, many of whom are skeptical of addressing debt limit now.

But multiple Democrat sources said that this framework would be difficult for them to swallow. And without a huge number of Democratic votes, it’s not clear how the plan would pass the GOP-led House.

The emerging spending plan — which came out of late-night meetings with senior spending leaders and conservatives — still remains highly fluid, those sources cautioned.

But some Republicans believe it could be a much-needed exit plan for Johnson, who has faced blowback across the party for his negotiations with Democrats this week.

House majority whip Tom Emmer declined to answer questions about whether the GOP would be tackling the debt limit in its spending plan and whether they would put a bill on the floor today.

Asked whether members would be able to go home for Christmas, Emmer told CNN: “The situation as it currently stands is extremely fluid.”

House Minority Whip Katherine Clark attends a news conference with House Democratic Caucus leaders in the Capitol Visitor Center on Tuesday, November 19.

Democratic Minority Whip Katherine Clark said the onus is Republicans to find a solution after the continuing resolution tanked Wednesday and that the blame would be on them if the government shuts down.

Seeming to refer to Elon Musk, Clark added, “But we have a billionaire calling the shots for the GOP, and we’ll see what they do today. This is up to them.”

Speaker Mike Johnson will meet with a small group of GOP members at 9:30 a.m. ET, according to a GOP source, as he races to find a path forward on a funding deal that can win Donald Trump’s approval.

It’s not yet clear who will attend. Johnson did not answer questions from reporters about where things stand, just about 40 hours away from a shutdown.

Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters Republicans will carry the political consequences if the government does shut down after Friday at midnight.

“House Republicans have unilaterally decided to break an agreement that would provide support for everyday Americans, keep the government open and avoid a government shutdown. if you break an agreement, you own the consequences,” Jeffries told reporters.

Jeffries will huddle with his Democratic members this morning, as well.

Rep. Melanie Stansbury speaks during a roundtable discussion on June 11 in Washington, DC.

Democratic Rep. Melanie Stansbury said “you cannot run the world’s greatest democracy by tweet” in response to the scraping of the government funding plan, that was negotiated by Speaker Mike Johnson, after President-elect Donald Trump came out against it.

The New Mexico representative continued, “We’re less than 48 hours away from a government shutdown, 72 hours. And you cannot run the world’s greatest democracy by tweet. And so we need some serious grownups at the table. And Mike Johnson needs to come back and meet with our leadership and have serious negotiations again.”

Stansbury said the current funding fight has nothing to do with the debt ceiling, saying, “What we know is that Donald Trump plans to do a tax reconciliation bill in the coming weeks and months, and they’re looking for room in the budget so that he can give big tax giveaways to his billionaire friends. And we know that that’s really kind of the backstory here.”

When discussing who would deserve the blame if a shutdown happens, Stansbury said a shutdown would be on Mike Johnson’s watch rather than on President Joe Biden. She said it “shows the inherent weakness of the GOP right now.”

President-elect Donald Trump speaks at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on December 16.

President-elect Donald Trump has blown up the carefully negotiated, bipartisan government funding package by demanding that congressional Republicans increase the debt ceiling as part of the measure. He slammed GOP lawmakers for having agreed to a deal in 2023 that suspended the debt limit until January.

He also wrote on Truth Social: “Everything should be done, and fully negotiated, prior to my taking Office on January 20th, 2025.”

Here’s what Trump is talking about:

With government funding facing significant uncertainty ahead of the Friday deadline, the White House Office of Management and Budget will be sending additional guidance to federal agencies on shutdown preparations in the coming days, an administration official tells CNN.

This is the part of the OMB document detailing the mandatory, but standard process for government shutdowns. It states: “OMB will hold follow-up communications on a periodic basis until such time as appropriations are enacted or a lapse in appropriations occurs.”

Every department and agency has its own set of plans and procedures for a shutdown. The plans include:

Those plans can vary from shutdown to shutdown.

Government agencies had to prepare multiple times for a shutdown during the last fiscal year since Congress repeatedly punted approving a full funding plan before finally passing one in March.

The impact of a shutdown differs each time, but the consequences could be felt early. Previous shutdowns have closed national parks and museums, wreaked havoc on the Internal Revenue Service just before the start of the tax filing season and delayed some federal lending to homebuyers and small businesses, among other impacts. However, some agencies can continue certain operations from other sources of funding.

Remember: President-elect Donald Trump presided over the longest government shutdown in four decades during his first term. The 35-day standoff, which shuttered part of the government, ended in January 2019, when Trump agreed to a temporary funding measure that did not include billions of dollars for a border wall.

The most up-to-date agency plans for shutdown will be posted here ahead of the deadline.

President-elect Donald Trump is very familiar with government shutdowns — during his first term, some federal operations ceased for 35 days, the longest in four decades.

Trump raised the odds of another government shutdown starting on Saturday after scuttling Congress’ recent bipartisan spending agreement by harshly criticizing it.

There were actually two shutdowns in 2018, with the more significant one beginning just days before Christmas. Funding lapsed for roughly a quarter of the government, including the departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Agriculture and Housing and Urban Development, after Congress and the White House failed to reach a deal over Trump’s demand for $5 billion for a border wall.

The standoff ended on January 25, 2019, when Trump agreed to a temporary funding measure that reopened the government but did not include money for the border wall. However, the shutdown wreaked havoc for many Americans and federal employees, including causing flight delays, canceling immigration hearings and making it harder for some families to obtain student loans.

President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago on December 16, in Palm Beach, Florida.

While Donald Trump is returning to the White House with sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution, that won’t necessarily keep him out of the courtroom or free from testimony under oath.

Nearly a dozen civil suits at the trial-level in federal court have Trump as a defendant. The lawsuits — including a defamation case from the Central Park Five, eight lawsuits over Trump’s role in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol and two cases related to the clearing of racial justice protesters from the park outside the White House in June 2020 — are likely to hang over his presidency.

And the president-elect’s own legendary litigious streak continues this week, with the newly filed lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and a pollster who predicted he would lose Iowa, which he didn’t. This adds to other pending lawsuits he’s filed against media outlets, and he has threatened more.

Cases Trump has brought: It’s unclear when Trump will be under oath again. Trump’s legal exposure in current lawsuits may be minimal for several months, if not years.

Earlier this week, Trump narrowly avoided testifying in a lawsuit where he had sued ABC News. The case settled days before he and anchor George Stephanopoulos were to sit for depositions, with ABC News agreeing to donate $15 million to Trump’s future presidential foundation and museum and $1 million for his legal fees to end the case. It was a rare win for Trump in cases he’s brought.

Trump as a civil defendant: The January 6 lawsuits — where eight different individuals or groups are seeking to hold Trump accountable for injuries people suffered in the attack on the Capitol — are still in a phase where Trump provided written answers to just a few dozen questions. A federal judge in Washington, Amit Mehta, is likely to decide this year if Trump will have immunity for his actions on January 6.

Read more on Trump’s civil cases here.

President-elect Donald Trump dined with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk Wednesday night, a source familiar told CNN.

CNN previously reported that Trump and Bezos were scheduled to meet at Mar-a-Lago Wednesday.

Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

Welcome to the new Washington of Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

The president-elect and the world’s richest man combined Wednesday to smash a short-term spending compromise orchestrated by Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson to keep the government open until early in Trump’s new term.

The stop-gap measure is packed with nearly $100 billion in aid for Americans hit by multiple national disasters, economic aid for farmers, a federal commitment to rebuild Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge and a criminalization of revenge porn.

But the Trump-Musk blocking maneuver plunged the capital into one of its classic year-end crises, pitched Johnson’s hopes of keeping his job into extreme doubt and offered a preview of the chaos that may churn in Trump’s second term.

A sense of turmoil was exacerbated by the 10th straight day of losses on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, matching a mark set in the Ford administration. The selloffs underlined a volatile national moment and some of the economic challenges Trump may face after the Federal Reserve warned that inflation will tick up next year.

The sabotaging of Johnson’s funding initiative triggered shock and confusion on Capitol Hill. But for many of Trump’s supporters and boosters in the conservative media who are anticipating massive cuts to federal programs, the mayhem is the point. Even if the impasse leads to a damaging government shutdown, that may represent progress for some since the government itself is viewed with disdain on the populist right. And by taking aim at the Washington status quo even before he takes the oath of office, Trump is doing exactly what he said he’d do on the campaign trail.

But the sudden imbroglio also highlighted one of the key issues facing Trump in his second term: If he wants to pass his tax cuts, push through his immigration overhauls, defend the country and leave a meaningful legacy, he will have to find some way to govern – even if that draws him into conflict with base voters and MAGA ideologues who seem happy to burn government to the ground.

Read Collinson’s analysis here.