The Way Forward

Trump demands government shutdown after Elon Musk rants over stopgap funding bill
Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have raged against the bill while the president-elect remained silent until the final hour

Andrew Feinberg in Washington, D.C. ,Eric Garcia
Thursday 19 December 2024 00:57 GMT

President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance have demanded that Republicans in the House and Senate effectively force the federal government to shut down rather than pass a stopgap funding bill that would have kept agencies running at current funding levels through the end of March 2025.

In a statement posted to X (formerly Twitter) by Vance, the incoming president and vice president groused that the bill doesn’t raise the nation’s statutory debt ceiling and accused legislators of “considering a spending bill that would give sweetheart provisions for government censors and for Liz Cheney” – because the continuing resolution drafted by House Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team would have kept the executive branch from using a loophole in the law to obtain phone and other communications records from members of Congress and aides who are supposed to be protected by congressional immunity.

They also complained about the bill not declining an annual pay increase for members of Congress who haven’t gotten a raise in nearly two decades, and urged passage of “a streamlined spending bill that doesn’t give Chuck Schumer and the Democrats everything they want.”

“Republicans want to support our farmers, pay for disaster relief, and set our country up for success in 2025. The only way to do that is with a temporary funding bill WITHOUT DEMOCRAT GIVEAWAYS combined with an increase in the debt ceiling. Anything else is a betrayal of our country,” they said, adding a baseless accusation that it is President Joe Biden, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democrats who are holding up passage of the funding bill, which includes billions in disaster relief and aid to farmers.

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