Congress averts shutdown after House GOP drops Trump’s debt limit demand

CNN
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Congress voted to avert a shutdown early Saturday morning after House GOP leaders dropped a demand from Donald Trump on the debt limit, highlighting the limits of the president-elect’s influence on Capitol Hill despite his position as the leader of the party.

The House of Representatives voted Friday night and the Senate voted shortly after midnight to pass a bill that extends government aid through March and provides disaster relief and farm aid, but does not include a suspension of the debt limit that Trump had urged Republicans to address . President Joe Biden still needs to sign the recess bill into law.

Trump stepped up efforts to prevent a shutdown earlier this week by coming out against an initial bipartisan deal, leaving Republicans scrambling to find a way forward.

As a result of Trump’s opposition, House Republicans backed away from the bipartisan deal, infuriating Democrats. The GOP-led House tried and failed Thursday to pass a funding plan backed by Trump that would have included a two-year suspension of the debt limit after the president-elect urged Republicans to take up the issue.

Democrats balked at the plan, arguing that GOP efforts to suspend the debt limit would help Trump pass his tax plan. But it wasn’t just Democrats who voted against the Trump-backed bill. A significant number of House Republicans joined nearly all Democrats in voting it down, setting off a tumultuous 24 hours on Capitol Hill in which Congress appeared headed for a shutdown.

Mike Johnson to Elon Musk: “Do you want to be Speaker?”

In a move that finally broke the deadlock, House Speaker Mike Johnson brought a funding bill to the floor on Friday that did not include the suspension of the debt limit. It passed by a vote of 366 to 34. One Democrat was present, and all the votes against the bill were Republicans. The Senate vote was 85 to 11.

The bill will finance the government until 14 March 2025 and includes approx. $100 billion in disaster relief as well as an extension of the farm bill.

The outcome of the funding battle offers a taste of how challenging it will be for Republicans to pass Trump’s agenda in the new Congress, despite a GOP trifecta in Washington.

Republicans will control the House, Senate and the White House early next year. But an extremely narrow House majority means any significant split within GOP ranks could derail efforts by House Republican leadership. Johnson has often faced this dynamic in the current Congress, and the GOP majority in the House is set to shrink even more in the next one.

After the House vote, Johnson told reporters he spoke with Trump earlier in the evening and said he believes the president-elect is “pleased” with the result.

“I was in constant contact with President Trump throughout this process. Spoke with him, most recently about 45 minutes ago. He knew exactly what we were doing and why, and this is a good outcome for the country. I certainly think he also happy with this result,” he said.

Johnson said he also spoke with Elon Musk about the difficulty of serving as speaker with such a thin majority.

“We talked about the extraordinary challenges of this job. And I said, ‘Hey, do you want to be Speaker of the House? I don’t know.’ He said: ‘This could be the hardest job in the world.’ I think it is. But we’ll get through this,” he said.

Musk was vocally opposed to the initial bipartisan deal, but the billionaire Trump ally said Friday X that Johnson did a “good job.”

“The speaker did a good job here, given the circumstances,” Musk published on X prior to the vote. “It went from a bill that weighed pounds to a note that weighed ounces. The ball should now be in the Democrats’ court.”

Friday night, ahead of a vote on the government funding bill, the Senate unanimously passed the Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act 2.0, which reauthorizes a pediatric cancer research initiative through the National Institutes of Health into 2028.

The provision had originally been part of the funding deal negotiated by congressional leadership, but was dropped after Trump pushed for a “clean” short-term spending package with no extra measures included.

House Republicans pushed back on outrage over funding cut from the package, arguing that Senate Democrats were to blame for waiting months to advance the bill. The House had passed the reauthorization of research funds in March.

This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.

CNN’s Sarah Ferris, Aileen Graef, Kit Maher contributed to this report.