Morning Rundown: Shutdown looms over holiday weekend, Trump rethinks firing Joint Chiefs chairman, and an NBC News investigation helps families find answers
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Trump said that if the government is to shut down, it should happen while Joe Biden is still president.
“If there is going to be a shutdown of government, let it begin now, under the Biden Administration, not after January 20th, under ‘TRUMP.’ This is a Biden problem to solve, but if Republicans can help solve it, they will!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account.
Trump and his allies are responsible for House Republicans’ decision to abandon the bipartisan deal that had already been negotiated to fund the government.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La, said as he entered the Capitol that House votes are expected this morning.
“So y’all stay tuned, we’ve got a plan,” he said.
Freedom Caucus members and other conservatives like Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., have already entered his office.
Vice President-elect JD Vance, still a senator from Ohio, has also arrived and entered the speaker’s office through a back door.
Trump wrote on his Truth Social account overnight that Congress should either eliminate the debt ceiling or suspend it until after his presidency.
“Congress must get rid of, or extend out to, perhaps, 2029, the ridiculous Debt Ceiling. Without this, we should never make a deal. Remember, the pressure is on whoever is President,” he said on his Truth Social account just after 1 a.m.
Trump had called for getting rid of the debt ceiling during a phone interview with NBC News yesterday.
It was government shutdown season in Washington, and all through the House, many creatures were stirring — most notably Elon Musk.
Lawmakers in Congress were expecting a glide path to the holidays. They had a bipartisan deal that would keep the government funded and send them all on their merry way back to their districts.
But then they got a taste of what the next four years might be like with Donald Trump back in the White House and Musk, the world’s richest man, wielding enormous power over the political process.
On Wednesday, Trump — with help from Musk — effectively killed the funding legislation put together by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., a 1,500-page bill packed with the byproduct of the traditional horse-trading that generally defines congressional dealmaking.
Read the full story here.
The House rejected a bill late yesterday to keep the government funded temporarily after Republican leaders reneged on an earlier bipartisan deal and made modifications to appease Trump, Musk and an internal GOP revolt. The vote was 174-235, with one Democrat voting present, falling far short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass it under a fast-track process. NBC News’ Brie Jackson has all the details on “Early TODAY.”
A continuing resolution — often referred to as a “CR” in shorthand — is a stopgap funding measure that temporarily funds the government at current levels for a set amount of time.
Each year Congress is expected to fund the government by Oct. 1, the start of the fiscal year. If it fails to do so, the House and the Senate are also allowed to authorize a continuing resolution to temporarily keep the government operating at previously-approved levels.
In October, both chambers approved a continuing resolution, setting Dec. 20 as the new deadline to fund the government. Earlier this week, House and Senate leaders unveiled the text of a fresh continuing resolution that they hoped to pass on a bipartisan basis to fund the government at current levels through March 14.
Their hopes to pass the deal were dashed after Trump, Vance and tech mogul Elon Musk spoke out against the bill, tanking GOP support for it.
In the event of a government shutdown, all nonessential government functions hit the pause button and the federal government is unable to pay federal employees. Hundreds of thousands of employees could be furloughed for the duration of the shutdown, while others would work without pay.
During a 2013 government shutdown, 850,000 federal employees were furloughed.
The military and federal public safety employees, such as TSA agents and air traffic control personnel, are usually “excepted” from being furloughed and continue to work through a government shutdown. Each federal agency has a contingency plan for how to operate during a shutdown.
Other “essential” functions of the government — such as sending out Social Security checks and payments for Medicare and Medicaid — are expected to continue during a government shutdown.
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