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Speaker Mike Johnson promises there won’t be a government shutdown as Elon Musk questions latest proposal
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House Republicans reached their third deal this week as they came to a short-term agreement to fund the government, which will need Democratic support.
Speaker Mike Johnson said that there will not be a government shutdown.
“We will not have a government shutdown and we will meet our obligations for our farmers who need aid, for the disaster victims all over the country, and for making sure that military and essential services and everyone who relies upon the federal government for a paycheck is paid over the holidays,” Johnson said Friday.
Federal funding runs out at midnight on Friday and the White House Office of Management and Budget has already begun warning government agencies to prepare for the worst.
The crisis erupted after Johnson’s second congressional spending bill, drafted at the insistence of Donald Trump to include a suspension of the debt limit and remove a number of concessions to Democrats, was comprehensively defeated in the House of Representatives on Thursday night.
The result was a major embarrassment for the incoming president, Elon Musk, and the GOP.
Musk again waded into the funding fight Friday as he questioned whether Mike Johnson’s latest proposal was “a Republican bill or a Democrat bill.”
Ahead of the vote to prevent a government shutdown, expected imminently, Democrat Rep. Rosa DeLauro says that Elon Musk has thrown Congress into “pandemonium.”
Elon Musk is getting involved in the government funding fight once again, questioning whether Speaker Mike Johnson’s latest deal is a “Republican or a Democrat bill” in a post on X.
Musk was responding to Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky who claimed that Johnson was trying to pass a lone funding plan, including assistance for farmers and disaster aid, after getting word from House Democrats that they would support it.
In the waning days of President Joe Biden‘s administration, the government’s highway safety agency is proposing voluntary safety guidelines for self-driving vehicles.
But a rule from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration putting the plan in place won’t be approved before the end of Biden’s term in January and likely will be left to whoever runs the agency under Republican Donald Trump.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, whom Trump has named to co-lead a “Department of Government Efficiency” to cut costs and regulations, has floated the idea of him helping to develop safety standards for self-driving vehicles — even though the standards would affect Tesla’s automated driving systems.
Read more:
The government’s highway safety agency is proposing voluntary safety guidelines for self-driving vehicles
Lord Peter Mandelson has made a career of comebacks – from spin doctor to returning to cabinet after quitting twice – and is back again as Britain’s ambassador to the US.
It marks the first political appointment to the UK’s top diplomatic post in Washington in decades.
Peter Mandelson started out as a Labour communications director in 1985 and was first elected as an MP in 1992. He served in the cabinets of Sir Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
Donald Trump – who returns to the White House in January, four years after being ousted – may relate to his comeback story.
Read more:
The peer’s ability to manipulate the levers of power from the shadows earned him monikers such as ‘the Prince of Darkness’.
Rep. Chip Roy of Texas brushed off the threat of a primary challenge Friday.
“That’s just politics, just rough and tumble … my life isn’t built around whether I have an election certificate, my life is built around winning for the American people, winning for my constituents,” he said. “And I think we’ve done that here by saying we can deliver for the president, which means delivering for the American people, while also holding on to our commitment that we’re not going to let the debt ceiling without spending cuts.”
In his last floor remarks as leader of the Republican Senate conference, Sen. Mitch McConnell said, “Folks come to Washington to do one of two things: either to make a point or to make a difference … it’s usually not that hard to tell who’s doing which, especially in situations like the one we’re in right now.”
The White House has warned that a possible shutdown would affect the presidential transition process.
“Transition activities will be restricted,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday, according to Politico. “We’re doing everything to ensure a smooth transition, but the choice to allow a transition to move forward is in the hands of Republicans in Congress.”
The only transition activities that would remain unaffected would be those required to “prevent imminent threats to the safety of human life or the protection of property,” she added.
I am pleased to announce that Brian Burch will serve as the next United States Ambassador to the Holy See.
Brian is a devout Catholic, a father of nine, and President of CatholicVote.
He has received numerous awards, and demonstrated exceptional leadership, helping build one of the largest Catholic advocacy groups in the Country.
He represented me well during the last Election, having garnered more Catholic votes than any Presidential Candidate in History!
Brian loves his Church and the United States – He will make us all proud.
Congratulations to Brian, his wife Sara, and their incredible family!
Rep. Jim Banks, who’s heading to the Senate in January, said, “It’s been a disappointing week, but I won’t be around in January to weigh in on House leadership, but I imagine a lot of Republicans … [are] looking for something different.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, blasted Republicans for conducting “legislative whiplash” as they scramble to find a solution to funding the government.
“So they think that they can engage in this process of legislative whiplash and then coercion at the last minute,” Raskin said. “And they think it’s very clever, but in reality, it ends up damaging them because the American people reject that as a way to govern, and it’s enormously wasteful and profligate to shut the government United States down.”
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