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Lisa Desjardins Lisa Desjardins
Shrai Popat Shrai Popat
Kyle Midura Kyle Midura
Taylor Bowie Taylor Bowie
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House Republicans are pushing a new proposal tonight to avoid a government shutdown in an effort to meet President-elect Trump’s last-minute spending demands. It’s all unfolding after Trump rejected the original bill earlier this week with billionaire Elon Musk leading the charge against it online. Lisa Desjardins reports.
Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.
Geoff Bennett:
Welcome to the “News Hour.”
House Republicans are pushing a new proposal tonight to avoid a government shutdown in an effort to meet president-elect Donald Trump’s last-minute spending demands. It’s all unfolding after Mr. Trump rejected the original bill earlier this week, with billionaire Elon Musk leading the charge against it online.
Our Lisa Desjardins has the latest and joins us now.
Lisa, it’s good to see you.
So what did Republicans change in this last-minute revision?
Lisa Desjardins:
This has been another whirlwind of a day here on Capitol Hill, and a pivotal one both for government function itself and also for Speaker Mike Johnson.
Let me go over the bill that Speaker Johnson and House Republicans unveiled just over an hour or so ago. Here’s what’s in it. It would extend government funding for another three months. It would add billions in funding, about $100 billion in funding for disasters, including recent hurricanes.
Now, this is new. It would extend the debt ceiling for two additional years. The debt ceiling is likely to hit in the spring of next year in the Trump administration. It would also extend the farm bill for one year. That debt ceiling extension was something specifically that president-elect Donald Trump and vice president-elect Vance had asked for, and it was not on the negotiating table until president-elect Trump brought it up.
Today, president-elect Trump posted on social media that he, in fact, does support this new version of the bill. As you see there, he wrote: “All Republicans and even Democrats should do what is best for our country and vote yes.”
Now, as details were emerging, as I say just in the last couple of hours, Geoff, members and the press, we were all trying to get our hands around what was happening. And some of the members who were skeptical about the original continuing resolution, the funding deal, said they were waiting eagerly and they were still deciding, as they were hearing these first details, about the bill itself and also about Speaker Johnson.
Listen.
Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA):
How he handles it will define who he is, if he’s a serious leader and if he’s going to survive this leadership vote, quite frankly.
Lisa Desjardins:
Now, that’s Congressman Rich McCormick.
And I have an important update. As I said, that was just over an hour ago or so that I talked to him. And just in the past few minutes, our producer Kyle Midura spoke to Rich McCormick again after he heard Speaker Johnson sort of plea about this bill. McCormick says he is a hard no on Speaker Johnson’s bill.
He is furious about it and he seems to have a problem with Speaker Johnson as well. We are hearing other Republicans who have concerns about it. They don’t like the debt ceiling extension that President Trump personally campaigned for in this.
Geoff Bennett:
So what’s the whip count looking like overall? I mean, the House is voting on it this evening. Is this expected to pass?
Lisa Desjardins:
All right.
So Speaker Johnson is using a special technique here to call up this vote quickly. He’s going to have to go around the rules. To do that, he needs two-thirds of the entire House. Some math on, that’s about 286 votes. So he clearly is going to need Republicans. He does have some problem — or — sorry — I mean, he’s going to need Democrats, rather.
He does have problems with some of his Republicans. Democrats, they are hard-nosed. They say that this is a matter of Johnson and Republicans breaking their word. They also say this is billionaires trying to control Congress.
Now, they feel, as I spoke to you — or as we heard from Rosa DeLauro, the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, they want to stick with the original deal that they negotiated with Speaker Johnson. Here’s what she said earlier.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT):
I support the current bill that we have. I support that bill. I don’t know what we’re talking about. I support what we did. I worked very, very hard, very hard, as the other appropriators did, in terms of creating this agreement. We lost some. They lost some. But we put together a good agreement that people could support. And we were there to support it, but for, but for President Musk.
Lisa Desjardins:
Now, where are we then, Geoff, at this moment? By my understanding, I don’t see how this bill has two-thirds. I’m not quite sure it has a majority to pass the House.
So with one day to go until a government shutdown, that means that either Johnson would have to fall back to some other vehicle that Democrats would agree with, or indeed we are seeming to get closer and closer to a likely at least weekend or possibly holiday government shutdown.
Geoff Bennett:
And what might this mean for Speaker Johnson’s leadership, Lisa?
Lisa Desjardins:
Yes, at this moment, it’s not good, but we just have to wait in coming hours to see how he handles this. But I think what this means, more importantly, to Americans is very significant.
If this disaster funding can’t pass, those are millions of Americans around this country that are still recovering. I spoke to one of them, Asheville’s Mayor Esther Manheimer, earlier today. She says people in Asheville, North Carolina, are still homeless, waiting for SBA loans. As the SBA is out of money, waiting for this money right now. She says Congress needs to act immediately.
Esther Manheimer, Mayor of Asheville, North Carolina: I feel like we’re collateral damage all over again in a fight that has nothing to do with us, but has every bit a part of tearing us down.
You have seen the devastation and. i know you know what the right thing is to do. And I need you all to come across the aisle, to compromise, to work with your fellow congresspeople and pass a bill right before this Christmas holiday that will help Western North Carolina be able to manage itself through the storm and be as whole as possible several months from now.
Lisa Desjardins:
Geoff, back to you.
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Lisa Desjardins Lisa Desjardins
Lisa Desjardins is a correspondent for PBS News Hour, where she covers news from the U.S. Capitol while also traveling across the country to report on how decisions in Washington affect people where they live and work.
Shrai Popat Shrai Popat
Kyle Midura Kyle Midura
Taylor Bowie Taylor Bowie
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