Trump-backed spending bill voted down in the House with shutdown looming
A bill backed by Trump to avert a partial government shutdown failed to pass the House of Representatives on Thursday night. The deadline to avoid a shutdown is late Friday.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre speaks Friday about the looming partial government shutdown.
A reporter pressed the White House Friday on why President Biden has not been speaking publicly as government shutdown is now just hours away.
“Why hasn’t President Biden said anything in the public about this? Don't the American people deserve to know why millions of federal workers could enter this holiday period without a paycheck?” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked Friday during her daily press briefing.
“All Americans need to know that Republicans are getting in the way here, and they are the ones who have created this mess. That's the reality. That's the fact,” she responded. “This is not the first time we've been here. And the president has had this approach before. He understands how Congress works. He's been around for some time. He understands what strategy works here to get this done.
Jean-Pierre said Friday that President Biden has been in contact with Democrat leaders in Congress – Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries.
“He has been getting regular updates from his team. His team has been in touch with congressional members from both sides of the aisle,” she said.
Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan are hoping to ensure the U.S. military is paid during a possible shutdown. (Reuters/Getty)
FIRST ON FOX: Two Senate Republicans are leading the charge to ensure military members are paid during a potential partial government shutdown as Congress inches closer to the midnight deadline on Saturday morning.
Three Senate sources confirmed to Fox News Digital that Sens. Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski, both Republicans from Alaska, are attempting to "hotline" a bill to make sure all armed services and the coast guard are paid in the event of a partial government shutdown.
A hotline is a procedure used by senators usually to pass procedural motions or relatively noncontroversial measures. The practice allows bills or motions to pass with often very little or no public debate at all.
The measure is entitled the Pay Our Troops Act.
Sullivan will take the Senate floor to make a live request for unanimous consent to consider the measure at 6 p.m.
One Republican source told Fox News Digital that they expect Senate Democrats to object to the request, noting that they have done so in the past.
House Majority Leader, Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., said Friday that Republicans have a “good plan” to avoid a partial government shutdown.
"We're about to lay it out to our members and then move forward. It's a good plan,” he said while heading into a closed-door meeting with other House Republicans.
Rep. Stephanie Bice, R-Okla., added: "I think you come to an agreement, then you get together and sit down and figure out, you know, if we can get across the finish line. And that's probably what we're about to do now."
The deadline to avoid a shutdown is late Friday.
Fox News' Dan Scully contributed to this report.
Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., said Friday that “we should have passed the appropriations bills weeks ago.
“We had the votes to pass the appropriations bills, but Speaker Johnson knows that the Freedom Caucus is hostile to any appropriations bill. So he chose not to bring them up because he didn't want to offend them,” Smith told reporters in Washington, D.C.
“So my preference is just pass the damn appropriations bills. CRs are terrible. And speaking as the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, they are devastating to the Defense Department,” he continued.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told "America’s Newsroom" Friday that with the spending bill showdown, “We are facing the first great reality of Making America Great again, which is a Congress filled with people who love pork, love taking money home to the district, love deficit spending, love big bureaucracies.”
"They are colliding with the man the American people picked to change things,” he continued, referencing President-elect Donald Trump.
“I think that President Trump would be much better off to let the government close, to let Biden sit there as a totally incompetent president presiding over a mess and to go to the country and say to the country ‘I am not going to be a president who sells you out, I need your help to convince the Congress to pass a good bill.’
“I think the country would respond,” Gingrich added.
House Republicans will hold a closed door meeting at 12:30 p.m. ET to discuss efforts to fund the government before midnight.
House Republican negotiators have tentatively reached an agreement on averting a partial government shutdown at the end of Friday, sources told Fox News Digital.
Fox News' Tyler Olson and Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Friday that “The lines of communication have been reopened” as the hours are winding down to avoid a partial government shutdown.
“We're going to work as hard as we can to avoid a Republican-driven government shutdown that will crash the economy and hurt working-class Americans all across the country,” the New York Democrat told reporters on Capitol Hill.
When asked about a tentative agreement that House Republican negotiators have reached, Jeffries said “It's not a proposal that has been presented to me at this point in time.”
Two people familiar with discussions told Fox News Digital that the deal would include a short-term extension of this year's federal funding levels, disaster aid funding, and agricultural support for farmers – but under three separate bills.
Fox News’ Tyler Olson and Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.
House Republican negotiators have tentatively reached an agreement on averting a government shutdown at the end of Friday, sources told Fox News Digital.
Two people familiar with discussions told Fox News Digital that the deal would include a short-term extension of this year's federal funding levels, disaster aid funding, and agricultural support for farmers – but under three separate bills.
It would also include a handshake agreement to act on the debt limit next year as part of Republicans' planned massive conservative policy overhaul via a process called reconciliation.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., said Friday that “Elon Musk and Vivek [Ramaswamy] have come up here and spent a lot of time talking to the Republicans and these are very smart gentleman.”
“I think what they should take from yesterday is that nothing on a budgetary basis is going to pass here without the Democrats,” he continued, referencing the Trump-backed spending bill that got voted down in the House of Representatives last night.
“So perhaps, the next time they come to D.C., they should meet with us,” Moskowitz declared.
Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., also said Friday that whatever fix is in store to keep the government open is “going to have to be bipartisan, even if they could cobble together the votes for something here, and they still have to get it through the Senate and have it signed by the president.
“It's basically Speaker Johnson negotiating with Elon Musk and Donald Trump and acting like the rest of us don't exist,” Smith also said. “And that's going to be a problem.”
Fox News’ Jessica Sonkin contributed to this report.
Top Democrats signaled unwillingness to move forward on any other GOP versions of a stopgap bill. (Reuters)
Top Senate Democrats Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray, D-Wash., made clear they only intend to move forward on the original stopgap spending bill plan that Republicans scrapped after pressure from billionaire Elon Musk and President-elect Donald Trump.
Murray said she is prepared for a partial government shutdown and to stay in Washington D.C., for the Christmas holiday if Republicans do not return to the original short-term spending bill that was released earlier this week and subsequently killed after Musk and others publicly opposed its provisions.
"I'm ready to stay here through Christmas because we're not going to let Elon Musk run the government," she said in a Friday morning statement, hours before the government could be sent into a partial shutdown if a bill is not passed.
As of Thursday, the U.S. national debt was at $36,167,604,149,955.61 and continues to climb rapidly.
"Put simply, we should not let an unelected billionaire rip away research for pediatric cancer so he can get a tax cut or tear down policies that help America outcompete China because it could hurt his bottom line. We had a bipartisan deal-we should stick to it," Murray said.
In floor remarks on Friday morning, Schumer said, "if Republicans do not work with Democrats in a bipartisan way very soon, the government will shut down at midnight."
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the Senate floor Friday that “it’s time to go back to the original agreement we had just a few days ago” when it comes to funding the government.
The 1,547-page spending bill supported by House Speaker Mike Johnson died this week when President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk came out against it.
“It's time the House votes on our bipartisan CR,” he said. “It's the quickest, simplest and easiest way we can make sure the government stays open while delivering critical emergency aid to the American people.
“If the House put our original agreement on the floor today, it would pass and we could put the threat of a shutdown behind us. Our agreement would keep the government open, provide emergency aid for communities battered by hurricanes and other natural disasters,” he continued. “Support our seniors. Support our doctors, nurses, rural hospitals and protect our farmers from the dairy cliff. As I said, the only way to get anything done is through bipartisanship.”
President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with the House GOP conference on Nov. 13 in Washington. (Allison Robbert/Pool Photo/AP)
President-elect Donald Trump says the looming partial government shutdown is a "Biden problem to solve."
"If there is going to be a shutdown of government, let it begin now, under the Biden Administration, not after January 20th, under 'TRUMP,'" he wrote on Truth Social. "This is a Biden problem to solve, but if Republicans can help solve it, they will!"
The message comes after Trump said earlier this morning that "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," Trump added.
House lawmakers are expected to vote today on what is being described by a source as a "temporary fix" to keep the government open.
Elon Musk walks on Capitol Hill on the day of a meeting with Senate Republican Leader-elect John Thune, R-S.D., on Dec. 5. (Reuters/Benoit Tessier)
SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk asked Friday if any lawmakers have read a so-called "clean" continuing resolution bill that is expected to be voted on today in Washington.
"Has anyone read it? Radical suggestion: FIRST read bill, THEN vote," Musk wrote on X in response to a post asking "Are they allowed to read this one before hand?"
The House is planning to vote on another CR proposal Friday morning to avert the looming partial government shutdown, a GOP lawmaker told reporters on Capitol Hill.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., speaking to reporters outside Speaker Mike Johnson's office, said that lawmakers are "very close to a deal."
However, Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., told reporters that he is not certain a vote will come as early as Friday morning.
Fox News' Aubrie Spady and Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.
Here are some potential scenarios today on what the Senate could do to try to avert a government shutdown.
It’s possible that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., could try to advance some sort of an interim spending bill. But without an agreement from all 100 senators, this could be easily blocked. Or at least slowed down by several days because senators want to burn clock under Senate rules.
That scenario likely triggers a weekend shutdown because there isn’t enough time.
Doing any sort of interim spending bill by the book in the Senate would take until the middle of next week at this point.
However, if there’s a unanimous consent agreement, the Senate can move very quickly.
The Senate will watch to see if the House advances a bill with Democratic support. There is also the possibility that Senate Republicans could offer something to Democrats. But that would require a time agreement, too.
In anticipation of a potential government shutdown, Fox News is told that many federal agencies have instructed their employees to fill out their timesheets next week as “furlough” for each day.
Fox News is also told that at least at one agency, that includes Christmas Day, a federal holiday. It is unclear how they would handle “giving back” that day if there is a shutdown.
As to when a shutdown could impact federal workers, they are good for now. The official federal pay date for this period is Dec. 26. Paper checks were distributed on Dec. 23.
But the first official pay day for 2025 is Jan. 9. Paper checks would be cut on Jan. 6. So a potential shutdown could impact the next pay cycle if there is a shutdown.
Federal workers are guaranteed backpay during a shutdown under the Antideficiency Act. However, recouping a lost holiday like Christmas is another issue.
Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., told ‘Fox & Friends’ on Friday that “we're in this game of Russian roulette at this point in time” when it comes to the spending bill impasse.
“I think that the speaker has put something on the floor, and he's going to do another time. He'll give the Democrats an opportunity to participate in this. I think the most important thing is we don't saddle President Trump with any type of debt ceiling limitation going forward,” said Marshall, who is a member of the U.S. Senate Committee On The Budget.
“I think that the Democrats will use the debt ceiling as leverage, actually, to get more spending, when that comes due, that's what they always do,” he added. “They use it as leverage to get more spending, and it's going to slow down the process. It's going to slow down the reconciliation. Everything else we want to get done. It's one more hurdle next year.”
Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, the vice president-elect, leaves the Senate chamber as lawmakers work on an interim spending bill to avoid a shutdown of federal agencies, at the Capitol in Washington, on Wednesday, Dec. 18. (AP/J. Scott Applewhite)
Vice President-elect JD Vance is at the Capitol this morning as meetings continue in Speaker Johnson's office with members of the House Freedom Caucus regarding the looming government shutdown.
Vance arrived shortly before 8 a.m. and ignored multiple questions from Fox News as he entered.
He took a back stairway and it's unclear if he went to the meeting involving Freedom Caucus members in Johnson's office.
Fox News' Tyler Olson and Liz Elkind contributed to this report.
A source told Fox News on Friday that House lawmakers have reached a “temporary fix” to avoid a government shutdown.
The potential deal could keep the government funded until members return to Capitol Hill in the new year.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., said a vote on the matter could happen as early as 10 a.m. Friday.
"We're expecting votes this morning," House Speaker Mike Johnson said.
Sources also told Fox News’ Lawrence Jones that President-elect Donald Trump is making phone calls Friday regarding the spending bill impasse.
Fox News' Aishah Hasnie contributed to this report.
President-elect Trump early Friday called for Congress to either get rid of or extend the debt ceiling, possibly through 2029.
“Congress must get rid of, or extend out to, 2029, the ridiculous Debt Ceiling,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Without this, we should never make a deal. Remember, the pressure is on whoever is President.”
The post comes hours after House lawmakers rejected a Trump-backed plan to fund operations and suspend the debt ceiling.
Earlier Thursday, Trump was touting “SUCCESS in Washington!” in coming up with the new plan that would keep government running for three more months, add more than $100 billion in disaster assistance and allow more borrowing through Jan. 30, 2027.
Lawmakers have until Friday at midnight to pass a new budget plan.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., is expected to meet with JD Vance and other lawmakers this morning on Capitol Hill. (AP/J. Scott Applewhite)
House Speaker Mike Johnson told Fox News Friday that “we’re expecting votes this morning” and “we’ve got a plan” ahead of an anticipated meeting with Vice President-elect JD Vance and members of the House Freedom Caucus.
Vance, Johnson and members of the caucus -- some of whom voted against the Trump-backed bill last night aimed at averting a partial government shutdown – are expected to gather on Capitol Hill to try to resolve the spending bill deadlock, a source familiar with the planning told Fox News.
Russ Vought, who is Trump’s pick to run the Office of Management and Budget, also was seen walking into Speaker Johnson’s office this morning.
He did not respond when asked by Fox News whether he thinks they can avoid a government shutdown.
Fox News’ Liz Elkind and Aishah Hasnie contributed to this report.
President Joe Biden speaks during a Hanukkah reception in the East Room of the White House in Washington on Dec. 16. (AP/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
President Biden's disappearance while negotiations continue over a spending bill to fund the government past Friday is just fine with Democrats, according to a new report.
"Biden has remained conspicuously absent outside a brief statement issued by his press secretary — and for now, Democrats said there was little clamor for him to return," Politico reported Thursday, one day after Elon Musk and President-elect Donald Trump scuttled the first bipartisan spending bill.
The article said that despite the scramble to avert a government shutdown, "no one seemed to be looking to Biden for answers — and the lame-duck president gave no indication he had any desire to provide them."
"I haven’t gotten any message from President Biden, or heard of anything that he’s saying," California Democratic Rep. Mark Takano told Politico, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wouldn't say he's been in touch with Biden, only that he's been in "close contact with the administration."
As Politico put it, "Democrats appeared largely fine with Biden taking a back seat."
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., talks with reporters outside the U.S. Capitol. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., posted on her X account early Friday morning that there is "no plan to cut a deal with Dems" in order to pass the spending bill after two days of chaos on Capitol Hill.
At 12:43 a.m., Luna wrote that discussions are ongoing and voting is set to take place at around 10 a.m. Friday, adding that she will post more details in the morning but lawmakers are "getting this done."
"Sticking to Trump's plan + some (where cuts can come from)," she wrote, in part. "No plan to cut a deal with Dems."
Luna said earlier Thursday evening that she was optimistic a shutdown could be avoided.
Lawmakers have to come to a decision by 11:59 p.m. Friday in order for that to happen.
A spending bill to avert a partial government shutdown that was backed by President-elect Donald Trump failed to pass the House of Representatives on Thursday night after losing the approval of 38 Republicans.
Those Republicans are: Rep. Aaron Bean, Fla.; Rep. Andy Biggs, Ariz.; Rep. Josh Brecheen, Okla.; Rep. Tim Burchett, Tenn.; Rep. Eric Burlison, Mo.; Rep. Kat Cammack, Fla.; Rep. Michael Cloud, Texas; Rep. Andrew Clyde, Va.; Rep. Eli Crane, Ariz.; Rep. John Curtis, Utah; Rep. Jeff Duncan, S.C.; Rep. Russ Fulcher, Idaho; Rep. Bob Good, Va.; Rep. Paul Gosar, Ariz.; Rep. Doug Lamborn, Colo.; Rep. Debbie Lesko, Ariz.; Rep. Nancy Mace, S.C.; Rep. Thomas Massie, Ky.; Rep. Rich McCormick, Ga.; Rep. Corey Mills, Fla.; Rep. Alex Mooney, W. Va.; Rep. Ralph Norman, S.C.; Rep. Scott Perry, Pa.; Rep. Chip Roy, Texas; Rep. David Schweikert, Ariz.; Rep. Keith Self, Texas; Rep. Victoria Spartz, Ind.; Rep. Tom Tiffany, Wis.; and Rep. Beth Van Duyne, Texas.
Two Democrats, Reps. Kathy Castor, Fla., and Marie Gleusenkamp Perez, Wash., voted yes to the proposal.
President-elect Donald Trump listens to Elon Musk as he arrives to watch SpaceX's mega rocket Starship lift off for a test flight from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, on Nov. 19. (Brandon Bell/Pool/AP)
Elon Musk on Thursday sought to blame House Democrats for the failed spending bill, posting on X that the “plan b” legislation as a “super fair” and “simple bill” that earned the votes of just two Democrats in the chamber.
The new spending deal, which was wrangled to the floor for a vote by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Thursday, one day after Musk and President-elect Trump heavily opposed the first, bipartisan spending bill, failed to clear the House by a 174-235 vote.
Just two Democrats voted for the legislation, which Musk noted on Twitter.
“A super fair & simple bill was put to a vote and only 2 Democrats in Congress were in favor,” he said, adding that therefore, “responsibility for the shutdown rests squarely on the shoulders” of House minority leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.
Still, the number of Republicans who ultimately failed to fall in line Thursday evening could signal larger challenges ahead for Trump, who had sought to bend Johnson and others in the chamber’s GOP majority to his political will and pass through a new bill with a higher debt ceiling.
Thirty-eight Republicans also voted against the legislation, signaling more troubles potentially on the horizon.
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