WASHINGTON — The president-elect Donald Trump said Thursday that he would rather House Republicans refuse to fund the federal government than support a funding bill that does not include a debt ceiling increase.
“Republican obstructionists must be eliminated” – Trump sent, referring to Republican members of the House of Representatives who refuse to support the debt ceiling increase that Trump wants. He singled out Texas Rep. Chip Roy and accused him of “obstructing, as usual, another Big Republican Victory.”
“Our country is much better off shutting down for a while than agreeing to the things Democrats want to impose on us,” the president-elect wrote on Truth Social.
House Republican leaders ran out of time Thursday to avoid a partial government shutdown that will begin late Friday Trump and his allies scuttled a compromise bill intended to fund the government through March.
Senior party members spent much of Thursday visiting Speaker Mike Johnson's offices on Capitol Hill, where talks focused on finding a way to keep the federal government open while satisfying Trump's last-minute demand that any deal to finance the government also raise the debt ceiling .
But even if House Republicans could agree to funding language that would appease both Trump and warring factions in the GOP caucus, any bill they passed would still have to be approved by the Democratic-controlled Senate before President Joe Biden could sign it.
Meanwhile, beyond the leadership talks, members of the House and Senate were growing increasingly nervous that Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, would fail to find a way in time to avoid potentially furloughing tens of thousands of federal workers across the country whose pay could be delayed for less than a week before Christmas.
“Closing the power plant solves nothing. He doesn't save us money. It just creates unnecessary chaos,” Republican Mike Lawler of New York said on MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports.
“To pass anything, we need cross-party support,” he said. “You will need Democrats at least in the Senate, but most likely in the House of Representatives, to support a continuing resolution,” he said.
Thursday's tension followed the very public collapse Wednesday of a massive negotiated funding bill that would have required Democratic votes to advance through the narrowly divided House.
Trump formal opposition the bill came late Wednesday only after a billionaire GOP megadonor Elon Musk he spent the day complaining about the bill, gradually preventing it from being supported throughout much of the House Republican conference.
“Increasing the debt ceiling is not a big deal, but we would prefer to do it on Biden's clock,” Trump said in a statement Wednesday announcing his opposition to Johnson's original bill.
“If Democrats won't cooperate on the debt ceiling now, why does anyone think they will in June under our administration? Let's have this debate now. We should pass a streamlined spending bill that doesn't give Chuck Schumer and the Democrats everything they want,” Trump said.
The debt ceiling has become a recurring, fierce debate in Washington every few years, one that Trump is keen to avoid at the start of his second term.
But his demands and Thursday's impasse may prove too much for Johnson, who now faces a potential threat to his job as speaker, which is due to be voted on early next year.