President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance torpedoed a bipartisan government funding bill Wednesday, plunging Congress into chaos just days before a looming shutdown.
Their joint statement threw the stopgap measure’s passage into serious doubt, especially in the Republican-controlled House where Trump’s sway remains formidable.
The bill, designed to keep the government funded until March 14, now faces almost certain collapse. Without congressional action, a shutdown will begin at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.
House Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan to avert that outcome was already facing fierce opposition from his party’s far-right members. Trump and Vance’s last-minute intervention may have sealed its fate.
“Republicans must GET SMART and TOUGH. If Democrats threaten to shut down the government unless we give them everything they want, then CALL THEIR BLUFF,” Trump and Vance declared.
They accused Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and President Joe Biden of holding up aid to farmers and disaster relief, laying blame on Democratic leadership.
The statement set off a flurry of panic among GOP lawmakers, many of whom viewed Trump’s opposition as the death knell for Johnson’s deal. It also raised questions about whether Johnson, facing a speakership challenge in just over two weeks, still retains Trump’s crucial support.
Johnson unveiled the text of the funding plan Tuesday night, but right-wing Republicans attacked it for accommodating too many Democratic priorities. With conservative defections threatening the bill’s passage, Democratic votes would likely be needed to move it through both chambers.
Trump and Vance’s call for a hard-line stance on spending pushed Republicans to demand the inclusion of debt-limit negotiations in the funding bill.
“Let’s have this debate now,” they said. “And we should pass a streamlined spending bill that doesn’t give Chuck Schumer and the Democrats everything they want.”
The 11th-hour disruption jeopardized months of bipartisan negotiations and increased the odds of a shutdown. Democrats swiftly rejected Trump’s demands to strip billions of dollars from the negotiated deal.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries signaled there would be no Democratic lifeline for Johnson’s altered proposal.
“House Republicans have been ordered to shut down the government. And hurt the working-class Americans they claim to support,” Jeffries posted on X. “You break the bipartisan agreement; you own the consequences that follow.”
As the clock ticks toward Saturday, there is no alternative plan in sight. Trump’s influence over his party continues to reshape Capitol Hill, with millions of Americans now bracing for the fallout of a potential shutdown.
