Hours after the House of Representatives’ spending agreement failed, Vice President-elect JD Vance met with Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans on Thursday evening.
Vance and a few other Republican lawmakers were in Johnson’s office to talk about government funding and the impending shutdown deadline on Friday. As of Friday morning, it’s unclear if a shutdown is inevitable or what Republicans will do.
“Mr. Vance, will you accept any deal that does not include a debt limit increase?” a reporter asked as Vance was moving down the hallway.
“Look,” Vance shot back, “I’ll say one thing. Despite having a clean CR, the Democrats simply voted to shut down the government because they didn’t want to give the president any negotiating leverage during his first term or the first year of his second. Second, they would prefer to overthrow the government and engage in global censorship nonsense. They have requested a shutdown, and I believe they will do just that.
As a number of reporters kept yelling questions at him about the spending bill and what Republicans were going to do next, Vance turned to leave.
The House of Representatives rejected President-elect Donald Trump’s bill to avert a partial government shutdown on Thursday night.
Congress is on the verge of a partial shutdown as the deadline is at the end of Friday.
Despite needing two-thirds of the House to pass, the bill did not even receive a majority. Two Democrats joined the majority of Republicans in supporting the plan, while 38 Republicans disobeyed Trump and voted against it.
By a vote of 174 to 235, the bill was defeated.
It comes after two days of chaos in Congress as lawmakers fought over how to move forward with federal spending, a conflict that Trump and his allies Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy joined.
Meanwhile, the national debt has grown to over $36 trillion and the deficit has risen to over $1.8 trillion.
The legislation was hastily drafted on Thursday after GOP hardliners led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy rebelled against an early bipartisan agreement that contained several unnecessary policy riders and would have postponed the federal funding deadline until March 14.
Despite being significantly shorter than its 1,547-page predecessor, the 116-page bill still covers a number of significant topics unrelated to sustaining government operations.
The debt ceiling was suspended and the federal funding deadline was extended to March 14 in the most recent version of the agreement, which Trump had supported during his campaign.
It recommended keeping the debt ceiling in place for two years, until January 2027, and postponing that fight until after the 2026 congressional midterm elections.
The updated package included nearly $110 billion in disaster relief funds for Americans affected by storms Milton and Helene, as well as a measure to pay for the reconstruction of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, which was damaged by a barge earlier this year.
The second-round measure omitted a plan to revitalize Washington, D.C.’s RFK Stadium and the first pay raise for congressional lawmakers since 2009.
The language of the amended bill was also significantly shortened, going from 1,547 pages to just 116.
“Tonight, all Republicans, including Democrats, should vote in favor of this bill for the sake of our nation.” Trump shared something on Truth Social.
However, the bill faced opposition before the legislative language was even released to the public.
Democrats were furious with Johnson for violating their original bipartisan agreement and yelled “Hell no” during their closed-door conference meeting on Thursday night to discuss the plan.
