Donald Trump suffered a humiliating setback on Thursday when Republicans in Congress failed to pass a pared-down spending bill – just one day before a potential government shutdown that could disrupt Christmas travel.
By a vote of 174-235, the House of Representatives rejected the Trump-backed package, hastily assembled by Republican leaders after the president-elect and his billionaire ally Elon Musk scuttled a prior bipartisan deal.
Critics described the breakdown as an early glimpse of the chaos to come when Trump returns to the White House on 20 January. Musk’s intervention via a volley of tweets on his social media platform X was mocked by Democrats as the work of “President Musk”.
“The Musk-Johnson proposal is not serious,” Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, told reporters. “It’s laughable. Extreme Maga Republicans are driving us to a government shutdown.”
Despite Trump’s support, 38 Republicans voted against the new package along with nearly every Democrat, ensuring that it failed to reach the two-thirds threshold needed for passage and leaving the next steps uncertain.
The defiance from within Trump’s own party caught many by surprise.
The latest bill would have extended government funding into March, when Trump will be in the White House and Republicans will control both chambers of Congress. It also would have provided $100bn in disaster relief and suspended the debt. Republicans dropped other elements that had been included in the original package, such as a pay raise for members of Congress and new rules for pharmacy benefit managers.
At Trump’s urging, the new version also would have suspended limits on the national debt for two years – a move that would make it easier to pass the dramatic tax cuts he has promised and set the stage for the federal government’s $36tn in debt to continue to climb.
Before the vote, Democrats and Republicans warned that the other party would be at fault if Congress allowed the government to shut down.
Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, told reporters that the package would avoid disruption, tie up loose ends and make it easier for Congress to cut spending by hundreds of billions of dollars when Trump takes office next year. “Government is too big, it does too many things, and it does few things well,” he said.
But Democrats dismissed the bill as a cover for a budget-busting tax cut that would largely benefit wealthy backers such as Musk, the world’s richest man, while saddling the country with trillions of dollars in additional debt.
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Jeffries said during the floor debate: “How dare you lecture America about fiscal responsibility, ever?”
Jamie Raskin, a Democratic congressman, told reporters: “So who is our leader Hakeem Jeffries supposed to negotiate with? Is it Mike Johnson? Is he the speaker of the House. Or is it Donald Trump? Or is it Elon Musk? Or is it somebody else?”
Some Republicans objected that the bill would clear the way for more debt while failing to reduce spending. Congressman Chip Roy said: “I am absolutely sickened by the party that campaigns on fiscal responsibility.”
Even if the bill had passed the House, it would have faced long odds in the Senate, which is currently controlled by Democrats. The White House said Joe Biden opposed the package, adding: “Republicans are doing the bidding of their billionaire benefactors at the expense of hardworking Americans.”
Previous fights over the debt ceiling have spooked financial markets, as a US government default would send credit shocks around the world. The limit has been suspended under an agreement that technically expires on 1 January, although Congress likely will not have to tackle the issue before the spring.
The unrest also threatens to topple Johnson, who was thrust unexpectedly into the speaker’s office last year after the party’s right flank voted out then speaker Kevin McCarthy over a government funding bill. Johnson has repeatedly had to turn to Democrats for help in passing legislation when he has been unable to deliver the votes from his own party. He tried the same manoeuvre on Thursday but fell short.
Several Republicans said they would not vote for Johnson as speaker when Congress returns in January, potentially setting up another tumultuous leadership battle in the weeks before Trump takes office.
Government funding is due to expire at midnight on Friday. If Congress fails to extend that deadline, the US government will begin a partial shutdown that would interrupt funding for everything from border enforcement to national parks and cut off pay cheques for more than 2 million federal workers.
The US Transportation Security Administration has warned that travellers during the busy holiday season could face long lines at airports.