Trump joins Elon Musk in opposing House GOP's government funding bill
President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday came out against a Republican-backed government funding bill, siding with Elon Musk’s crusade against the package and raising the odds of a government shutdown.
Trump is opposed to the continuing resolution put forward by Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, according to a source familiar with the president-elect’s thinking, who was granted anonymity to describe private conversations.
The source confirmed that Trump told a Fox News host he is “totally against” the CR.
Later Wednesday afternoon, Vice President-elect and Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, released a joint statement from him and Trump declaring that politicians should “pass a streamlined bill” that doesn’t give Democrats “everything they want.”
“Republicans want to support our farmers, pay for disaster relief, and set our country up for success in 2025. The only way to do that is with a temporary funding bill WITHOUT DEMOCRAT GIVEAWAYS combined with an increase in the debt ceiling,” read the statement posted by Vance on X.
“Anything else is a betrayal of our country,” their statement read.
Their opposition adds significant weight to Musk’s sustained effort throughout the day to tank the 1,547-page bill, which he says is laden with wasteful pork-barrel spending.
If there is no legislation passed by the House and Senate and signed by the president to fund the government after Friday night, the federal government would start enacting a partial shutdown that could include employee furloughs.
Musk, whom Trump has tapped to co-lead an advisory group aimed at slashing purported government waste, did not appear concerned with the prospect of a government shutdown one week before Christmas.
″‘Shutting down’ the government (which doesn’t actually shut down critical functions btw) is infinitely better than passing a horrible bill,” Musk wrote in one of dozens of X posts railing against the CR.
In another post, Musk asserted that “no bills should be passed” by Congress until Trump takes office on Jan. 20.
A growing number of Republican lawmakers have taken Musk’s side, potentially forcing Johnson, R-La., to pass the resolution using a process known as “suspension” of the traditional House rules process.
Passing bills under suspension requires that the bill win support from two-thirds of the House, but bypasses other procedural steps.
Democrats would need to join Republicans to pass the bill under suspension, and as of Wednesday morning, a suspension passage of the CR appeared to be the most likely path to funding the government.
Johnson said Wednesday morning that he had been texting overnight with Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy about the bill.
“They understand the situation. They said, ‘It’s not directed to you, Mr. Speaker, but we don’t like the spending.’ I said, ‘Guess what, fellas, I don’t either,’” Johnson told Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends.”
But “we’ve got to get this done,” Johnson said he told Musk and Ramaswamy, because “by doing this, we are clearing the decks” for Trump to enact his agenda.
The rebellion within his ranks over the CR could threaten Johnson’s chances of once again being elected House speaker on Jan. 3, when he will need majority support of the full chamber to reclaim the gavel.
Johnson became speaker in October 2023, following the GOP-led ouster of former Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. While Johnson won his party’s nomination to continue as speaker, multiple House Republicans on Wednesday declined to say if they would back him for the role when the next Congress convenes with an even slimmer GOP majority.
Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, the chair of the Republican Study Committee, said “we’ll see what transpires” when asked if he would vote for Johnson for speaker, Punchbowl News reported.
He later walked back the comment, saying he supports Johnson for speaker, and meant to express uncertainty only about what would happen next with the continuing resolution.
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., said he will vote for someone else for speaker, Punchbowl reported.
The short-term funding bill, which would keep the government open until mid-March, was unveiled Tuesday evening, just days before federal funding is set to expire.
The bill includes more than $100 billion in disaster relief funding aimed to address devastating hurricanes that tore through states including Florida and North Carolina earlier this year.
President Joe Biden has not specifically weighed in on the bill. Wednesday marked the 52nd anniversary of the death of his first wife and baby daughter in a 1972 car crash. Biden spent the day with family, attending a church service and honoring their memory.