Government shutdown looms as House fails to pass funding bill championed by Musk and Trump
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images, Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
- The House of Representatives failed to pass a pared-down spending bill.
- The vote came after President-elect Donald Trump tanked a bipartisan version that looked set to pass.
- The move pushes the government closer to a holiday shutdown.
The House of Representatives on Thursday failed to pass a stripped-down spending bill following a tumultuous 48 hours on the Hill, pushing the government closer to a partial shutdown right before the holidays.
Republicans in the House said they had settled on a new version of the continuing resolution ahead of the vote on Thursday after President-elect Donald Trump tanked a previous spending bill that initially won bipartisan support.
But the final vote was 174-235-1. Thirty-eight Republicans flouted Trump and voted against the continuing resolution.
On Wednesday, Trump came out hard against the original continuing resolution, urging Republican lawmakers to renegotiate the bill and threatening to primary those who failed to fall in line.
The president-elect's apparent turnabout came after billionaire Elon Musk publicly backed the idea of shutting down the government until the day Trump is inaugurated. Musk railed against the resolution, which he said included items unrelated to government funding, such as pay raises for lawmakers and pandemic preparedness.
Musk, who has been tapped to lead the Department of Government Efficiency alongside fellow billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, celebrated the pared-down spending bill ahead of the failed Thursday vote.
"This shows how much your voice matters!" the Tesla CEO wrote on X. "And having a President like @realDonaldTrump means that your voice is finally heard."
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle seem to agree that Musk played a major role in killing the original bill. Some have expressed concern about the outsized influence Musk seems to have on Trump. The president-elect, for his part, has pushed back on suggestions that Musk is the one in control.
The continuing resolution that failed to pass on Thursday was smaller in scope than the original legislation. Among the items cut from the bipartisan resolution included funding for a child cancer research program, funding for research on premature labor, money for treatment of sickle cell disease, money for early cancer detection, a program for Down syndrome research, and an anti-deepfake porn bill.
The newer version of the resolution would have kept the government funded through mid-March and suspended the nation's debt ceiling until January 2027.
Trump encouraged Republican lawmakers to back the new version of the bill on Thursday.
House Democrats, on the other hand, expressed frustration about the series of events. CNN reported Thursday that Democrats could be heard chanting "hell no" during a caucus meeting ahead of the vote.
If lawmakers fail to reach an agreement, a partial shutdown would lead to suspended funding for many government entities and withheld paychecks for thousands of federal employees right before the holidays.