President Joe Biden signed legislation Saturday that will keep federal agencies funded through March 14, avoiding a holiday season government shutdown. However, this bill didn’t include a key demand from President-elect Donald Trump.
In a Thursday Truth Social post, Trump said a failed version of the bill that eventually passed included a “VERY important piece, VITAL to the America First Agenda,” that would have pushed the date of the debt ceiling out two years. That’s the piece that was left of the bill Congress eventually pushed through.
House Speaker Mike Johnson’s first attempt at the spending bill was met with criticism from Trump and his close ally, South African tech mogul Elon Musk. Both Trump and Musk praised a failed a second version of the bill that included Trump’s debt ceiling demand but that failed in the House.
In remarks to reporters late Friday, Johnson said he spoke with Trump and that the president-elect “knew exactly what we were doing and why,” and added that “I think he certainly is happy about this outcome as well.”
“Trump’s last-minute demand was almost an impossible ask, and Johnson had almost no choice but to work around his pressure for a debt ceiling increase,” the Associated Press noted. “The speaker knew there wouldn’t be enough support within the GOP majority to pass any funding package, since many Republican deficit hawks prefer to slash the federal government and certainly wouldn’t allow more debt.”
Some lawmakers slammed Musk’s involvement after he posted multiple messages on X about the spending bill Wednesday. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, even called him “President Musk.”
“Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, is threatening to unseat elected officials if they do not follow his orders to shut down the government during the holidays,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in a Wednesday X post. “Are we still a democracy or have we already moved to oligarchy and authoritarianism?”
While the multi-billionaire owner of Tesla, SpaceX and X isn’t an elected official, Trump has announced that Musk will lead a new efficiency task force along with businessman and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. Johnson also said Friday that he spoke with Musk.
“We talked about the extraordinary challenges of this job, and I said: ‘Hey, do you want to be Speaker of the House… I don’t know,’” said Johnson. He added that Musk said the speaker role “might be the hardest job in the world.”
“The Speaker did a good job here, given the circumstances,” said Musk in a Friday X post.
In addition to funding the government, H.R. 10545 – or the “American Relief Act, 2025” – provides disaster relief appropriations and economic assistance to farmers, extends the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 and extends several expiring authorities, per the White House. Johnson described the bill as “America First legislation,” and said that it will help support people in areas devastated by hurricanes.
Ultimately, the only legislators who voted against the bill were Republicans, except for Sanders. He was one of 11 senators who voted “nay” on the spending bill, and 34 Republicans in the House also voted against it.
According to the AP, this indicates that Republicans will have to “routinely rely on Democrats for the votes needed to keep up with the routine operations of governing,” even with majorities in the House and Senate next year. Going forward, the outlet also said GOP lawmakers plan to debate Trump’s demand to lift the debt ceiling as part of legislation in the new year.
“Republicans made a so-called handshake agreement to raise the debt limit at that time while also cutting $2.5 trillion in spending over 10 years,” the AP reported.
Johnson said the legislation passed this week paves the way for Republicans to pass bills once Trump is in office.
“In January, we will make a sea change in Washington. President Trump will return… to DC and the White House – and we will have Republican control of the Senate and the House,” he said. “Things are going to be very different around here. This was a necessary step to bridge the gap, to put us into that moment, where we can put our fingertips on the final decisions on spending for 2025.”