El Cheato rather abruptly rejected the bipartisan plan yesterday to prevent a government shutdown for Christmas. Instead, he ordered Mike Johnson and Republicans to renegotiate — days before a deadline when federal funding runs out. Via the Associated Press:
Trump’s sudden entrance into the debate and new demands sent Congress spiraling as lawmakers are trying to wrap up work and head home for the holidays. It leaves Johnson scrambling to engineer a new plan before Friday’s deadline to keep government open. “Republicans must GET SMART and TOUGH,” Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance said in a statement.
The president-elect made an almost unrealistic proposal that combined the some continuation of government funds along with a much more controversial provision to raise the nation’s debt limit — something his own party routinely rejects. “Anything else is a betrayal of our country,” they wrote.
Democrats decried the GOP revolt over the stopgap measure, which would have also provided some $100 billion in disaster aid to states hammered by Hurricanes Helene and Milton and other natural disasters.
But it gets interesting. Hakim Jeffries is pissed off and says he won’t bail out the Republicans:
