Donald Trump and JD Vance injected themselves further into an escalating fight over federal spending, demanding that House Republicans scrap a plan that would avert a government shutdown within days.
Trump and Vance issued a statement Wednesday insisting that Congress raise the nation’s debt ceiling and cut a range of spending proposals instead of passing the package that Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republicans had negotiated with their Democratic counterparts.
The Congressional Resolution released Tuesday gives “the Democrats everything they want,” the president-elect and vice president-elect said in a joint statement.
“The most foolish and inept thing ever done by Congressional Republicans was allowing our country to hit the debt ceiling in 2025. It was a mistake and is now something that must be addressed,” Trump and Vance said in their statement posted on Vance’s X account.
The two also said they wanted the debt ceiling debate to occur while President Joe Biden was still the president.
“Increasing the debt ceiling is not great but we’d rather do it on Biden’s watch,” they added. “If Democrats won’t cooperate on the debt ceiling now, what makes anyone think they would do it in June during our administration? Let’s have this debate now.”
Since the bill text’s release on Tuesday night, Republicans started saying they would vote against the bill, especially over a lack of spending offsets and provisions like a congressional pay raise and disaster aid.
“Republicans want to support our farmers, pay for disaster relief, and set our country up for success in 2025,” Trump and Vance said in the statement. “The only way to do that is with a temporary funding bill WITHOUT DEMOCRAT GIVEAWAYS combined with an increase in the debt ceiling. Anything else is a betrayal of our country.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, in response to the statement and putting debt ceiling negotiations back into the bill, said “Let’s see what the House does.” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said that “House Republicans have been ordered to shut down the government and hurt working class Americans that they claim to represent.”
“The Republicans are going to have the president, the Senate and the House,” Jeffries said. “They have to demonstrate the ability to govern in a responsible fashion, and if they’re going to breach a bipartisan agreement, then they own the damage that they do to the American people, entirely on their own.”
Democrats are unlikely to lend their votes to a stopgap funding bill if negotiated provisions like disaster aid and funding to repair the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge fall out of the agreement. This could leave Republicans in the lurch as a Friday shutdown deadline looms.