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The president-elect weighed in against the mammoth spending package after Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy had spent the day attacking it and warning Republicans not to support it.
- Dec. 18, 2024, 5:12 p.m. ET
President-elect Donald J. Trump on Wednesday condemned a stopgap spending bill Republicans and Democrats agreed on this week to avert a shutdown, putting the deal on life support days before a Saturday morning deadline to fund the government.
Mr. Trump’s scathing statement came after the deal had already faced a barrage of criticism on Wednesday by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the billionaires who are leading an outside group to slash government spending during the coming Trump administration.
It was not yet clear how Speaker Mike Johnson planned to proceed as the package appeared to be hemorrhaging support. But the blowback underscored the extraordinarily fraught position top Republican leaders will have to manage next year when they control Congress and face a president with a penchant for blowing up politically fraught compromises, and a circle of influential outside players willing to threaten Republicans if they fail to accede to his wishes.
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A swell of Republican lawmakers — both ultraconservatives and some mainstream members — were already furious about the funding measure, which was rolled out on Tuesday night. It began as a simple spending bill to keep government funds flowing past a midnight deadline and into early next year, but it emerged from bipartisan negotiations laden with $100 billion in disaster aid and dozens of other, unrelated policies.
The final nail in the coffin appeared to come when Mr. Trump weighed in on Wednesday, saying lawmakers needed to pass a “temporary funding bill WITHOUT DEMOCRAT GIVEAWAYS,” and said it should be combined with an increase in the debt ceiling, the cap on how much money the United States is authorized by Congress to borrow to meet its financial obligations.
