US govt shutdown looms as late-hour interventions from Trump, Musk kill funding deal

The United States was on the brink of a government shutdown Thursday, with a looming deadline to avert a holiday-period closure.

According to an AFP report, the crisis was triggered by late-hour interventions from former President Donald Trump and tech mogul Elon Musk, which jeopardised efforts in Congress to pass a temporary funding bill.

Federal funding for government agencies is set to expire at midnight Friday, and lawmakers had reached an agreement on a stopgap measure, known as a “continuing resolution” (CR), to extend operations through the New Year, added the report.

However, conservative lawmakers in the House of Representatives objected to what they called an overinflated package of “pork” spending, which they argued included unnecessary provisions unrelated to the bill’s core purpose.

Despite this opposition, the CR appeared poised for passage.

That was until Musk, the world’s richest man and President-elect Trump’s incoming “efficiency czar” intervened. Musk, with 208 million followers on X (formerly Twitter), posted a series of tweets criticising the bill, many of which contained misleading or false claims.

Within hours, Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance joined the fray, releasing a statement condemning the bill’s provisions and demanding that it include an increase in the US debt limit, reported AFP.

Trump said Congress should not keep the government operating unless it also eliminates limits on the federal debt, which has grown rapidly over the past decade and now tops $36 trillion.

“The debt ceiling should be thrown out entirely,” Reuters quoted Trump as saying.

Unless a deal passes the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Democratic-majority Senate, the US government will begin a partial shutdown on Saturday that would interrupt funding for everything from air travel to law enforcement in the days leading up to Christmas and cut off paychecks for more than 2 million federal workers. Many government operations, such as Social Security retirement payments, would continue, reported Reuters.

Raising the debt ceiling is a lengthy process that usually takes weeks of negotiation and requires approval from both chambers of Congress. With the shutdown deadline fast approaching, lawmakers were left scrambling to resolve the crisis.

The chaotic situation offered a preview of potential challenges ahead in Trump’s second term, sparking questions about why a private citizen with no official government role, such as Musk, could wield such influence in shaping the nation’s legislative agenda.

“It’s weird to think that Elon Musk will end up having paid far less for the United States Government than he did for Twitter,” prominent conservative lawyer and Trump critic George Conway posted.

As time ran short, House Republicans and Democrats gathered separately to begin the seemingly impossible task of coming up with a Plan B with just hours to spare.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson was being criticised from all sides for having misjudged his own members’ tolerance for the bill’s spiraling costs, and for allowing himself to have been blindsided by Musk and Trump.

He is expected to introduce a slimmed-down funding patch, attaching a borrowing limit and removing most of the add-ons.

But Democrats, who control the Senate, have little political incentive to help Republicans and say they will only vote for the agreed package, meaning Trump’s party will have to go it alone.

This is something the fractious, divided party - which can afford to lose only a handful of members in any House vote - has not managed in any major bill in this Congress.

Asked if Democrats would support a pared-back bill with an extended borrowing cap, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries offered little hope that he would bail Johnson out.

He said talk of dealing with the debt limit was “premature.”

“House Democrats are going to continue to fight for families, farmers and the future of working-class Americans. And in order to do that, the best path forward is the bipartisan agreement that we negotiated,” he told reporters.

Trouble with the bill began during the negotiations, as Republican leaders demanded billions of dollars in economic aid to farmers, prompting Democrats to start making their own requests.

While voicing frustration over spending levels, Trump’s main objection was that Congress was leaving him to handle a debt-limit increase - invariably a contentious, time-consuming fight – rather than including it in the text.

He said Wednesday that “everything should be done, and fully negotiated” before he takes office.

But conservatives are generally against increasing the country’s massive borrowing – currently standing at $36.2 trillion - and multiple Republicans have never voted for a hike.

The Biden administration estimates that the debt limit won’t actually be reached until the summer of 2025 and Republicans had been planning to handle an extension as part of other legislation.

The disarray jeopardizes $100 billion in disaster relief in the bill to help Americans hit by two devastating hurricanes in the fall, as well as $30 billion in aid for farmers.