Trump Pushes New Debt Ceiling Idea After Last Plan Flopped Big-Time

Trump and the rest of the GOP seem to be even more at odds over the debt ceiling than initially believed.

“Congress must get rid of, or extend out to, perhaps, 2029, the ridiculous debt ceiling. Without this, we should never make a deal,” the president-elect wrote on Truth Social in the early hours of Friday morning. “Remember, the pressure is on whoever is president.”

“If there is going to be a shutdown of government, let it begin now, under the Biden Administration, not after January 20th, under ‘TRUMP.’ This is a Biden problem to solve, but if Republicans can help solve it, they will!” he continued in another post.

This is bad news for the party of “fiscal responsibility.” Trump floated completely abolishing the debt ceiling on Thursday, telling NBC News that it would be the “smartest thing to do.”

“I would support that entirely.… The Democrats have said they want to get rid of it. If they want to get rid of it, I would lead the charge,” Trump said. “It doesn’t mean anything, except psychologically.”

On Thursday evening, the House voted on a Trump-backed spending bill that included a two-year suspension of the debt ceiling. That more modest measure was rejected by a whopping 38 Republicans who voted against. The infighting is set to come to a head on Friday, as the government will shut down at midnight Saturday if an agreement is not reached. Perhaps Republicans aren’t as beholden to Trump and his budget wishes as we initially thought.

Elon Musk really hopes you don’t remember when he was cheering on a government shutdown … less than 48 hours ago.

Shortly after a new “clean” spending bill failed to pass the House Thursday night, Musk took to X to lament how this was all the Democrats’ fault.

“A super fair & simple bill was put to a vote and only 2 Democrats in Congress were in favor,” Musk wrote. “Therefore the responsibility for the shutdown rests squarely on the shoulders of @RepJeffries.”

“Shame on @RepJeffries for rejecting a fair & simple spending bill that is desperately needed by states suffering from hurricane damage,” he wrote in another post.

Musk conveniently did not mention that 38 Republicans also voted against the bill.

And on Wednesday, Musk was more than happy to stir up revolt among the GOP. Not only did he blast the original continuing resolution and threaten any Republican who supported it, but he even ranted about how the government actually ought to shutter, at least until Donald Trump enters office.

“We’ll be fine for 33 days,” wrote one X user, to which Musk replied an enthusiastic, “YES.”

“No bills should be passed Congress until Jan 20, when @realDonaldTrump takes office. None. Zero,” Musk wrote in a separate post, which read like marching orders to the more sycophantic GOP members, some of whom began to fantasize about a Congress led by Musk himself. Yeah, it’s gotten that bad.

Musk’s major blow-up and Trump’s last-minute request to raise the debt ceiling sent House Speaker Mike Johnson scrambling to assemble a “clean” bill. By Wednesday evening, Musk’s toddler-like tantrum had gotten him exactly what he wanted: an impending government shutdown. Too bad that wasn’t what the actual president-elect, not the unelected billionaire, was hoping for.

Now Musk’s only hope is to cast blame on Democrats, who probably would’ve supported the original bipartisan bill.

Donald Trump is desperate to pretend his shoddy leadership isn’t about to cause a government shutdown.

A “clean” spending bill, which contained a Trump-requested provision to suspend the debt ceiling for 24 months, failed to pass on the House floor Thursday evening, earning just 174 votes in favor and 235 against.

Trump tried to push the blame onto President Joe Biden, in a Truth Social post Friday.

“If there is going to be a shutdown of government, let it begin now, under the Biden Administration, not after January 20th, under ‘TRUMP,’” wrote the president-elect. “This is a Biden problem to solve, but if Republicans can help solve it, they will!”

But it’s not clear that Republicans are interested in solving anything. Thirty-eight Republicans joined 197 Democrats in voting against the pared-down bill, and a good portion of those GOP lawmakers spent the preceding 36 hours cheering on a shutdown alongside Elon Musk, the billionaire trying to run Congress through threats to oust elected officials.

Now Trump’s not even really trying to avert a shutdown but simply hoping that no one will blame him for it.

Government funding is set to expire at midnight.

Mike Johnson is about to be hoist by his own petard, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries isn’t coming to the rescue this time.

During a press conference Thursday with House Democratic leaders, Jeffries was asked whether his party would consider voting for Johnson to retain the speakership amid a Republican “revolt,” if the speaker were to put something “amiable” in his continuing resolution.

“No,” Jeffries answered flatly.

The House minority leader spoke harshly about Republicans’ antics, which upended the hefty bipartisan spending bill that would have funded the government until March.

“That bipartisan agreement has now been detonated because House Republicans have been ordered to shut down the government, and hurt the very working-class Americans that many of them pretend to want to help,” Jeffries said.

CNN’s chief congressional correspondent Manu Raju posted on X that sources in a closed-door meeting said that Jeffries and other top Democrats have been “conveying to their members that they are in no mood to bail out Speaker Johnson from the spending drama after Donald Trump’s late demands.”

Raju wrote that Johnson had yet to connect with Jeffries since the original spending bill collapsed, and that Johnson was seeking a way forward among GOP members, who don’t exactly seem to be in agreement.

Late Wednesday, almost 24 hours after the 1,547-page bill had been released and Republicans had been running around like chickens with their heads cut off, Trump finally responded to the bill, demanding that House Republicans find a way to raise the debt ceiling—or abolish it altogether, he said later.

Jeffries previously moved to save Johnson’s job when Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene attempted to have him ousted in April, dismissing her motion to remove the Louisiana Republican as “pro-Putin Republican obstruction.”

While House Democrats sought to minimize the chaos eight months ago, their will to fight for the embattled Johnson to retain his gavel appears to have greatly diminished. And this time, Greene’s floated replacing Johnson with Elon Musk.

By Thursday evening, the image of a new “clean” continuing resolution began to emerge. This bill would suspend the debt ceiling for 24 months, until January 2027, as Trump had requested. It would also give $110 billion in disaster aid and extend the farm bill, while cutting some other provisions, such as one promoting the sale of high-ethanol gasoline.

House Freedom Caucus member Chip Roy has no intentions of backing down after Donald Trump personally singled him out in a threat to get with the program on the spending bill.

The president-elect cut through an unusually quiet day from him to directly attack the Republican representative, suggesting he could be primaried next if he doesn’t fall in line.

“The very unpopular ‘Congressman” from Texas, Chip Roy, is getting in the way, as usual, of having yet another Great Republican Victory—All for the sake of some cheap publicity for himself. Republican obstructionists have to be done away with. The Democrats are using them, and we can’t let that happen,” Trump wrote on TruthSocial. “Weak and ineffective people like Chip have to be dismissed as being utterly unknowledgeable as to the ways of politics, and as to Making America Great Again.”

“Chip Roy is just another ambitious guy, with no talent. By the way, how’s Bob Good doing?” he continued in another post, referencing the Republican representative from Virginia who Trump helped oust in the primaries. “I hope some talented challengers are getting ready in the Great State of Texas to go after Chip in the Primary. He won’t have a chance!”

Roy likely became Trump’s target of the day after being unsatisfied with how far the spending cuts went in the last spending bill. But despite Trump’s direct threat, Roy held his ground in a message directed to the president.

“My position is simple—I am not going to raise or suspend the debt ceiling (racking up more debt) without significant & real spending cuts attached to it,” Roy wrote on X. “I’ve been negotiating to that end. No apologies. CC: @realDonaldTrump @SpeakerJohnson @SenJohnThune @freedomcaucus.”

Trump on Thursday suggested outright abolishing the country’s debt ceiling, something that clearly makes the conservative Roy uncomfortable. On Tuesday, Roy introduced the DOGE Act to further cut federal spending on nonmilitary programs.

“We’re working right now on how to actually cut spending, which is what the voters sent me to Washington to do. So that’s what we’re working on,” Roy told the media when asked about Trump’s threat.