President-elect Donald Trump hasn’t set foot in the White House yet but already appears to be running Washington after torpedoing a bipartisan spending deal and forcing Congress to take up a tailored measure more to his liking.
The transition hasn’t been smooth.
Democrats and dozens of Republicans blocked the Trump-revised legislation on Thursday, leaving Congress with a single day to devise a stopgap bill that can win House and Senate approval and prevent a partial government shutdown.
Whether the legislation ultimately passes or Washington is shuttered for the first time in five years because of a lapse in funding, Mr. Trump will own it, even before he takes the oath of office.
While President Biden mainly lay low this week, attending a memorial service in Delaware, Mr. Trump was busy steering the action inside the U.S. Capitol as it barreled toward a shutdown.
He sent Vice President-elect J.D. Vance and his incoming legislative liaison into the House Republican leadership offices to ensure Republicans ripped up a 1,500-page, bipartisan measure loaded with Democratic spending and policy priorities, not to mention pay raises for lawmakers.
SEE ALSO: Speaker Johnson blames Democrats for killing second government funding plan
By Thursday afternoon, the president-elect had negotiated a spending package of just 116 pages, minus the pay raises, and stripped it of the extraneous spending goodies and liberal policies that enraged conservatives.
Democrats were shut out of the talks.
Mr. Trump coerced Republican lawmakers into adding a provision suspending the debt limit until midway through his term. He said this move would clear the agenda in Congress next year for his top priorities, including tax cuts and border security.
“SUCCESS in Washington!” Mr. Trump, who is planning his new administration from his home in Florida, posted on Truth Social after the new legislation was announced.
Mr. Trump’s outsized influence in the Capitol raised questions about Mr. Biden’s low-key final days in office.
While he hunkered down in Delaware, a bombshell Wall Street Journal report chronicled how his personal aides for years shielded the president’s mental decline from the public and even his Cabinet.
Mr. Trump appeared more than willing to fill the void, but he has taken command of what could become a political disaster by wading in before his term.
Democrats universally rejected the bill, angered that the 1,500-page legislation they negotiated with House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, was scuttled by Mr. Trump and his top government efficiency advisers, billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
Mr. Ramaswamy and Mr. Musk posted in opposition to the measure Wednesday afternoon. By early evening, Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance weighed in against it.
“President Musk said, don’t do it! Shut the government down!” the top Democrat on the appropriations committee, Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, taunted on the House floor.
Some Republicans also voted against the measure because it would add to the deficit.
An earlier funding bill expires Friday at midnight, leaving lawmakers with a day to pass a stopgap measure through the House and Senate.
Partial government shutdowns typically do not affect essential services immediately but are viewed negatively by the public. Typically, Republicans are blamed, even when Democrats play a role in failing to pass spending bills on time.
Republicans said late Thursday that they would work through the night to develop a new plan.
Rep. Dusty Johnson said the failed bill is dead and Republicans have started discussing other options.
“Let’s just put on our big-boy, big-girl pants. Let’s understand that we got to get to 218 here, and we got to get 60 over there,” the South Dakota Republican said, referring to the House and Senate. “Ideas that don’t move us in that direction are not helpful.”
Speaker Johnson sought to blame Democrats after the vote, telling reporters that it was “very disappointing” that all but two Democrats “voted against aid to farmers and ranchers, against disaster relief, against all these bipartisan measures that had already been negotiated and decided upon.”
The measure failed to win even a simple majority under rules that required two-thirds support for passage, losing a 174-235 vote in the House, with 197 Democrats and 38 Republicans voting against it.
Mr. Trump tried unsuccessfully to whip Republicans into voting for the measure by posting a primary threat against Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican who led the Republican charge against the bill because it increased the deficit and extended federal borrowing without spending reforms.
“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,” Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social.
In a later post to appease the Republican fiscal hawks, Mr. Trump promised, “The United States will cut Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in spending next year” using a budget procedure that circumvents the Senate filibuster.
Mr. Roy said the bill was an improvement over the 1,500-page legislation but he was “absolutely sickened” by the deficit spending in the latest version.
“The entire body has been racking up debt for my entire life,” Mr. Roy said, excoriating lawmakers on the House floor.
Mr. Biden did not comment on the spending battle, even as a shutdown loomed by the end of Friday.
He returned to the White House from Delaware on Thursday afternoon and did not speak to the press.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre announced that Mr. Biden will travel to Italy from Jan. 9-12 to meet with Italian government officials and Pope Francis.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.
• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.
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