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The deadline is January 20th, 2025.
And a live picture of the U .S. Capitol.
Congress now less than 48 hours away from a deadline to fund the government and still no clear path toward getting a temporary spending bill passed.
As of yesterday, President -elect Donald Trump was calling for a, quote, clean.
Continuing resolution that would also address the debt ceiling, he says any Republican who doesn't take care of the debt ceiling should be.
We're good to go.
Before we get to your calls, we'll speak to a reporter.
This is Aiden Quigley.
He's budget and appropriations reporter for CQ Roll Call.
Aiden, good morning.
Good morning.
Thank you for having me.
So the government funding runs out tomorrow at midnight.
Where do things stand right now on Capitol Hill?
Right now there's a lot of confusion and uncertainty when it comes to tomorrow night's spending deadline in a way that we haven't seen since October of last year, which, as I'm sure the viewers can recall,
preceded Speaker Kevin McCarthy losing his gavel.
We are right up against the deadline with no clear plan on how to move forward.
House Republican leaders were scrambling late last night to come up with a new plan after the president -elect and his advisors who, you know, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy on the so -called Doge Committee decided to kill this bill.
So what's going on with this, with a new request for raising the debt ceiling?
Can you explain that?
Yeah, that really came out of nowhere yesterday.
It had not been a part of these spending talks, but Vice President -elect J .D. Vance sent in a tweet that President Trump wants that to be taken care of before he takes office.
Right now, the Treasury is set to run out of its barring capacity next summer, which typically the party that is in the minority uses that as a way to get some concessions from the party that's in the...
So what is the likelihood,
do you think, of an actual government shutdown?
I'm an optimist when it comes to spending and them working out a deal, but I think we are in, at least in the past few years, uncharted territory here with the Trump administration returning and a level of uncertainty when it comes to what the president -elect wants.
I mean, now it's a little more clear about his desires, but it did not become that way until Wednesday, a few days, you know, right up until the deadline.
I think at this point there's a reasonable chance.
I mean, we do have the Christmas holiday lingering, and that is always a motivator for members of Congress to work out a deal, but there's no clear path forward at this point.
And you mentioned former Speaker McCarthy losing his gavel over a similar situation.
What does it look like for Speaker Johnson keeping the speakership?
It's still a really far way away from January 3rd, at least from where I'm sitting.
There's definitely some members who are upset about how this was handled, but I think as long as he maintains the support of President -elect Trump, I think he will end up continuing to be speaker at this point.
But it's definitely a lot less certain now than it was a few days ago.
So explain how today and tomorrow play out.
What are you going to be watching?
What's the process here?
So right now we are waiting for some signs from about what their next play call is going to be.
Yesterday, you know, they had a 1 ,500 -page bill that there's $100 billion in disaster aid, $10 billion in economic aid for farmers, a lot of unrelated provisions, including a member pay raise,
transferring the ownership of RFK Stadium back to the city of D .C., and just on and on and on, many, many provisions.
And that bill is no longer moving forward.
So House Republicans are right now trying to...
Come up with a new plan that they think can get the support it needs to pass the House.
That said, Democrats are pretty clear at this point that they are not on board.
They had an agreement.
That's what they want to go with, and it will be difficult to see how we move forward at this point.
At the end of the day, we'll have to wait and see what Democrats decide to do.
It is, again, right up to Christmas, and there's a reason they put these deadlines so close to Christmas, which...
Thanks for having me.
Good morning, and Merry Christmas to you.
I'd just like to say President Musk and Vice President Trump have really got it bad this time, if you think about it.
The only people that's going to suffer is poor people, and neither one of them know what that is.
And, you know, the Congress, man, the Republican Congress has got to learn how to speak for their own minds and quit worrying about getting primaries every two years because of their threats.
These people are making me sick already, and they're not even in office.
And that's my comments.
All right, Doug.
And Eric in Kensington, Maryland.
Democrat.
Good morning, Eric.
Hey, good morning.
I agree with the sentence of your last caller.
It's going to be more of the same chaoticness.
I think the government is going to get shut down, show their power, even if it's for a day.
You know, and it is.
You know, when I think of half of my friends who voted for Trump, And this will only hurt them.
Anything that these billionaires will do is for themselves, and they will step on the poor to get there.
And I just can't believe that he won the popular vote as compared to Ronald Reagan.
It's just shameful.
And I'm a veteran.
You know, I served seven years in the infantry.
I just, I'm shocked.
And I've worked in the public in many years.
I cannot believe that this man represents the Christian national movement.
All right, Eric, and here is the Republican line in Akron, Ohio.
Justin, good morning.
Christian nationalism, but that's a silly comment.
Here's what I'm optimistic about.
I heard Aiden say he's optimistic about a spending deal.
I'm optimistic that Speaker Johnson figures out what just happened in this election.
He passes a spending bill that cuts government spending by 1%, sends it to the Senate, and the House goes home and tells Chuck Schumer to do his job for once.
The Senate is a joke.
These guys don't pass any budgets.
They haven't passed a single appropriations bill.
The Democrats are hell -bent on bankrupting America, and it's time for Mike Johnson and the Republicans to stop it immediately.
So, Justin, what would you like to see happen?
A clean CR, so no additional fundings for, say, the disaster relief, etc.?
Our government's so bloated, they can find the money they need for those additional things.
They can cut defense spending.
They can cut...
All kinds of other departments to focus on the important things that need funded.
We don't need to clean anything.
We need to stop this deficit spending.
It is crushing Americans and they're too ignorant to know what deficit spending is doing to the dollar.
They're too ignorant to know that the interest expenses on our debt are going to surpass the Pentagon.
People have got to start being smarter about economics in this country.
We've got a massive financial illiteracy problem.
All right, Justin, let's take a look at what Hakeem Jeffries says.
He's the Democratic leader in the House.
He made a statement to reporters last night saying essentially that Republicans are on their own.
House Republicans, House Democrats, Senate Republicans and Senate Democrats reached a bipartisan agreement to fund the government, keep it open and meet the needs of the American people.
We reached a bipartisan agreement to provide disaster assistance to everyday Americans whose lives have been upended and turned upside down as a result of hurricanes,
tornadoes, wildfires, floods, and other types of extreme weather events.
House Republicans have now unilaterally decided to To shut down the government and hurt everyday Americans all across this country.
House Republicans will now own any harm that is visited upon the American people that results from a government shutdown or worse.
An agreement is an agreement.
It was bipartisan, and there was nothing more to say.
That was Leader Hakeem Jeffries last night at the Capitol.
We're taking your calls, and this is Dwight, an independent in Fairfield, California.
Good morning.
Good morning, Mimi.
Good morning, Washington Journal.
First thing, Mimi, there is no such thing as a Department of Government Efficiency.
What it is is two private citizens that are walking around.
The nation's capital that are telling elected officials what it is that they are going to do.
And that's exactly what they're doing.
And as far as the government shutdown is concerned, Republicans have the ball.
The American people have spoken.
Let it fly.
Let's see what happens.
I'm 72 years old, Mimi.
I've heard this government shutdown year after year after.
I think going...
Probably all the way back to Richard Nixon, probably.
And we go through this all the time.
And as a seasoned citizen, let it fly.
Let's see what happens.
This is what the American populace voted for.
They're going to shut the government down.
And they also spoke of raising the debt ceiling.
So we know there are going to be more spending and more spending and more spending.
And we're going to get what we voted for.
When I say we, I'm speaking the majority of the American electorate who wanted this.
All right, Dwight.
We have what we have.
Thank you, Mimi.
Thank you so much.
Patty in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.
Democrat.
Hi, Patty.
I just wanted to say that I didn't vote for Elon Musk.
He is owned by Elon Musk.
He gave him hundreds of millions of dollars.
And so are now the Republicans.
These oligarchs that are now running our country, people are going to protest.
If they shut this government down, friends of mine were saying, oh, we'll never vote again anymore Republicans in office.
But if you remember what Donald Trump said, that if he gets into office, he promised his Here's Gina in Decatur,
Alabama, a Republican.
Hi, Gina.
Yes, you are.
Go right ahead.
I think.
My son and his buddy are on active duty and they just made it in at 5 :15 this morning.
So, glad to have a couple of sets of boots in the house for Christmas.
And another thing is I agree that we should shut it down, but I would like to reassure veterans, Social Security recipients, federal employees,
And as Gina said, the Senate did pass the $895 billion defense bill with CBS News saying, with controversial gender -affirming care restriction,
it said that This was approved yesterday on Wednesday, despite concern from some Democrats over a controversial policy restricting gender -affirming care for children of service members.
The vote was 85 to 14.
Senate approved the legislation, which the House passed last week.
Eleven Democrats and three Republicans voted against it in the upper chamber.
The bill now heads to the president's desk for his signature.
And Jason, Montgomery, Alabama, Independent Line, good morning.
First, I want to say I appreciate callers like Gina.
I really, really do.
My fellow Alabamian citizens that call in and just put their cards on the table and say, all right, I want the government to be shut down.
We live in a state that's dependent on federal dollars, like most red states.
The budget of Alabama is like 40 % on federal funds.
And then Gina calls in and says, hey, and turn off that 30 % or 40 % ticket.
And then what we're going to do?
And I think it's...
Alright.
All right, Jason.
And let's take a look at, this is President -elect Trump and Vice President -elect Vance's statement.
This was posted on X yesterday.
It said, increasing the debt ceiling is not great, but we'd rather do it on Biden's watch.
If Democrats won't cooperate on the debt ceiling now, what makes anyone think they would do it in June during our administration?