Trump-backed spending deal tanked after Musk wades in, with government shutdown imminent: Live
Democrats tanked the bill, which leaves Congress with no clear plan to avert an imminent government shutdown that could bring chaos before Christmas
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Your support makes all the difference.A Donald Trump-backed spending bill has failed in the House vote tonight, after billionaire Elon Musk waded in to scupper a previous bipartisan deal.
Democrats tanked the bill, which leaves Congress with no clear plan to avert an imminent government shutdown that could bring chaos before Christmas.
Reacting to the vote, Musk blasted House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and said the bill could have helped states reeling from hurricanes earlier this year.
“Shame on @RepJeffries for rejecting a fair & simple spending bill that is desperately needed by states suffering from hurricane damage!” Musk said in a post on X.
Congressional leaders are regrouping and considering what to do next.
Earlier today the president-elect celebrated the deal and claimed would keep the government open and push the debt ceiling deadline back two years.
House Speaker Mike Johnson’s previous bipartisan deal would have kept agencies running at current funding levels through to mid-March 2025 but the president-elect and JD Vance issued a statement on Wednesday complaining the bill does not address the nation’s statutory debt ceiling.
Democrats have meanwhile mocked tech billionaire Musk’s undue influence over the incoming administration, with Senator Bernie Sanders ironically praising “President Elon Musk” on X.
Progressive caucus chair Greg Casar suggests Trump hand Musk Oval Office or Johnson turn over gavel
New Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar of Texas was asked by CSPAN about the status of the continuing resolution ahead of Friday’s midnight deadline: “Republicans just seem to be going nuts and we’ll see what it is they decide to do to the country.”
“If Elon Musk is kind of cosplaying co-President here, I don’t know why Trump doesn’t just hand him the Oval Office, or Speaker Johnson should maybe just hand Elon Musk the gavel if they just want that billionaire to run the country,” he added.
BREAKING: DA Fani Willis booted from Trump’s election interference case in Georgia
A ruling from Georgia’s Court of Appeals removes Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from prosecuting a sprawling election interference case against Donald Trump and more than a dozen of his allies, upending the ongoing criminal case against the president-elect weeks before he returns to the White House.
Alex Woodward is reporting on this breaking story...
DA Fani Willis booted from Trump’s election interference case in Georgia
Appeals court ruling determined her relationship with special prosecutor warrants dismissal
Former Obama aide says failure to punish CEOs for 2008 crash contributed to Trump’s rise
The Democrats’ failure to punish “greedy” CEOs for the 2008 financial crash contributed to the rise of Donald Trump, argues Obama’s former White House chief of staff.
Rahm Emanuel, the outgoing U.S. ambassador to Japan, criticized the party for being “blind to the rising sea of disillusionment” that has been simmering for years in America, he wrote in a column for the Washington Post titled “The road back to power for Democrats.”
Emanuel, who was Obama’s White House chief of staff from 2009–2010, said the disillusionment began in 2003 with the Iraq War and rumbled on into 2008, where “unchecked greed led to the collapse of the global financial system.”
Rhian Lubin has the story.
Dems’ failure to punish CEOs for 2008 crash contributed to Trump’s rise: Obama aide
Rahm Emanuel criticized the Democrats for being ‘blind to the rising sea of disillusionment’ that has been simmering for years in America
Johnson facing major hurdles over spending bill and debt ceiling — and the clock is ticking...
Speaker Mike Johnson faces several major hurdles today.
He has to come up with a spending deal while appeasing calls from Trump to either raise or eliminate the debt ceiling — and he has 24 hours to work out how to do that while making sure he can keep his job on January 3.
Some Republicans will never raise the debt ceiling without spending cuts and reforms...
And there are plenty of members of the House in both parties who want specific things from the continuing resolution and who won’t back down unless they get them...
“The situation is fluid,” says GOP Whip Tom Emmer.
‘The winds of winning'
Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner seemed incredibly impressed on Wednesday over the new hairstyle Donald Trump unveiled this week at Mar-a-Lago, quipping that it’s the “winds of winning” and that it showed he was “leaning into the victory” of his election.
Justin Barangoa reports.
Fox News anchor gushes over Trump's new hairdo, calls it ‘the winds of winning’
After her co-hosts argued that Trump was probably just suffering from hat hair, Harris Faulkner added: “I mean, this man has probably sold more hats than anyone on the planet in recent years.”
Trump doesn’t want to just raise debt ceiling, he wants to get rid of it
Donald Trump doesn’t want to just lift the debt ceiling — he’s keen to get rid of it, telling Garrett Haake of NBC News: “The Democrats have said they want to get rid of it. If they want to get rid of it, I would lead the charge.”
Asked if he still has confidence in Speaker Mike Johnson, he says: “We’ll see. What they had yesterday was unacceptable,” he told me, referring to the Speaker’s continuing resolution. “In many ways it was unacceptable. It’s a Democrat trap.”
U.S. applications for unemployment benefits come back down after last week’s big rise
The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell markedly last week following a big increase the week before.
Jobless claim applications declined by 22,000 to 220,000 for the week of Dec. 14, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s fewer than the 229,000 analysts were forecasting.
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