Trump and Musk send DC in tailspin with spending bill attacks as government shutdown nears: Live updates
The proposed continuing resolution, championed by GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson, would have kept agencies running at current funding levels through to mid-March 2025
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump and JD Vance appear to have guaranteed a bitter showdown with Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill after demanding that the House and Senate effectively force the federal government to shut down, rather than pass a stop-gap funding bill championed by GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson.
Johnson’s bipartisan deal would have kept agencies running at current funding levels through to mid-March 2025 but the president-elect and his deputy issued a statement complaining the bill does not address the nation’s statutory debt ceiling, urging the passage of a “streamlined” alternative version “that doesn’t give... the Democrats everything they want.”
Democrats have meanwhile mocked tech billionaire Elon Musk’s undue influence over the incoming administration, with Senator Bernie Sanders ironically praising “President Elon Musk” on X.
While Trump told Fox News Digital Johnson will “easily remain speaker” he added a caveat reiterating his earlier statement. Among the names floated as potential replacements for Johnson is Musk, with Senator Rand Paul noting the role is not limited to members of Congress.
Meanwhile, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been removed from Trump’s sprawling election interference case by Georgia’s Court of Appeals which ruled her relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade was a conflict of interest.
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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