Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.
The House of Representatives approved a government spending bill with only a few hours left to spare before a crucial midnight deadline that would have shut down the government before Christmas.
House members voted 366-34, with one member voting present.
Those 34 votes were all Republicans.
A bill to fund the government through mid-March marked a third attempt within two days to avert a shutdown, after Donald Trump and Elon Musk commanded Congress to ditch the original bipartisan framework and left congressional Democrats and even some Republicans exhausted with the growing political influence of the world’s wealthiest person.
The funding battle glimpsed how Democrats are approaching the incoming Trump-Musk administration and how they will navigate Trump’s agenda with an extremely slim Republican majority.
Here, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries forced Republicans to fight among themselves. Republicans were openly calling for a shutdown, then whipped to accept a new deal under House Speaker Mike Johnson, while leaving out Trump’s central demand to abolish the debt ceiling.
Johnson told reporters Friday he was “in constant contact” with Trump and spoke with Musk an hour before the vote.
A government shutdown would have stalled paychecks for US military service members and forced federal agencies to close, furlough workers just before Christmas, and threaten critical services and benefits.
The president-elect had also hoped to include an agreement that would scrap the debt ceiling in an effort to grease the wheels for major items on his agenda, including massive tax cuts that would explode the deficit and a mass deportation operation that could cost billions of dollars and deal an enormous blow to the economy.
A slimmer 118-page measure covers a bulk of government funding, disaster relief and payments to farmers, but the bill removed pediatric cancer research, funding for community health centers, and prescription drug reform, among other measures.
“At the behest of the world’s richest man who no one voted for, the Congress has been thrown into pandemonium,” Democratic congresswoman Rose DeLauro, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said in remarks on the House floor. “It leads you to the question of, who is in charge? I thought that there was a Republican majority in this body. Not a ‘President Musk’ majority.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said a government shutdown heading into the holiday week “would mean service members and air traffic controllers go to work without pay, essential government services for hardworking Americans would be paused, and economic disruption would occur.”
“Following an order by President-elect Trump … Republicans walked away from a bipartisan deal and threatened to shut down the government at the 11th hour in order to pave the way to provide tax breaks for billionaires. This revised legislation does not do that,” she said.
This is a developing story