US House Passes Last-minute Bill To Keep Government Open

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The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday approved a stopgap funding measure with just hours to spare, clearing the way for Congress to avoid a government shutdown after days of fighting at the Capitol.

The bill passed by the House did not include any changes to the debt ceiling, defying Donald Trump’s call to eliminate or increase the mechanism.

But the measure won bipartisan support in the House, with Democrats joining Republicans to pass the bill 366-34 shortly after 6 p.m. in Washington, six hours before the deadline.

The Democratic-controlled Senate must now vote on the bill before it reaches the desk of President Joe Biden, who will support the legislation, according to the White House press secretary.

The bill’s enactment will end a week of volatility in Washington as Trump and his ally Elon Musk exerted their influence on hardline Republicans, pushing them to reject what they said were “gifts” to Democrats.

Before the bill passed on Friday, Musk expressed his continued disdain for the bill: “So, is this a Republican or Democratic bill?”

The approved measure was House Speaker Mike Johnson’s third attempt to get a deal passed in the chamber after Trump torpedoed the first bipartisan deal earlier in the week.

The new bill was almost identical to Johnson’s second, but eliminated any measures to increase or suspend the debt ceiling, despite Trump’s demands. Expands government funding to current levels and provides aid for natural disaster relief and farmers.

Johnson said after the bill’s passage that he had spoken to Trump and Musk shortly before the vote and received their blessing.

Trump “knew exactly what we were doing and why, and this is a good result for the country. “I think he’s happy with this outcome, too,” he told reporters at the Capitol.

Johnson said he asked Musk, ‘Hey, do you want to be speaker of the House?’ . . . He said, “This may be the hardest job in the world.” Is.”

Elon Musk and I spoke about an hour ago and talked about the extraordinary challenges of this job. And I said, Hey, do you want to be speaker of the house? I don’t know. He said this may be the hardest job in the world.

The House approval marked a victory for Johnson, who had promised earlier that day that the United States “would not have a closed government.”

A shutdown would temporarily shut down parts of the government and suspend federal employees’ salaries. Previous government shutdowns have forced hundreds of thousands of federal workers to be laid off.

Trump’s imminent presence at the debate has been the biggest complicating factor in the frenetic negotiations to find a last-minute deal.

But as soon as voting began, Musk changed his mind, saying Johnson “did a good job here, given the circumstances.” It went from a bill that weighed pounds to a bill that weighed ounces. The ball should now be in the Democratic court.”

Democrats, angry that the previous bipartisan agreement was abandoned, have blamed Musk for inserting himself into the process this week, sparking more turmoil in Congress just before the US holiday season.

“At the behest of the richest man in the world whom no one voted for, the United States Congress has been thrown into chaos,” Democrat Rosa DeLauro said of Musk on Thursday.

Some senior Republicans also appeared to criticize Trump and Musk’s interventions.

“I don’t care to count how many times I have reminded him. . . Our House counterparts know how damaging it is to shut down the government and how foolish it is to bet that their own side won’t take the blame for it,” Mitch McConnell, the outgoing Senate Republican leader, said Friday.

“That said, if I took it personally every time my advice wasn’t listened to, I probably wouldn’t have spent so much time on this particular job.”

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