Trump-backed spending bill goes down in flames as shutdown looms

A bill to avert a partial government shutdown that was backed by President-elect Trump failed to pass the House of Representatives on Thursday night.

Congress is approaching the possibility of a partial shutdown, with the deadline at the end of Friday.

The bill needed two-thirds of the House floor to pass, but it didn’t even get a majority. Two Democrats voted with most Republicans to pass the bill, while 38 Republican lawmakers pushed Trump to oppose it.

The margin fell 174 to 235.

It comes after two days of chaos in Congress as lawmakers battled among themselves over a path forward on government spending — a fight joined by Trump and allies Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.

Meanwhile, the national debt has risen to more than $36 trillion, and the national deficit is over $1.8 trillion.

The legislation was rushed through Thursday after GOP hardliners led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy rebelled against an initial bipartisan deal that would have extended the government funding deadline to March 14 and included a series of unrelated policies.

The new deal also includes several key policies unrelated to keeping the government open, but the 116-page bill is much more limited than its 1,547-page predecessor.

Like the initial bill, the new iteration extended the government funding deadline to March 14, while suspending the debt limit, which Trump had pushed for.

He proposed suspending the debt limit for two years until January 2027, keeping it still in Trump’s term, but delaying that fight until after the 2026 midterm congressional elections.

The new proposal also included roughly $110 billion in disaster relief aid for Americans affected by Hurricanes Milton and Helene, as well as a measure to cover the cost of rebuilding Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge , which was hit by a barge earlier this year.

Excluded from the second-round measure is the first pay raise for congressional lawmakers since 2009 and a measure aimed at revitalizing RFK Stadium in Washington, DC.

The text of the new bill was also significantly shorter, from 1,547 pages to just 116.

“All Republicans, and even Democrats, should do what’s best for our country, and vote ‘YES’ on this bill, tonight!” Trump wrote in Social Truth.

But the bill hit opposition even before the legislative text was published.

Democrats, furious with Johnson for reneging on their original bipartisan deal, chanted “No, no” at their closed-door conference call Thursday night to discuss the bill.

Almost all House Democrats who left the meeting indicated they were voting against it.

Meanwhile, members of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus also said they would vote against the bill.

Old bill: 110BB deficit spend (unpaid), $0 increase on national credit card. New bill: 110BB of deficit spending (unpaid), $4 trillion debt ceiling increase + with $0 in structural reforms for the cuts. read the bill – 1.5 hours I will vote no,” wrote Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas.