Donald Trump is desperate to pretend his shoddy leadership isn’t about to cause a government shutdown.
A “clean” spending bill, which contained a Trump-requested provision to suspend the debt ceiling for 24 months, failed to pass on the House floor Thursday evening, earning just 174 votes in favor and 235 against.
Trump tried to push the blame onto President Joe Biden, in a Truth Social post Friday.
“If there is going to be a shutdown of government, let it begin now, under the Biden Administration, not after January 20th, under ‘TRUMP,’” wrote the president-elect. “This is a Biden problem to solve, but if Republicans can help solve it, they will!”
But it’s not clear that Republicans are interested in solving anything. Thirty-eight Republicans joined 197 Democrats in voting against the pared-down bill, and a good portion of those GOP lawmakers spent the preceding 36 hours cheering on a shutdown alongside Elon Musk, the billionaire trying to run Congress through threats to oust elected officials.
Now Trump’s not even really trying to avert a shutdown but simply hoping that no one will blame him for it.
Government funding is set to expire at midnight.