A Potential Government Shutdown for the Holidays

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Senator Gillibrand will join us in about 10 minutes for her monthly Call Your Senator segment where she takes my questions and yours. But we want to set it up a little by doing a short background briefing for you and me alike because I'm confused too about this breaking news in the last half a day or so that President-elect Trump and Elon Musk intervened at the last minute to kill a bipartisan government spending bill for the next three months that House Speaker Mike Johnson and Democratic leaders had agreed on. This might also even sink Mike Johnson's ability to continue as speaker and many government agencies now may shut down when the money officially runs out tomorrow night. So what just happened here and why?

With us for a few minutes now is Kadia Goba politics reporter for Semafor. Kadia, thanks so much for hopping on with us on short notice today. Welcome back to WNYC.

Kadia Goba: Thank you for having me, Brian. Happy to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Trump posted that any Republican who votes for the spending bill should be primaried and "we should pass a streamlined spending bill that doesn't give Chuck Schumer and the Democrats everything they want". What Democratic priorities is he trying to block?

Kadia Goba: Democrats and Republicans in the Congress had agreed on a stopgap to fund the government until March 14th. There were some provisions in there like disaster funding, a one-year extension on the Farm Bill, there was a pay raise put in there as well. Well, it's a complicated procedure, but the assumption was that Congress, once this passed, would get a pay raise a little over 3% and some money for Key Bridge that fell in Baltimore, as well as a land exchange for an NFL team.

Democrats and Republicans had negotiated this, came to the table and were prepared as we know it to come to the floor. Then there was just this onslaught of online pushback and then ultimately, from Elon Musk and then President-elect Donald Trump, as well as Vice President-elect Vance, J.D. Vance, who essentially said they want a clean bill, which means none of the provisions, and then they want to end the debt limit issue. It complicated issues and it took Democrats by surprise.

Brian Lehrer: Let me come back to the debt limit in a minute because what the Republican president-elect wants to raise the debt ceiling, that goes against type, but Politico says Democratic lawmakers had been touting the wins for their side in the legislation, including $100 billion in disaster aid, as you mentioned, also child care funding and health care provisions. I'm curious if you know anything about the child care and health care items that that might refer to.

Kadia Goba: There were a bunch of PBM provisions in the bill and--

Brian Lehrer: That's pharmacy benefit managers?

Kadia Goba: Correct, and again, I have to say these were agreed upon by the speaker of the House and Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic minority. So, again, it was surprising that this didn't come to fruition. Now, let me be clear. There are some Republicans who did not appreciate the additional provisions because they are very conscious about spending, but historically, for the past two years, Republicans have always depended on Democrats to help them fund the government. So there was enough Democratic support for this bill and enough Republican support to get it across the line.

Brian Lehrer: There's at least one big difference between this and the usual attempts from some Republicans to cut spending and sink spending bills, and you referred to it. Trump is asking Congress to lift the debt ceiling. Now, usually the Tea Party or Freedom Caucus position is don't lift the debt ceiling. That only allows the government to keep borrowing, which runs up the national debt and enables more unnecessary, as they see it, government spending. Why does Trump want to raise the debt ceiling? Why is that one of his objections to this bill, which wouldn't have done that?

Kadia Goba: I want to give some context here. The president-elect has a very robust agenda next year, and it will cost a lot of money. In the middle of that, they have to do two things. They have to fund the government and they have to ultimately have a debt limit fight. Trump doesn't want to deal with that next year because it will interfere with the time in which he can get his agenda done. When I say agenda, I mean changes in energy, the border provisions and other things that Republicans have been touting, as well as the tax cut from 2017, restoring those or making sure that they don't expire.

They just actually don't have enough time to accomplish all of this and then have two other fights in the middle of it. They also have a very, very slim majority to be like one to two people, and they're just not assured they'll get all of those things across the line, so why intervene? Why have a fight about the debt limit? He's trying to put that in the forefront-

Brian Lehrer: Yes, put that to rest.

Kadia Goba: -so they don't have to deal with it then.

Brian Lehrer: Does that mean he's a big government Republican?

Kadia Goba: I guess this is where that populism comes in and everybody talks about it's ironic that Republicans fight about cutting spending, but at the same time, President-elect Trump has been known to be a typically big spender when it comes to government, when it comes to accomplishing what he wants.

Brian Lehrer: We have Senator Gillibrand standing by. Just tell us what happens now with the spending? Can Congress with a slim Republican majorities that it has scramble a new stopgap spending bill by tomorrow night, that'll get enough votes there and have the Donald and Elon seal of approval?

Kadia Goba: Yes, we wait and see. Most people do not want to shut down the government, but I have to say, it will be, I think, extremely detrimental for Republicans in seeing how this played out if they are responsible for shutting down the government as a new president, a new Republican president is coming in. They have until December 20th, tomorrow, Friday at 11:59 to figure this out. We have no indication. We know leaders came in as early as 8:00 this morning. We don't have an indication of how far the progress is, but I assume a lot of people from the incoming administration will be on the Hill today trying to pan this out.

Brian Lehrer: Well, let me tack one on here. Maybe they actually want the government shutdown, Trump and Musk. I see that Musk did tweet something to the effect that a government shutdown wouldn't hurt anybody anyway, and some Freedom Caucus types have said in recent years, "Let's just shut down the government. Let's show people how unnecessary many of these agencies are and then we'll really be in a position to streamline spending." Is that really what Musk might be after here?

Kadia Goba: I mean, sure, it's unclear if the president-elect is wanting that or saying that and if he's speaking for him. But when I talk to some Republicans privately, one of their gripes is that it's interesting that a billionaire is saying that people who won't have a job or won't be able to go to work after a government shutdown. It's pretty rich that that's coming from a billionaire who won't ultimately be impacted. People are privately saying that and like I said, no one wants to be blamed for something like that.

Brian Lehrer: Right, and that certainly would be one of the immediate effects, a lot of government workers wouldn't be getting paid on Christmas week. Kadia Goba, politics reporter for Semafor. Thanks for jumping on with us right from Capitol Hill there. We really appreciate it.

Kadia Goba: Thanks for having me.

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