An impasse over the budget and the threat of a government shutdown dominated political news earlier this week.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Midnight was the deadline, and they didn’t have any time to spare. Congress has narrowly averted a government shutdown after passing a temporary spending measure, along with some other must-dos. NPR’s national political correspondent Sarah McCammon joins us now. Sarah, thanks for being with us.
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: Yeah, good morning.
SIMON: I think the headline seems to be that lawmakers brought themselves – bought themselves some time. What’s in the package?
MCCAMMON: So it includes $100 billion in disaster aid for people in places like Maui, which was devastated by those wildfires last year, and for survivors of a hurricane and massive flooding that hit the Carolinas this year. There’s also money for farmers and a one-year extension of what’s known as the Farm Bill. Most importantly, of course, it keeps the federal government open and diverts a shutdown that would not only affect federal workers, but many people who rely on various government services. And notably, Scott, this bill does not include an increase in the nation’s borrowing limit, known as the debt ceiling. This was an idea that President-elect Trump had injected into the discussion very late in the game this week.
SIMON: And what political calculation does Mr. Trump seem to be making by putting this into the conversation?
MCCAMMON: So he’d said he wanted this to be done on President Biden’s watch so that he could go to work right away on implementing his own agenda next month. But that created more problems for Speaker Mike Johnson, who had to go back to the negotiating table and try to create a bill that would not only satisfy Trump and various factions of the House Republicans but also maintain some support from Democrats. Johnson had put forward a slimmed-down package that failed. There were 38 Republicans among those voting no for that version of the bill, at least some of them because of that debt ceiling provision. And then finally, last night, the House passed this third version without that debt ceiling increase and with a lot of Democratic support.
SIMON: So to add this out, the government’s now funded, but only until March 14. The debt limit is still an issue. Congress has until this summer, according to some estimates, to deal with it. How do they make progress in the next few months?
MCCAMMON: Yeah, so as we know, a month from now, Trump and his party will control both the presidency and both houses of Congress. So they’ll have to deal with this. They will have a very narrow margin in the House. And Speaker Johnson, assuming he holds on to his job until this time, will once again have to make a deal that will appeal either to some Democrats or to virtually his entire conference, and that includes conservative Republicans who are often reluctant to vote for any spending bill.
SIMON: Sarah, help us understand what seems to be the increasing role of Elon Musk. Through lots of social media posts this week, he certainly helped to quash the initial budget deal. How did he become even more intimately involved?
MCCAMMON: Right. So earlier this week, it looked like that budget bill was well on its way to passing. It all started to fall apart midweek after Elon Musk, who, of course, is a close adviser to Trump and a billionaire, announced his opposition to the deal on X, his social media platform. Musk called the initial spending bill gigantic and horrible and said nothing should be passed until Trump takes office. By last night, though, Musk seemed to have come around. He said that Speaker Johnson, quote, “did a good job here, given the circumstances.”
Now, Musk, of course, has called for slashing the size of the federal government. And Trump has chosen him, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, to lead a new nongovernmental organization called the Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, designed to do just that. So it’s not surprising that Musk would speak out in this way. What we know, though, is that Donald Trump is often not one to share the spotlight. And for a while this week, while the funding package was up in the air, the conversation seemed to be all about Musk.
SIMON: The funding fight all but blotted out the sun this week up at the Capitol. But some senators nevertheless met with some of Trump’s Cabinet designations. Tell us about that.
MCCAMMON: Sure. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, Tulsi Gabbard, his nominee for director of National Intelligence, were both on Capitol Hill meeting with senators this week. Both have been controversial for various reasons. For example, some anti-abortion conservatives have raised concerns about RFK Jr.’s past support for abortion rights. He also faces criticism over his vaccine skepticism. Those meetings will continue as the Senate gets ready for confirmation hearings next month.
SIMON: NPR’s Sarah McCammon, thanks so much for being with us.
MCCAMMON: Thank you.
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