STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Federal agencies run out of money at midnight. It's not clear how Congress will do one of the most basic parts of its job, which is to fund the daily operations of the federal government.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
It's been a busy week, but that didn't get done. So let's review. Lawmakers were on track for a bipartisan bill to manage the next few months while a new administration takes charge. It added disaster assistance, farm subsidies and some money for health care programs. Then Elon Musk, the world's richest man, demanded that Congress kill the deal. President-elect Trump followed the lead of his close adviser, telling Republicans to turn against their plan. House Speaker Mike Johnson came up with a plan B, and that failed last night.
INSKEEP: (Sighing). Just taking a breath. NPR congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh has been covering all this and is up early once again. Hi there, Deirdre.
DEIRDRE WALSH, BYLINE: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: Why did plan B fail?
WALSH: It failed because a significant bloc of the speaker's own Republican colleagues joined most Democrats and tanked it - even after President-elect Trump endorsed this Republican deal and threatened primary challengers for any Republican lawmaker who voted no. Most House conservatives who voted against this criticized the decision, at Trump's insistence, to add a two-year increase to the country's borrowing authority without any spending cuts. Texas Republican Chip Roy was one of them, and he chastised his Republican colleagues on the House floor.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHIP ROY: To take this bill yesterday and congratulate yourself because it's shorter in pages but increases the debt by $5 trillion is asinine.
WALSH: Republicans were essentially daring Democrats to vote no on this latest plan and argued they were the ones who wanted a shutdown. But Democrats opposed adding the debt limit and said provisions in the original bipartisan deal - things like lowering drug cost, funding children's cancer research, preventing China from getting access to U.S. technologies - were dumped out because Elon Musk was advising Trump and was looking out for his own interests. And Democrats took a swipe at the president-elect, suggesting someone else was actually calling the shots. And they call it Musk - President Musk.
INSKEEP: I'm just thinking about pure numbers in the House of Representatives. They needed a two-thirds vote. So they needed Democrats to support this, right?
WALSH: They did.
INSKEEP: And so then they did this thing where they didn't even negotiate with Democrats, so you knew it was going to fail. Then it didn't even get a majority 'cause a lot of Republicans turned against it. So what's plan C?
WALSH: There isn't one. You know, we have hours to go before the midnight deadline, and a shutdown is much more likely.
INSKEEP: So what does this mean? If Republicans feel they need to obey President-elect Trump and/or Elon Musk in saying no to things, but then they won't even say yes to things necessarily, what does this mean for next year?
WALSH: I mean, this is a good preview of Trump's unpredictable governing style. I covered the last time Trump was in the White House and Republicans had control of the House and the Senate. And Trump frequently blew up deals cut by Republicans then. I talked to Nebraska Republican colleague Don Bacon. He said he was troubled that Musk was putting out false information about the original deal. He backed this new plan but said Trump added a new demand late in the process.
DON BACON: What we took away from the president is the debt ceiling's his No. 1 priority - would have been helpful to know that two or three or four weeks ago.
WALSH: This whole episode weakened Speaker Mike Johnson, as he faces another vote in January to stay speaker. And this all just shows how hard it's going to be for Republicans to move their agenda through when they're so divided on this.
INSKEEP: NPR's Deirdre Walsh covered the last Trump administration and will be covering Congress in this one. Thanks so much.
WALSH: Thanks, Steve. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
