24 hours that exposed a schism between Trump and Johnson and sent the government hurtling toward a shutdown
That’s why it stunned many Republicans when Elon Musk—with Trump’s go-ahead—helped tank Johnson’s short-term government funding deal Wednesday afternoon by unleashing a barrage of social media posts starting early in the morning and calling the deal “criminal.”
Trump followed up with threats to oppose any Republican who voted for it in a 2026 primary. And he injected another complication, calling for the debt ceiling—a tool Republicans have used for years to pressure Democrats into spending cuts—to be lifted or eliminated before he takes office. With funding expiring at the end of the night on Friday, Trump’s last-minute demands pushed the government perilously close to a shutdown.
The salvos from Mar-a-Lago left Republican lawmakers scratching their heads—given how regularly the president-elect and the House speaker communicate with one another—about why it was not until the last minute that the dramatic gulf between Trump and Johnson was made known to the world and the deal blew up.
“It’s all very strange,” one GOP member told CNN. “This was a wholly preventable event.”
By Thursday evening, Trump was once again throwing his support behind Johnson as he green-lit a plan designed to zoom ahead in a way that would heed the demands of the GOP standard bearer. The 24-hour whiplash both underscored Johnson’s frailty and Musk’s opening with Trump. The bill—which would have provided government funding for three months, lifted the debt ceiling until 2027, extended the farm bill, and provided $110 billion in disaster relief—was short of support, with 38 Republicans voting against it.
The dizzying chain of events has left House leadership scrambling and raised questions about how Republicans on Capitol Hill, trying to govern with a slim majority and fighting off warring factions, will operate once Trump takes office.
Now, Democrats—with whom Johnson struck a partnership to save his job last spring—say they are finished trying to help the Louisiana Republican herd his balky conference.
Trump wants ‘decks cleared.’
Johnson had been close to an agreement with congressional leaders on a short-term measure to keep the government funded when he watched the Army-Navy game sitting in a private box with the president-elect over the weekend.
Video of the game showed Trump deep in conversation with Johnson, incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune, and Vice President-elect JD Vance.
Trump, according to people briefed on the conversation, told Johnson he wanted a yearlong spending bill—not a stopgap—and wanted the debt limit included in that deal.
“He wanted the decks cleared,” said one person familiar with the conversation, referring to Trump’s belief that he wanted to start his term with the more contentious fights over spending behind him so Congress could focus on enacting his agenda.
At the game, Johnson, the source said, made an effort to sweet-talk the president-elect without committing to certainly deliver on those particular demands—while recognizing that there was nowhere near enough time to synchronize agreement on the multiple bills that make up legislation covering the government’s annual spending, which is known as an “omnibus.”
Throughout the week, sources said, Trump was polling allies and advisers on what they believed were the pros and cons of a short-term funding measure or the longer-term bill he began publicly demanding on Wednesday.
“It started when the text came out and some of the details were being reported out. Up until that point, he was still trying to understand the pros and cons of short-term versus long-term,” a Trump adviser told CNN. “Once the bill text came out and the pork of it was being reported, he wanted to get involved.”
Throughout Wednesday, Trump and Musk discussed their opposition to the bill—even before Musk began intensely attacking the package on X. Both were in agreement that it gave too much to Democrats and was too expensive. Sources close to Trump insist that Musk was in lockstep with the president-elect when he took to X to go after the proposal and anyone who potentially voted in favor of it, although Democrats raised alarms that Musk’s public opposition, which came before Trump’s, was a sign of his power over the president-elect.
Vance has been tasked to be Trump’s eyes and ears on the Hill and is handling the bulk of the discussion with Johnson. On Wednesday night, the vice president-elect was seen heading into the speaker’s office with Republican leadership, while Trump enjoyed dinner with Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos at his Mar-a-Lago resort. Trump has been calling lawmakers on the matter but is letting Vance—an Ohio senator for a couple weeks longer—deal with the nitty-gritty behind closed doors, a source familiar with the discussions said.
Debt ceiling questions
Trump’s allies in Maracay had reached out to the speaker and his team in recent weeks, telegraphing the president's desire to deal with the debt limit before taking office.
But his position wasn’t widely known. According to several Trump allies, advisers, and GOP officials, the conventional wisdom had been that they’d grapple with the debt ceiling as part of forthcoming talks on a spending bill in March or a party-line package to implement Trump’s immigration and energy priorities.
And even in conversations one week ago, three sources suggested the debt ceiling was on no one’s radar, with at least one Trump ally telling CNN, “That will be a June issue.” Adding such a politically toxic debate to the lame-duck to-do list was a plot twist.
“Inserting the debt ceiling conversation certainly added a new element,” a Trump adviser told CNN.
The transition did not respond to a request for comment. CNN has reached out to Johnson’s office.
Trump, as he and his aides have communicated, wants to start the new Congress and his second term with a clean slate—and without the potential for Democrats to retain a bargaining chip that could dilute their agenda.
Emboldened by even a razor-thin majority in both chambers, Trump believes Republicans will be in a more powerful position to demand steeper spending cuts during negotiations next year.
“Mar-a-Lago has signaled a lot of questioning about letting a debt limit slide into next year,” a source involved in the conversations told CNN, referring to the Palm Beach members’ club where Trump and his advisers have been crafting policy positions behind closed doors. “Why are we letting something that will be a Dem leverage point remain in place for the next year?”
Wednesday’s collapse
As recently as Wednesday afternoon around 1 p.m., House GOP leaders were telling fellow Republicans that they felt “positive” about having the votes to pass the negotiated deal, according to multiple sources close to the talks. Many GOP lawmakers weren’t happy with the measure—especially given the rushed timeline—but it seemed they were willing to swallow it.
A whip count, though, made clear Johnson did not have the Republican support he’d need to pass the measure with Democratic help.
One Republican attributed the lack of communication between Johnson’s office and rank-and-file members to why leadership was out of step with where the conference was. Lawmakers, for example, were surprised to find out that a pay raise for themselves was included.
“We knew 92% of what this was going to be well before, but that last 8% was doozy,” Pennsylvania Rep. Dan Meuser told CNN.
The bill may have been “already dead” by mid-day Wednesday, as one GOP lawmaker put it, but Musk’s megaphone made sure it was buried.
Social media posts by Musk and Donald Trump Jr. fueled a surge of disgruntled phone calls to lawmakers’ offices.
By around 3 p.m., one GOP source described the situation as “collapsing.” Johnson’s troubles quickly evolved from internal grumbles about the funding bill to major, public questions about his future as speaker. By Thursday morning, one of the most vocal House conservatives, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, seemed to have reversed her support for the Louisiana Republican and was openly floating the unlikely situation of Musk for speaker.
Multiple frustrated Republicans have told Johnson and his leadership team that they should have voted Wednesday when they had the votes, according to a person familiar with the discussions.
“We will re-group, and we will come up with another solution,” Johnson told reporters after the Thursday vote failed. “So stay tuned.”
The Path Forward
Johnson vowed to regroup after the bill’s defeat and propose an alternative solution. “We will re-group, and we will come up with another solution,” he told reporters. However, the dramatic 24-hour period has left the GOP deeply divided and raised significant concerns about their ability to govern effectively under Trump’s incoming administration.
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