Trump backs newest Republican spending deal that would prevent a government shutdown if passed: Live
The proposed continuing resolution, championed by GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson, would have kept agencies running at current funding levels through to mid-March 2025
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump celebrated a deal he claims was reached in Congress that will keep the government open and push the debt ceiling deadline back two years in a Truth Social post on Thursday. Despite his praise for the alleged deal, some reports have suggested Democrats have not agreed to anything and have been left in the dark on the agreement.
House Speaker Mike Johnson’s previous bipartisan deal would have kept agencies running at current funding levels through to mid-March 2025 but the president-elect and his deputy issued a statement complaining the bill does not address the nation’s statutory debt ceiling. The new deal Trump referenced reportedly includes a delay on the debt ceiling deadline.
Democrats have meanwhile mocked tech billionaire Elon Musk’s undue influence over the incoming administration, with Senator Bernie Sanders ironically praising “President Elon Musk” on X.
While Trump told Fox News Digital Johnson will “easily remain speaker” he added a caveat reiterating his earlier statement. Among the names floated as potential replacements for Johnson is Musk, with Senator Rand Paul noting the role is not limited to members of Congress.
Meanwhile, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been removed from Trump’s sprawling election interference case by Georgia’s Court of Appeals which ruled her relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade was a conflict of interest.
Johnson facing major hurdles over spending bill and debt ceiling — and the clock is ticking...
Speaker Mike Johnson faces several major hurdles today.
He has to come up with a spending deal while appeasing calls from Trump to either raise or eliminate the debt ceiling — and he has 24 hours to work out how to do that while making sure he can keep his job on January 3.
Some Republicans will never raise the debt ceiling without spending cuts and reforms...
And there are plenty of members of the House in both parties who want specific things from the continuing resolution and who won’t back down unless they get them...
GOP Whip Tom Emmer tells reporters the situation is “fluid.”
‘The winds of winning'
Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner seemed incredibly impressed on Wednesday over the new hairstyle Donald Trump unveiled this week at Mar-a-Lago, quipping that it’s the “winds of winning” and that it showed he was “leaning into the victory” of his election.
Justin Barangoa reports.
Fox News anchor gushes over Trump's new hairdo, calls it ‘the winds of winning’
After her co-hosts argued that Trump was probably just suffering from hat hair, Harris Faulkner added: “I mean, this man has probably sold more hats than anyone on the planet in recent years.”
Trump doesn’t want to just raise debt ceiling, he wants to get rid of it
Donald Trump doesn’t want to just lift the debt ceiling — he’s keen to get rid of it, telling Garrett Haake of NBC News: “The Democrats have said they want to get rid of it. If they want to get rid of it, I would lead the charge.”
Asked if he still has confidence in Speaker Mike Johnson, he says: “We’ll see. What they had yesterday was unacceptable,” he told me, referring to the Speaker’s continuing resolution. “In many ways it was unacceptable. It’s a Democrat trap.”
U.S. applications for unemployment benefits come back down after last week’s big rise
The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell markedly last week following a big increase the week before.
Jobless claim applications declined by 22,000 to 220,000 for the week of Dec. 14, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s fewer than the 229,000 analysts were forecasting.
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