Government shutdown live updates: Johnson says GOP agrees on new spending bill

With a month to go before he officially becomes the 47th president of the United States, Donald J Trump is already causing mayhem. His rejection of a bipartisan budget deal in Congress has threatened a federal shutdown and triggered huge anxiety for employees and those dependent on public services just before Christmas.

It’s not the first such game of fiscal “chicken” indulged in by America’s politicians – but it serves as a pointed reminder, were it needed, of what may be expected in the coming four years or so.

House members voted 366-34, with one member voting present.

Those 34 votes were all Republicans.

A bill to fund the government through mid-March marked a third attempt within two days to avert a shutdown, after Donald Trump and Elon Musk commanded Congress to ditch the original bipartisan framework and left congressional Democrats and even some Republicans exhausted with the growing political influence of the world’s wealthiest person.

The funding battle glimpsed how Democrats are approaching the incoming Trump-Musk administration and how they will navigate Trump’s agenda with an extremely slim Republican majority.

The latest package resembled a bipartisan plan that was abandoned earlier this week after an online fusillade from Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk, who said it contained too many unrelated provisions.

That bill would have kept the government agencies operating at current levels, provided an additional $100 billion in disaster aid for storm-hit states and another $10 billion for farmers. It also would extend farm and food aid programs due to expire at the end of the year.

Trump demanded a rewrite to also lift the nation’s debt ceiling, but that was resoundingly rejected by the House – including 38 Republicans – on Thursday.

Just in: The House has just approved the three-month government funding bill, sending to Senate with just hours left before shutdown deadline.

Elon Musk has praised Speaker Mike Johnson tonight after the tech billionaire torpedoed Johnson’s first bipartisan deal.

“The Speaker did a good job here, given the circumstances,” Musk posted on X.

“It went from a bill that weighed pounds to a bill that weighed ounces. Ball should now be in the Dem court.”

Voting is underway on the short-term agreement to avert a government shutdown.

The bill is 188 pages long, down from the 1,500-plus pages of the first bipartisan spending bill that failed earlier this week.

Democratic leadership isn’t whipping votes to support the latest bill.

It needs a two-thirds majority to pass.

Ahead of the vote to prevent a government shutdown, expected imminently, Democrat Rep. Rosa DeLauro says that Elon Musk has thrown Congress into “pandemonium.”

Elon Musk is getting involved in the government funding fight once again, questioning whether Speaker Mike Johnson’s latest deal is a “Republican or a Democrat bill” in a post on X.

Musk was responding to Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky who claimed that Johnson was trying to pass a lone funding plan, including assistance for farmers and disaster aid, after getting word from House Democrats that they would support it.

In the waning days of President Joe Biden‘s administration, the government’s highway safety agency is proposing voluntary safety guidelines for self-driving vehicles.

But a rule from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration putting the plan in place won’t be approved before the end of Biden’s term in January and likely will be left to whoever runs the agency under Republican Donald Trump.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, whom Trump has named to co-lead a “Department of Government Efficiency” to cut costs and regulations, has floated the idea of him helping to develop safety standards for self-driving vehicles — even though the standards would affect Tesla’s automated driving systems.

Lord Peter Mandelson has made a career of comebacks – from spin doctor to returning to cabinet after quitting twice – and is back again as Britain’s ambassador to the US.

It marks the first political appointment to the UK’s top diplomatic post in Washington in decades.

Peter Mandelson started out as a Labour communications director in 1985 and was first elected as an MP in 1992. He served in the cabinets of Sir Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

Donald Trump – who returns to the White House in January, four years after being ousted – may relate to his comeback story.