SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Congress seemed to be writing their own version of “The Twelve Days Of Christmas” this week. (Singing) Many weeks of waiting, Trump advisers tweeting, two bills a-failing, one speaker flailing and a shutdown that did not. NPR political correspondent Susan Davis joins us just in time. Sue, thanks for being with us.
SUSAN DAVIS, BYLINE: That was a valiant effort, Scott.
SIMON: Valiant effort – thank you. Just after midnight, renegotiated legislation was approved. What’s in it?
DAVIS: Well, it’s a slimmed-down version of the original bipartisan deal that was derailed earlier in the week after Trump and one of his newest top lieutenants, billionaire businessman Elon Musk, came out in opposition to it after it had been negotiated. It still keeps the government on autopilot until mid-March. So don’t worry. They get to do this all over again in the spring. It still includes about $100 billion for states still recovering from a natural disasters, like North Carolina and Hawaii. And it still extends farm programs for about a year.
Speaker Mike Johnson removed some previously agreed-upon measures to cover things like pediatric cancer research funding, although I should note the Senate ultimately passed that last night as a standalone measure, and a measure to try to control prescription drug costs, ’cause it was seen as too big of a giveaway to Democrats. One other thing – it’s just shorter. Musk and others help drive opposition to the bill, in part because it was initially 1,500 pages long. Conservatives really don’t like behemoth legislation like that. The new bill was just about 120 pages.
SIMON: And this was something of a political aim for Donald Trump, who is, of course, not going to be president for another month. What did the president-elect get out of this legislation?
DAVIS: You know, I think Trump and his allies are going to point to things like the removal of a provision that would have given members of Congress their first pay raise in about 17 years. They didn’t like the way that looked, especially at Christmastime, for the party. But Scott, I think a lot of this episode this week potentially expose more of Trump’s political weaknesses. He tried to strong-arm into the bill an unconditional increase in the debt ceiling – that’s the nation’s borrowing limit – because he wanted to do it on President Biden’s watch to alleviate the political pressure on his administration, to do it when that vote happens likely sometime next summer. Not only is it not in the deal, but a failed second attempt to pass it was rejected by 38 House Republicans. That’s a pretty big number willing to directly defy Trump, and they did it even after he explicitly threatened to primary anyone who opposed his plans in the 2026 mid-terms, saying, simply, they don’t seem to be afraid of that threat.
SIMON: Let me ask you about the status of Elon Musk…
DAVIS: Yeah.
SIMON: …Following on all this – richest man in the world, also now one of the most powerful men in politics.
DAVIS: Absolutely. You know, Musk was really a central figure in killing this original deal. He used his social media platform, X, to drive public opposition to it. He was cheering on Republican lawmakers who were coming out in opposition to it. He and Vivek Ramaswamy are about to head up a new nongovernmental entity that was created by Trump. It’s called the Department of Government Efficiency. Musk says they want to find about $2 trillion in spending cuts to the federal budget. That’s a pretty big sum of money. And it’s clear he intends to be a player here in these budgetary fights. And the next Congress is going to have a lot of them.
Remember, Scott, the Trump tax cuts expire at the end of 2025. Republicans need to pass a budget first in order to extend them. They still need to pass all 12 spending bills from the last fiscal year and 12 more for this fiscal year. And the other lesson this week is that Republicans can’t do any of it without Democrats. They need their votes in the House to pass anything spending related ’cause there’s always going to be a group of hard-line conservatives who are going to oppose it. And Senate Democrats still have the filibuster, so they’re still going to have a seat at the table in any spending talks in the next Congress as well.
SIMON: And House Speaker Mike Johnson – up for reelection or replacement on January 3.
DAVIS: Yeah.
SIMON: Are his prospects good?
DAVIS: It’s really hard to say, but they’re not looking great, if, for no other reason, he has almost no room for error. And it’s unclear if Donald Trump’s going to continue to back him for the job. He’s going to have to preside over one of the narrowest majorities in history, and he can only lose one, two, maybe three votes and hold on to that gavel. So the new Congress could open on a fairly chaotic note. You know, remember, the House can’t do a single thing until they elect a speaker. And we saw this happen just last fall when Republicans kicked out Speaker McCarthy. The House didn’t operate for 21 days until Mike Johnson ultimately won that race. He and the House of Representatives could be facing a similar fate in just a few weeks.
SIMON: NPR political correspondent Susan Davis, thanks so much.
DAVIS: You’re welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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