President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance have demanded that Republicans in the House and Senate effectively force the federal government to shut down rather than pass a stopgap funding bill that would have kept agencies running at current funding levels through the end of March 2025.
In a statement posted to X (formerly Twitter) by Vance, the incoming president and vice president groused that the bill doesn’t raise the nation’s statutory debt ceiling and accused legislators of “considering a spending bill that would give sweetheart provisions for government censors and for Liz Cheney” – because the continuing resolution drafted by House Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team would have kept the executive branch from using a loophole in the law to obtain phone and other communications records from members of Congress and aides who are supposed to be protected by congressional immunity.
