Donald Trump could face opposition from his own party over his mass deportation program over his demands to spend big on the border.
Many pundits wondered how tight Trump’s grip on the party would be following the recent debate over the recent funding bill.
The battle left Trump, DOGE co-chair Elon Musk and House Speaker Mike Johnson publicly battling fellow Republicans and Democrats over the bill.
A vote to suspend the debt limit led to defections from 38 Republicans — including Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Nancy Mace of South Carolina — before a compromise was ultimately reached.
While nine of those “no” votes are Republicans who will not be part of Congress when Trump is sworn in next January, he will still have to fight the smallest majority in the House of Representatives, made slimmer by his own Cabinet choices.
Trump wanted to keep the government running without suspending the federal debt limit because this would allow him to think as big as his plan to round up and deport “the worst of the worst” illegal immigrants in an unprecedented crackdown .
The president-elect infamously said that the cost of his plans for the border is “not a matter of a price tag.”
Republicans generally support Trump’s plan to secure the border, but many are determined to cut budget spending and not add to the trillions of dollars in debt the United States has amassed.
Donald Trump could face opposition from his own party over his mass deportation program over his demands to spend big on the border
Trump wanted to keep the government running without suspending the federal debt limit because it would allow him to think as big as his plan to round up and deport “the worst of the worst” illegal migrants in an unprecedented crackdown .
Former Trump legislative affairs director Marc Short said this The Telegraph that the “last 24 hours do not bode well” when applied to the battle for public funding.
Chip Roy, a Republican from Texas, is among the members of Trump’s party who rejected the deal.
“My position is simple: I will not raise or suspend the debt ceiling (and build up more debt) without significant and real spending cuts. I negotiated that. No excuses,” he wrote.
Roy was an outspoken critic of Johnson, likening the original deal to a “nonsense sandwich.”
“We’re fed this negotiated bullshit, and we’re forced to eat this bullshit sandwich,” he said. “It’s the same thing every year. Make laws per crisis, make laws per calendar. Don’t legislate because that’s the right thing to do.”
When Trump takes office in January, nine of the Republicans who voted against the bill will have been replaced.
However, 25 of the Rebel Republicans who voted no won their districts in November by 10 or more points, while nine of them won by more than 30 points.
Now that the Republican Party’s margin in the House of Representatives has shrunk to at least a 220-215 majority – assuming all of Trump’s Cabinet picks are confirmed and Republicans replace them in a special election – he will have to unite to implement his border plans.
Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, was one of 38 Republican members who rioted
The fight left Trump, DOGE co-chair Elon Musk and House Speaker Mike Johnson publicly clashing with fellow Republicans and Democrats over the bill
The House of Representatives passed a government spending bill on Friday evening to prevent the government from being shut down at midnight that evening.
The Continuing Resolution (CR) passed by the House of Representatives extends government funding through March and provides more than $100 billion in relief funds for hurricane victims, farmers and more.
The 118-page bill passed with bipartisan support in the House of Representatives, 366 to 34, after Republican Chairman Mike Johnson negotiated the details in multiple conversations with his Democratic colleague Hakeem Jeffries on Friday.
The approval of the Republican spending deal came at the eleventh hour on Friday evening after newly elected President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk demanded Johnson capitulate to their policy priorities during his negotiations.
Johnson originally proposed a 1,547-page CR, but it was quickly mocked by many in the Republican party and especially by Musk, who used the pulpit of his speaker returned to the drawing boards.
After consulting with Trump’s team, Johnson then produced a 116-page bill backed by the newly elected president and Musk. But that went down in flames on Thursday by a vote of 174 to 235, after almost every Democrat and 38 Republicans in the House of Representatives voted against it.
On Friday, Johnson and many Republicans in the House of Representatives were locked in private meetings all day to discuss the best path forward. Many were unsure how the final vote would go.
But the speaker’s latest effort, just hours before federal funding expired, was ultimately a success.
Elon Musk praised Chairman Johnson’s efforts to ultimately get a bill passed
Congresswoman Nancy Mace was among the other Republican rebels before the compromise was passed
“The Speaker did a good job here, given the circumstances,” Musk posted approvingly on X on Friday evening.
“It went from a note that weighed pounds to a note that weighed us,” his post continued.
On Friday morning, Speaker Mike Johnson said upon entering the U.S. Capitol that he expects votes.
“We have a plan,” he asserted, but the details of how they would successfully move forward to avoid a shutdown remain unclear.
He provided another update Friday afternoon, urging the House of Representatives to approve a spending deal with provisions to help farmers and provide disaster relief.
“We will not have a government shutdown,” he said.
Democrats criticized Republicans on Friday for scrapping the bipartisan deal reached after weeks of negotiations and every attempt to include the debt ceiling.
But Jeffries reportedly told his Democratic members that they will “fight another day” and ordered his party to support Johnson’s plan.
The Republican Party will need to be united to pass Trump’s immigration plans.
‘Border Czar’ Tom Homan said all of the estimated 20 million people living illegally in the US would be targeted by the campaign. “The bottom line is: If you come to the country illegally, you’re not off the table.”
Homan, who headed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during Trump’s first stint in the White House, said he would revive the president-elect’s “remain in Mexico” program, in which Mexicans take their asylum claims to their side would have processed. the border.
He also promised to close the southern border and build a wall — another of Trump’s flagship promises.
Trump has vowed to crack down on migrant gangs using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 — which allows the federal government to round up and deport foreigners from enemy countries — as part of a mass deportation he dubbed “Operation Aurora.”
Aurora was the scene of a viral video showing armed Latinos rampaging through an apartment building, leading to sweeping false stories about the city being terrorized by Latin American migrants.