Washington Just hours before a deadline that would have forced millions of federal employees, including air traffic controllers, Border Patrol agents, and U.S. troops, to work unpaid over the Christmas, the Republican-controlled House on Friday night passed a short-term resolution to prevent a government shutdown.
Republicans opposed it altogether, and only one member cast a ballot. The vote was 366–34. It concluded a turbulent week in the House that hinted at how the incoming Congress would handle a volatile Donald Trump once he returns to the White House in January. The law was introduced via a fast-track procedure, which required a two-thirds vote.
In order to prevent a shutdown, the Senate is now expected to approve the package before 12:01 a.m.
Stay tuned for real-time updates.
The plan eliminates the debt limit extension that President-elect Trump had wanted earlier in the week, funding the government at existing levels through March 14, and contains a one-year agriculture bill and $100 billion in disaster aid.
In response to Trump’s promise on Wednesday to primary any Republican who supported a funding bill without an expansion of the debt ceiling, 170 House Republicans did just that on Friday.
We are truly appreciative that the American Relief Act of 2025 was enacted tonight in a nonpartisan manner with a resounding majority of votes. After the vote, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters, “This is a very important piece of legislation.” Naturally, it provides government funding through March 2025. For us, that was very important.
He promised that when Trump returns and Republicans win the Senate the next year, things will be drastically different around here.
Bipartisan House and Senate leaders reached a compromise just three days ago to keep the government running, but Trump and his billionaire friend Elon Musk sabotaged the accord at the last minute, insisting that the debt limit be extended or eliminated to accommodate Trump’s agenda for the following year.
A backup plan that was trimmed from the original agreement and supported by Musk and Trump was thwarted on the House floor by Democrats and 38 Republicans who opposed the debt extension.
Johnson, who is battling to maintain his position as speaker, had few viable choices as a result. Johnson informed his party that he was moving on with Plan C, the same package that was presented to the floor the day before but without Trump’s debt hike, after spending more than two hours in private negotiations with rank-and-file Republicans.
GOP sources familiar with the idea say that on Friday, leaders proposed splitting the package into three parts and allowing legislators to vote on each one separately on the floor. However, with time running out, the one-package plan was perceived as a simpler lift.
Johnson assured reporters as he left the private GOP gathering that House Republicans are united and that there will not be a shutdown.
Johnson declared that there would not be a government shutdown and that we would fulfill our responsibilities to our farmers in need of assistance, to the victims of disasters across the nation, and to ensure that the military and other vital services, as well as all those who depend on the federal government for their paychecks, are paid over the holidays.
Johnson claimed to have had conversations with Musk and Trump on Friday. I ve talked to President Trump, in detail, and he knows exactly what we re doing, the speaker said.
Musk appeared to endorse the plan as the House was voting,writing on his social media siteX that Johnson did a good job here, given the circumstances.
The president-elect had chosen to remain silent on the bill, according to another source familiar with his thinking. Trump s preference was still to address the debt ceiling, that source said, adding, Johnson should have listened when the President-elect told him this a month ago. And in every conversation since.
But Trump may be willing to take a win on a funding deal that cuts a significant amount of what he saw as pork, the source continued, noting that the process gave Trump s team insight into where votes are in both parties for dealing with the debt limit next year.
To get around Trump s last-minute demand of raising the debt ceiling, Republicans have instead agreed to commit to slash more than $2 trillion in government spending and tuck a debt hike likelyinto a reconciliation packagenext year, according to multiple lawmakers.
Johnson had found himself in a political pickle: He could not pass a bill without Democrats, who still control the Senate and the White House and were determined not to give in to Trump s last-minute demands. But he still had to maintain support within his conference or risk jeopardizing his prospects of being re-elected as speaker in two weeks, on Jan. 3, with a wafer-thin House majority.
This is a defining moment for his career as speaker, Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., a Johnson critic, said before the vote. What he does and how he handles this, how he handles our conference … will define who he is, if he is a serious leader, and if he s going to survive this leadership vote.
Jeffries said Friday that Trump was rushing to set aside the debt limit so Republicans can pass a tax cut for the wealthy next year.
A painful government shutdown that will crash the economy and hurt working class Americans, because they would rather enact massive tax cuts for their billionaire donors than fund cancer research for children, Jeffries said, referring to a provision in the original deal that GOP leaders stripped out.
Senate Democrats had called on Johnson to return to the bipartisan deal that Trump and Musk blew up.
It s time to go back to the original agreement we had just a few days ago. It s time for that. It s time the House votes on our bipartisan CR [continuing resolution], Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Friday on the floor. It s the quickest, simplest and easiest way we can make sure the government stays open while delivering critical emergency aid to the American people.
In the midst of the battle, Democrats believe they have found a populist economic message to rally voters to their side, depicting Musk as an oligarch who was pulling Trump s strings.
I m ready to stay here through Christmas because we re not going to let Elon Musk run the government, Senate Appropriations Chair Patty Murray, D-Wash., said in a statement. Put simply, we should not let an unelected billionaire rip away research for pediatric cancer so he can get a tax cut.
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