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Government shutdown live updates: Trump calls for Congress to 'get rid of' or extend debt ceiling

Next steps are unclear after 38 Republicans voted against the bill.

Republican congressional leaders Thursday night failed to pass a revamped plan to avoid a government shutdown looming Friday night -- and to satisfy President-elect Donald Trump's explosive demand that the debt limit be raised, or eliminated, at the same time.

Thousands of federal workers could have to work without pay, others could be furloughed and many government services could be affected.

Democrats say Republicans will own the consequences since Trump and his ally Elon Musk blew up a funding deal GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson had proposed.


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Trump says Congress should 'get rid of' or extend debt ceiling, or else not do a deal

President-elect Donald Trump, in an early morning post on his social media platform, said Congress should either "get rid of" or extend the debt ceiling, saying his position was that "without this, we should never make a deal."

The post, which came a little after 1 a.m., was published after the House failed to pass the government funding bill Trump supported.

Trump added that the pressure is on the incumbent president, although he didn't mention President Joe Biden by name. He floated the year 2029 as a possibility for a new debt ceiling deadline.

-ABC News' Oren Oppenheim


Will House vote on another spending bill Friday?

House Speaker Mike Johnson departed the Capitol Thursday night and said "we'll see" when asked if the House will vote on another spending bill on Friday.

Earlier Thursday, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said leaders will "keep working" and didn't specify what the next step would be.

"What exactly is in or out hasn't been decided," Scalise said.

Scalise blamed Democrats for voting down the bill Thursday, saying, "They want to try to shut it down."

Congress faces a deadline of midnight Friday to sort out funding or a government shutdown kicks in.


Musk blames Democrats for spending bill’s failure

In a series of posts Thursday night, Elon Musk blamed Democrats for the failure of the government funding plan that he pushed along with Trump.

“Shame on @RepJeffries for rejecting a fair & simple spending bill that is desperately needed by states suffering from hurricane damage!” Musk wrote.

In another, he wrote: “Objectively, the vast majority of Republican House members voted for the spending bill, but only 2 Democrats did. Therefore, if the government shuts down, it is obviously the fault of @RepJeffries and the Democratic Party. Plain & simple.”

Musk mounted a pressure campaign on House Republicans on Wednesday to vote against the bipartisan bill that Johnson intended to bring to the floor. On Thursday, 38 Republicans – most of them fiscal conservatives – voted against a stripped-down version that cut out add-ons to the spending plan but extended a suspension of the country’s debt limit.


Senators waiting for Johnson's 'Plan C'

As the funding bill went down in the House, senators were in a holding pattern with the clock ticking down with little time to avert a shutdown.

Most Senate Republicans, many of whom initially supported the original bipartisan deal that Trump shot down, say they're now waiting to see what Speaker Mike Johnson, in concert with Vice President-elect JD Vance and other House leaders will come up with to salvage this situation.

"I'm waiting for Speaker Johnson's Plan C," Sen. John Cornyn, R-TX, told reporters as it appeared that a second government funding proposal in so many days would fail to make it to the Senate.

But what that Plan C is, no one seems to know. The Senate remains crouched in a wait-and-see posture,

Sen. Susan Collins, the top Republican on the Appropriations Committee, said she could envision a totally clean, three-week, short-term funding bill as a possible stopgap to buy lawmakers a bit more time to address Trump's 11th-hour demand that the debt limit be addressed. But she doesn't like the concept.

"It's a scenario that I can imagine but I don't imagine that it is the preferred way to proceed," Collins said. "I don't know what the plan is now."

-ABC News' Allison Pecorin