Biden signs stopgap funding bill, but congressional fight to continue

President Joe Biden signed a congressional spending bill into law Saturday morning, putting to bed the threat of a potential Christmastime government shutdown and kicking the issue for a new Congress and a new president to address next year.

Friday evening, the House and Senate passed a stopgap spending deal that funds the government at its current levels through March 14, providing $110 billion in relief to help natural disaster survivors and aid farmers, granting an extension for the farm bill, and funding to rebuild Baltimore’s collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge.

The spending bill signed into law Saturday excludes several key provisions that were in the initial bill, such as a fix for stolen food stamp funds, changes to the operations of pharmacy benefit managers and pay raises for members of Congress. Policies to fund pediatric cancer research and license RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., that were stripped out to comply with Donald Trump’s ask for a slimmer bill were unanimously passed by the Senate, a rebuke that showed that Congress can still defy the president-elect.

Biden said in a statement Saturday that the agreement “represents a compromise, which means neither side got everything it wanted.”

“But it rejects the accelerated pathway to a tax cut for billionaires that Republicans sought, and it ensures the government can continue to operate at full capacity,” he continued. “That’s good news for the American people, especially as families gather to celebrate this holiday season.”

Although the threat of a holiday government shutdown has been avoided, the incoming Congress and president are expected to pick up where the current Congress and Biden left off.

Republicans have been the majority in the House this congressional session but have repeatedly subjected themselves to infighting that has spilled out into contentious leadership battles and government shutdown threats. There will be a Republican trifecta in the federal government next year, and the House GOP majority will be extraordinarily narrow. The question of whether Mike Johnson can remain House speaker may depend on whether he can stay in Trump’s good graces. At least two members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus are indicating that they might press for changing the makeup of House leadership.

Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., who chairs the caucus, said in a statement Friday night that he’s undecided on whom he plans to support for congressional leadership next year. Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Texas, wrote Saturday on X that the “chaos of this past week was both predictable and avoidable.”

“Come January, we will need to revisit how Congress operates to ensure it is structured to deliver President Trump’s MAGA agenda. Whether that requires personnel changes, process reforms, or both will be a critical discussion we must have,” Cloud added.

The first version of the spending deal, which was agreed upon by congressional leadership in both parties, was torpedoed this week after Trump and his adviser, billionaire Elon Musk, opposed it partly over its inclusion of Democratic policy priorities. Johnson then switched to a smaller funding bill, which succeeded in garnering bipartisan support only after he dropped a provision demanded by Trump to suspend the debt ceiling for two years.

Johnson and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., characterized the final spending deal as a win for their respective parties.

Jeffries declared after Friday’s vote that House Democrats “stopped extreme MAGA Republicans from shutting down the government, crashing the economy and hurting working-class Americans … (and) stopped the billionaire boys club, which wanted a $4 trillion-dollar blank check by suspending the debt ceiling.”

After the deal’s passage in the House, Johnson told reporters that the final bill was “America First legislation because it allows us to be set up to deliver for the American people.” The speaker characterized the final bill as having been necessary to set Republicans up for success next year.

“In January, we will make a sea change in Washington,” Johnson told members of the news media. ” … Things are going to be very different around here.”

And although the speaker made no mention of any talks with Biden about the deal, he said he was in “constant contact” with Trump and spoke with Musk earlier Friday.

Trump, Johnson claimed, “knew exactly what we were doing and why … I think he certainly is happy about this outcome.”

Johnson said he spoke with Musk – who earlier this week was sharing X posts criticizing Johnson for the initial spending deal – about the “extraordinary challenges” of the speakership.

“I said, ‘Hey, do you want to be speaker of the House? I don’t know.’ He said this may be the hardest job in the world. I think it is,” Johnson added.

Some lawmakers said after Friday’s votes that the way the spending deal unfolded foreshadows how Trump intends to steer the legislative branch once he’s sworn into office. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said that many key provisions in the initial bill, which were the product of months of bipartisan negotiations, were effectively derailed because of Musk’s 11th-hour demands.

“The precedent that has been set today in Congress should upset every American who believes in our democratic form of government,” Sanders said in a statement after midnight Saturday. “It appears that from now on no major legislation can be passed without the approval of the wealthiest person in this country. That’s not democracy, that’s oligarchy.”

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Marianna Sotomayor, Jeff Stein, Tony Romm and Daniel Gilbert contributed to this report.