2024-12-19
10 分钟Plus, man vs. hornet.
From the new York Times, it's the Headlines.
I'm Tracy Mumford.
Today's Thursday, December 19th.
Here's what we're covering.
The U.S. government is less than 48 hours out from a shutdown.
Funding is set to run out Friday at midnight unless Congress passes an extension.
Congressional leaders had rolled out a bipartisan bill earlier this week to try and head that off,
but the deal is basically dead in the water.
After Donald Trump ordered Republicans not to support it.
The plan was on shaky ground to begin with.
It started as a simple spending extension to keep the government funded until mid March,
but as negotiations went on, it became a sprawling catch all,
eventually including $100 billion in disaster aid, a pay raise for lawmakers,
and even a provision on where the Washington commander's football team could move their stadium.
Elon Musk, who Trump has tasked with slashing government spending in his new administration,
spent all day yesterday railing against the bill,
posting nearly non stop on X and writing any member of the House
or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in two years.
Trump then piled on, dismissing the bill as full of, quote, Democrat giveaways.
The extremely vocal criticism undercut Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson,