President-elect torpedoes bipartisan plan with less than 48 hours remaining until government shuts down for holidays

Good morning, US politics blog readers. Just yesterday, it seemed like Congress was on the verge of enacting legislation to keep the government running for the next three months and prevent a shutdown that would begin after midnight on Friday. But on X, Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy and other conservatives whose influence grew after Donald Trump won re-election were busy condemning the deal. It was an effort that culminated yesterday afternoon, when the president-elect and JD Vance blew up the negotiations entirely by declaring that the bill should be scrapped and replaced with a new one that also increases country’s debt ceiling – a surprise demand that hadn’t been raised previously. The incoming administration’s opposition blew up the funding compromise, and now it is up to the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, to pick up the pieces, with less than 48 hours remaining until the government shuts down. Needless to say, few in Congress wanted this to happen with the Christmas holiday right around the corner. We’ll find out today if the GOP has it in them to turn the situation around.

Here’s what else we are watching today:

Democrats appear content to let Republicans own the government funding fiasco, with the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, tweeting that the GOP has “been ordered to shut down the government”.

The Wall Street Journal has published a lengthy look into how the White House managed Joe Biden’s public ageing during his presidency and before – which was a major factor in his decision to end his re-election bid earlier this year.

Biden and Kamala Harris have no public events on their schedule. The president is returning to Washington DC today from Delaware, while the vice-president flies this evening to Los Angeles.