- As a government shutdown looms, President-elect Donald Trump is insisting on including provisions in a spending bill that would raise the debt ceiling, something his party has historically opposed. “We'll see whether or not we have a closure during the Biden administration,” Trump told CBS News. “But if it's going to take place, it's going to take place during Biden, not during Trump."
President-elect Donald Trump has said the quiet part out loud, admitting he wants Congress to eliminate the debt ceiling under President Joe Biden’s administration. Trump’s calls for getting rid of the debt ceiling is a break from decades of Republican party opposition to raising debt limits.
"Number one, the debt ceiling should be thrown out entirely," Trump told CBS News in a Thursday phone interview. "Number two, a lot of the different things they thought they'd receive [in a proposed spending deal] are now going to be thrown out, 100%. And we'll see what happens.”
“We'll see whether or not we have a closure during the Biden administration,” he added. “But if it's going to take place, it's going to take place during Biden, not during Trump."
On the brink of a government shutdown, Trump has put Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson in a bind after his criticisms pushed Johnson to scrap a government spending bill that would have allocated three months of federal funding to keep the government open. Republican leaders then introduced a slimmed-down bill that, at the behest of Trump, would suspend the debt ceiling for two years until Jan. 30, 2027. With 38 Republicans voting ‘no’ on the bill, it, too, failed.
Now in the final hours before a looming shutdown, Republicans could try to pass another stopgap spending bill that would kick the can on other provisions into the holidays or revise the plan to include conservative-friendly provisions like extending farm and disaster aid, while nixing debt-limit measures.
Breaking from party lines
Trump’s insistence on raising and even abolishing the debt ceiling runs counter to his party, which has historically opposed raising the debt limit out of concern for it enabling bloated budgets and increased government spending. Should Congress agree on a spending plan while Biden is still in office, Trump would, in his eyes, avoid blame for government borrowing. Congress agreeing on a spending bill now would also help lighten Trump’s load when he first enters office next month, particularly as he seeks to extend his Tax Cuts and Jobs Act enacted in 2017 in his first term.
This isn’t the first time Trump has called for eliminating the debt ceiling. In 2017, the then-president said “there are a lot of good reasons” to abolish the limit. He entered into a “gentleman’s agreement” with then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, but nothing came of the initial efforts.
The U.S. last reached the debt ceiling in January 2023, at which point Treasure Secretary Janet Yellen enacted temporary "extraordinary measures" to ensure the country did not default on its debt. Similarly, if the debt limit is triggered on Jan. 1, the Treasury Department will once again call on those measures, which would push the default deadline into summer 2025, well within Trump’s administration—the situation the president-elect is trying to avoid.
The most recent major government shutdown happened under Trump’s watch in 2018, when a 35-day partial shutdown resulted in an $11 billion loss and shaved off 0.2% of the U.S.’s annual growth forecasts, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The shutdown impacted about 800,000 government workers.
When asked for comment, the Trump-Vance transition team directed Fortune to Trump’s Friday morning Truth Social post: “Congress must get rid of, or extend out to, perhaps, 2029, the ridiculous Debt Ceiling. Without this, we should never make a deal. Remember, the pressure is on whoever is President.”
