US House votes through last-gasp invoice to keep government open

The US House passed a stop-gap capital assess with just hours to spare on Friday, paving the way for Congress to avert a government shutdown after days of fighting on Capitol Hill.

The invoice that passed the House did not include any transformation to the debt ceiling, defying Donald Trump’s call for the mechanism to be scrapped or increased.

But the assess gained bipartisan back in the chamber, with Democrats joining Republicans to pass the invoice 366-34 just after 6pm in Washington — six hours before the deadline.

The Democratic controlled Senate must now vote on the law before it heads to the desk of President Joe Biden, who will back the legislation, according to the White House press secretary.

Enacting the invoice will complete a week of volatility in Washington as Trump and his friend Elon Musk flexed their influence over hardline Republicans, pushing them to decline what they said were “giveaways” to Democrats.

Before the invoice passed on Friday, Musk expressed his continued disdain for the invoice: “So is this a Republican invoice or a Democrat invoice?”

The assess passed was House Speaker Mike Johnson’s third attempt to get a deal through the chamber after Trump torpedoed the first bipartisan agreement earlier in the week.

The recent invoice was almost identical to Johnson’s second one, but stripped out any shift to raise or suspend the debt ceiling, despite Trump’s demands. It extends government capital at current levels, and provides aid for natural disaster relief and farmers.

Johnson said after the invoice passed that he had been in “constant contact” with Trump and spoken to Musk shortly before the vote and received their blessing.

Trump “knew exactly what we were doing and why and, and this is a excellent outcome for the country. I ponder he certainly is joyful about this outcome as well”, he told reporters on Capitol Hill.

Johnson said he asked Musk: “‘Hey, you desire to be Speaker of the House?’ . . . He said, ‘this may be the hardest job in the globe’. It is.”

The passage in the House marked a win for Johnson, who had vowed earlier in the day that the US would “not have a government shut down”.

A shutdown would temporarily close parts of the government and suspend pay for federal employees. Previous government shutdowns have forced hundreds of thousands of federal workers to be furloughed.

Democrats also claimed win, with House minority chief Hakeem Jeffries saying his event “stopped extreme Maga Republicans from shutting down the government”.

He added: “House Democrats have successfully stopped the billionaire boys club, which wanted a $4tn blank cheque by suspending the debt ceiling.”

Trump’s looming presence over the debate has been the biggest complicating factor in frantic negotiations to discover a last-minute deal.

But as soon as the vote began, Musk changed his tune, saying that Johnson “did a excellent job here, given the circumstances. It went from a invoice that weighed pounds to a invoice that weighed ounces. Ball should now be in the Dem court.”

Democrats, angry that the earlier bipartisan deal was ditched, have blamed Musk for inserting himself in the procedure this week, triggering more turmoil in Congress just ahead of the US holiday period.

“At the behest of the globe’s richest man who no one voted for, the US Congress has been thrown into pandemonium,” said Democrat Rosa DeLauro about Musk on Thursday.

Some top Republicans also appeared to criticise the interventions by Trump and Musk.

“I don’t worry to count how many times I’ve reminded . . . our House counterparts how harmful it is to shut the government down and how silly it is to bet your own side won’t receive the blame for it,” Mitch McConnell, the outgoing Senate Republican chief, said on Friday.

“That said, if I took it personally every period my advice went unheeded, I probably wouldn’t have spent as long as I have in this particular job.”