As a government shutdown approaches, President-elect Donald Trump is insisting on including provisions in a spending bill to raise the debt ceiling, which his party has traditionally opposed. “We’ll see if we get 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 publicly stated that he wants Congress to eliminate the debt ceiling under President Joe Biden’s administration. Trump’s calls to eliminate the debt ceiling mark a departure from decades of Republican opposition to raising debt limits.
“Number one, the debt ceiling should be eliminated entirely,” Trump told CBS News in a phone interview on Thursday. “Number two, a lot of the different things they thought they’d get [in a proposed spending deal] will now be thrown out completely. “And we’ll see what happens.”
“We’ll see whether or not we have a closure during the Biden administration,” according to him. “But if it’s going to take place, it’s going to take place during Biden, not during Trump.”
On the verge of a government shutdown, Trump has put Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson in a pickle after his criticisms prompted Johnson to reject a government spending bill that would have provided three months of federal funding to keep the government open.
Republican leaders then proposed a slimmed-down bill that, at Trump’s request, would suspend the debt ceiling for two years, until January 30, 2027. The bill was also defeated, with 38 Republicans voting ‘no’.
In the final hours before a looming shutdown, Republicans could try to pass another stopgap spending bill that would postpone other provisions until the holidays, or they could revise the plan to include conservative-friendly provisions like extending farm and disaster aid while eliminating debt-limit measures.
Breaking from party lines
Trump’s insistence on raising and even abolishing the debt ceiling contradicts his party’s longstanding opposition to raising the debt limit due to concerns that it would allow for bloated budgets and increased government spending.
If Congress agrees on a spending plan while Biden is still in office, Trump believes he can avoid blame for the government’s borrowing. Congress agreeing on a spending bill now would also help lighten Trump’s load when he takes office next month, especially as he seeks to extend the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which he passed in 2017 during his first term.
This isn’t the first time Trump has suggested eliminating the debt ceiling. In 2017, the then-president stated that there are “a lot of good reasons” to abolish the limit. He reached a “gentleman’s agreement” with then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, but nothing came of the initial efforts.
The United States last reached its debt ceiling in January 2023, when Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen enacted temporary “extraordinary measures” to prevent the country from defaulting on its debt.
Similarly, if the debt limit is reached on January 1, the Treasury Department will once again invoke those measures, pushing the default deadline into summer 2025, well within Trump’s administration—the situation the president-elect is attempting to prevent.
The most recent major government shutdown occurred under Trump’s watch in 2018, when a 35-day partial shutdown cost $11 billion and cut 0.2% off the United States’ annual growth forecasts, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The shutdown affected approximately 800,000 government workers.
When asked for comment, the Trump-Vance transition team referred Fortune to Trump’s Friday morning Truth Social post: “Congress must repeal or extend the ridiculous Debt Ceiling, possibly until 2029. Without this, we should never reach an agreement. Remember, the pressure is on the President.”
