Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Friday that she's prepared to remain in Washington, D.C., "through Christmas" to push back against President-elect Donald Trump's call to remove negotiated provisions from a continuing resolution to fund the federal government.
Murray rebuked tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, who is one of Trump's foremost advisers, for leading the charge on Capitol Hill to scrap the 1,547-page bill that House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., backed at the beginning of the week. After a revolt within the House GOP, lawmakers scrambled to put together a second, Trump-touted plan, which failed in a 174-235 vote Thursday night.
"I'm ready to stay here through Christmas because we're not going to let Elon Musk run the government," Murray said, according to The Hill. "Put simply, we should not let an unelected billionaire rip away research for pediatric cancer so he can get a tax cut or tear down policies that help America outcompete China because it could hurt his bottom line."
"We had a bipartisan deal — we should stick to it," she said, adding that the deal the Democrats negotiated with Johnson would "responsibly fund the government, offer badly needed disaster relief to communities across America, and deliver some good bipartisan policy reforms."
Across the political aisle, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said it's increasingly likely that Congress could be spending Christmas at the Capitol instead of in their home districts, as lawmakers work to come to an agreement.
"Right now, it looks like there's a very good chance we may be in Washington, D.C., on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday," Cruz said on his podcast, Verdict. "We could be in D.C. on Christmas Day."
"At this point, the path ahead appears very uncertain," he said.
On Thursday night, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., urged Johnson to revive the original stopgap funding bill that the speaker supported before Trump and Musk sank it and floated a plan B.
"It's a good thing the bill failed in the House," Schumer said of the slimmed-down version of the funding bill. "And now, it's time to go back to the bipartisan agreement we came to."
The New York Democrat warned of the impending government shutdown Friday morning and said the best chance of keeping the government operational was the earlier continuing resolution deal.
"If Republicans do not work with Democrats in a bipartisan way very soon, the government will shut down at midnight," he said from the Senate floor, according to The Hill. "It's time to go back to the original agreement we had just a few days ago."