Vice President-elect J.D. Vance spoke with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) on Wednesday night, hours after President-elect Trump scrapped the Republican leadership's spending deal.
Mr. Vance remained in Mr. Johnson's office for nearly an hour as several Republican senators crowded around to discuss government funding and Friday's looming government shutdown deadline.
Coming out of that meeting, Vance said the group had a “productive conversation.”
“I'm not going to say anything more. We're in the middle of negotiations and we'll talk more about that tonight,” he added. “But I think we can solve some problems here, so we'll keep working on it.”
House Minority Leader Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana) similarly said after emerging from Johnson's office Wednesday night that the group had a “good, productive meeting,” but that ” We're still working on it.”
“We will continue to work through the night and into the morning to reach an agreement on the floor,” he added.
The late-night rally came after President Trump and his allies denounced a funding package laid out by Congressional negotiators on Tuesday, as Prime Minister Johnson's Republican Party tries again to avoid a government shutdown by Friday's deadline. The meeting was held while people were coming together to chart a course for the future.
The bill provides funding to the government through March 14, extends the Farm Bill by one year, and provides nearly $100 billion in disaster relief and $10 billion in economic assistance to farmers, among other authorizations. will be assigned.
House Republicans from all sides voiced opposition to the bill even before it was announced. Trump, Vance and their close allies also joined the fray as Mr. Johnson laid out specific policies.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance issued a joint statement Wednesday criticizing the policy and calling on Congress to pass a temporary funding bill that includes raising the debt ceiling.
“Anything else is a betrayal of our country,” they wrote.
Mr. Trump continued to criticize Truth Social, at one point threatening Republican primary challengers for supporting the funding deal.
