A Democratic lawmaker slammed House speaker Mike Johnson for losing control of his Republican majority and risking a government shutdown.
Donald Trump and J.D. Vance helped kill a continuing resolution that would have kept the government funded until March 14, following outspoken opposition from Elon Musk and other outside allies, and Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) harshly criticized the speaker's leadership.
"This is absolutely absurd, this is not where we're at – they're not even on the map right now," Stansbury told CNN. "So we've got to get back to getting the government funded, and we got to make sure that the American people get their paychecks, that, you know, there's access to food assistance, that all the things that we know are vital government services continue through the holidays and to hold the American people hostage right before the holidays is unconscionable."
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The president-elect has been willing to risk government shutdowns in his previous term in office, but Stansbury rejected the notion that president Joe Biden should share any blame if Congress is unable to pass a funding measure.
"First of all, this is not on Biden's watch, this is on Mike Johnson's watch," Stansbury said. "The fact that he cannot hold his own raucous caucus together in the final days, right before the Christmas holidays, as Donald Trump and Elon Musk are tweeting, I think shows the inherent weakness of the GOP right now and the fact that they barely even have a coalition. You know, they're out here trying to claim that they have a mandate, and they can't even keep their own members at the table for half a day to get a vote done, so this is on them. This is on their own lack of ability to govern and their inability to actually do things that serve the American people."
"This is the least productive Congress since before the Great Depression, and that's wholly on Mike Johnson," she added. "But I'm going to say this: Democrats are the grownups in the room. We're going to keep showing up, we're going to keep fighting for the American people, and we're going to make sure that we get something substantive done, and we're going to hold the line."
Democrats have signaled they're not willing to support what Trump calls a "streamlined" spending deal that would remove billions of dollars that House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries had already negotiated with Johnson, but Stansbury said that Republicans couldn't stand up to their billionaire benefactors.
"Our leadership has literally been in the trenches for days and weeks, holding them to account, and so we're going to continue to hold the line to make sure that the Republicans who are responsible for the House floor procedures over the coming days, do the right thing for the American people," Stansbury said. "They keep the government operational, that they pass emergency funding for all of the millions of Americans who've been impacted by fires and floods and tornadoes, and that we keep the government open over the holidays, and so that means hanging tough and making sure that we don't completely collapse under a tweet storm by Elon Musk."
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