Believe that journalism can make a difference If you believe in the work we do at Vox, please support us by becoming a member. Our mission has never been more urgent. But our work isn’t easy. It requires resources, dedication, and independence. And that’s where you come in. We rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. Will you support our work and become a Vox Member today? Support Vox Politics What the hell is going on in Congress, explained Trump stoked another congressional crisis. But there’s an intriguing twist to this one. by Andrew Prokop Dec 20, 2024, 11:05 PM GMT+6 President-Elect Donald Trump Watches Army-Navy Football Game From left, House Speaker Mike Johnson, President-elect Donald Trump, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and Vice President-elect JD Vance attend the Army-Navy football game on December 14, 2024, in Landover, Maryland. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images Andrew Prokop Andrew Prokop is a senior politics correspondent at Vox, covering the White House, elections, and political scandals and investigations. He’s worked at Vox since the site’s launch in 2014, and before that, he worked as a research assistant at the New Yorker’s Washington, DC, bureau. President-elect Donald Trump didn’t even wait to start his second term before throwing Congress into chaos, sinking a bipartisan spending deal and making his own demands as a government shutdown looms at midnight. In one sense, this is just the latest installment of a very familiar story involving House Republican dysfunction over spending battles, and Trump’s willingness to embrace chaos and throw things into disarray. symbol 00:04 02:00 The surprising aspect to the current showdown, though, is just what, exactly, Trump has chosen to pick this fight over: He wants to suspend, or even eliminate, the debt ceiling. “Congress must get rid of, or extend out to, perhaps, 2029, the ridiculous Debt Ceiling,” Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social early Friday morning. “Without this, we should never make a deal.” The debt ceiling is the limit — set in law — of how much new debt the US government can issue. If it is not raised or suspended in time, the country would default on its debt; it is widely believed economic turmoil would then ensue. Republicans have used the threat of a debt default to try to force Democratic presidents into policy concessions, and Trump fears Democrats will try something similar against him in 2025. So he wants the debt ceiling suspended right now — or even abolished entirely. This was an unexpected turn of events because the initial bipartisan deal just didn’t address the debt ceiling at all: It merely funded the government for three more months, as well as included several other provisions that had won bipartisan backing. When, on Wednesday, billionaire Elon Musk started publicly attacking the deal, he complained about the bill’s “overspending” and also made sometimes-inaccurate claims about those add-on provisions. But he said nothing about the debt ceiling — which would, if suspended, allow Trump and Republicans to spend more freely. Then, in a Wednesday afternoon statement denouncing the deal, Trump suddenly put the debt ceiling on the agenda. “Increasing the debt ceiling is not great but we’d rather do it on Biden’s watch,” he posted on Truth Social, calling Republicans “foolish and inept” for not dealing with this issue earlier and complaining that “the Debt Ceiling guillotine was coming up in June.”