BURSTSenate Republicans from regions affected by hurricanes and other storms are warning negotiators against stripping disaster funding from the stopgap spending bill that is suddenly in turmoil after President-elect Trump heavily criticized Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) plan.
Multiple Republicans indicated that they would hold up any bill that does not include more than $100 billion in funding to help recovery efforts after hurricanes Helene and Milton, along with other natural disasters, and that any continuing resolution — known as a CR — must include it.
“Yeah, we’ve got to have the disaster relief. I can’t go home and … play like it didn’t happen.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said. “To anybody who thinks that disaster relief is pork, come to where I live, see what happened in my state, in North Carolina and Georgia.”
“There’s a time for the government,” Graham continued, noting that some individuals and families in parts of those states have “lost everything.” “There’s generations of families where the entire family was wiped out. This is an absolute moral imperative to get money into the system to help these people get back on their feet.”
Trump threw a massive wrench into spending talks on Wednesday by calling on lawmakers to deal with the debt ceiling in any potential stopgap. This came despite the debt ceiling, which is not set to come up until the summer, not being part of negotiations on this current bill throughout the process.
“Republicans want to support our farmers, pay for disaster relief, and set our country up for success in 2025. The only way to do that is with a temporary funding bill WITHOUT DEMOCRAT GIVEAWAYS combined with an increase in the debt ceiling. Anything else is a betrayal of our country,” Trump wrote.
The statement left unclear precisely what would happen to disaster aid and assistance to farmers that had been included in the bill. Trump voiced support for such provisions, but also called for a clean funding bill.
However, members from the affected areas said that they will hold up any bill that does not include disaster funding.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told reporters that he talked with Vice President-elect Vance on the phone about the aid that was part of the bill Johnson negotiated. Vance, along with Tillis, toured parts of western North Carolina earlier this month to survey damage.
“I feel very strongly. If we don’t get disaster in the bill, I’ll do everything I can do to keep us here until we do,” Tillis said. "He understands the need to get disaster follow-up in there. We can't let months go by, which would effectively happen if we just did a CR and got out of town — which is unacceptable."
Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) also posted on the social platform X that there should not be a CR “without disaster relief for Western North Carolina.”
Whether the debt ceiling can actually sneak its way into this continuing resolution is a major question mark, especially as negotiations over the ceiling being raised usually take place over months. Trump’s call for it came just over two days before government funding expires and a week before Christmas.
However, Republicans are skeptical it will work.
“I have no problem with doing it. I just don’t know why Sen. Schumer would accept it,” Tillis said, referring to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). “It looks like June [for the debt ceiling], and so you don’t have the pressure of an impending default to get people [to raise it].”
Trump’s move effectively killed off Johnson’s bill, which was more than 1,500 pages long and included a number of concessions to Democrats that infuriated conservatives, rank-and-file GOP members and Elon Musk.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) predicted that the way out of the mess lawmakers find themselves in is probably a clean stopgap package. However, he argued that the disaster aid would become a “big problem” for a number of members.
“‘It’s a lot of money. I certainly support disaster aid, and I’m also for our farmers,” Cornyn said. “But this is the art of the possible. What can you pass? And we don’t have a lot of time.”