Jeffries: Government will shut down unless House GOP yields on demands

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is drawing red lines when it comes to 2024 spending, warning Thursday that the government will close its doors if House Republicans continue to demand funding levels below those negotiated in the debt ceiling agreement — complete with side deals — earlier in the year.

“It’s fair to say that we are either going to agree to keep the agreement that had been reached in terms of the bipartisan Fiscal Responsibility Act, with the top-line spending number at [$1.659 trillion],” Jeffries said during a press briefing in the Capitol, “or the extreme MAGA Republicans in the House are going to shut down the government, which will hurt the American people.”

The comments came as congressional leaders are struggling to reach an agreement on the spending caps — or “top-line” numbers — governing federal appropriations for fiscal 2024. While Congress had extended spending last month at 2023 levels, preventing a shutdown, lawmakers had hoped to solidify a deal on the 2024 caps before the holiday break — well ahead of a Jan. 19 shutdown deadline.

Bipartisan leaders in the White House and Congress had reached an agreement on the Fiscal Responsibility Act in May, which capped spending in fiscal 2024 at $1.59 trillion — $886 billion for defense and $704 billion for nondefense programs. But the agreement also included an additional $69 billion to pad the nondefense side, bringing the total to the $1.659 trillion referenced by Jeffries.

The deal was supported by President Biden and the top four congressional leaders, including former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

But McCarthy was subsequently ejected from the Speakership by rebellious conservatives, who accused him of giving away too much to Biden in both the debt ceiling negotiations and the 2024 spending talks. Many of those same conservatives are now demanding that McCarthy’s replacement, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), reject the $69 billion “side deals” his predecessor had endorsed, capping 2024 spending at a hard $1.59 trillion.

It’s that strategy that Jeffries dismissed Thursday, and in no uncertain terms.

“The top-line spending number is not a mystery to anyone. It is 1.659,” he said.

“The problem is that while House Democrats agree with Senate Democrats on that number, and House and Senate Democrats agree with Senate Republicans on that number, and all of us agree with the Biden administration on that number, the extreme MAGA Republicans remain on an island, trying to break the agreement that they themselves negotiated,” he continued.

“It’s a non-starter, it’s not happening, and if extreme MAGA Republicans continue to refuse to keep the agreement related to the bipartisan Fiscal Responsibility Act, they are marching America to a government shutdown.”