Shutdown: Republican Party taking order from Elon Musk – Hillary Clinton

United States former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has sounded off about Elon Musk’s influence over the spending drama on Capitol Hill.

Clinton’s comments come as House Democrats claim that ‘Extreme MAGA’ Republicans were driving the country to a government shutdown.

“If you’re just catching up: the Republican Party, taking orders from the world’s richest man, is on course to shut down the government over the holidays.

“Stopping paychecks for our troops and nutrition benefits for low-income families just in time for Christmas,” Clinton wrote in a post on X.

Fox News reports that the U.S government will go into partial shutdown at midnight Saturday if there’s no passable deal to kick the government funding deadline to March and continue spending at 2024 levels.

According to the report, Musk had come out in strong opposition to the original spending deal House Speaker, Mike Johnson, negotiated with Democrats.

However, the world richest man threatened to back a primary challenge to any Republican who voted for it.

Meanwhile, House Republicans on Thursday came out with a new version, which was substantially shorter and included both disaster aid and a suspension of the debt ceiling for two years, as President-elect Donald Trump had requested.

But the measure failed in the House, with some Republicans refusing to back it and Democrats uniting against it, with many apparently unhappy with Musk’s apparent influence.

While deportations rose in fiscal year 2024, the number of ICE arrests of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally dropped by 33% compared with the previous year, the agency’s annual report said, attributing the falloff to more officers assisting with border security operations.