A group of House Republicans and President-elect Donald Trump talked about tying wildfire aid to a debt ceiling increase Sunday night, as the fires spreading across huge swaths of Los Angeles are estimated to become one of the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history.
Of the nearly two dozen House Republicans who attended the Sunday dinner at Mar-a-Lago, where this option was discussed, several are caucus leaders and appropriators with major influence in upcoming budget reconciliation and government funding negotiations.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) was not at the dinner, and no final decisions were made about the way forward, according to two people with direct knowledge of the private meeting, who were granted anonymity to discuss it.
Yet addressing the looming debt cliff will be one of Johnson’s biggest challenges in the coming months, especially as Trump continues to agitate for lawmakers to address it quickly. The Sunday night discussions prove Republicans are desperately looking for a plan before the nation is due to exhaust its borrowing authority in June — though Democrats and some Republicans are sure to balk at the prospect of linking disaster relief dollars to a politically charged exercise like extending the debt limit.
Many Republicans also fear adding a debt ceiling increase to their major party-line reconciliation package of border, energy and tax policy will sink the massive billgiven internal GOP divisions, forcing leadership back to the drawing board repeatedly to come up with other ideas.
The federal government’s disaster relief coffers are currently flush with cash, thanks to the $100 billion in disaster aid Congress cleared at the end of last year. But the scope and scale of the fires engulfing Los Angeles has elected officials wondering if more money at some point might be needed.
Congress could, for instance, be asked to vote in the coming weeks to approve long-term recovery work, like authorizing help for California under the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s program for funding community development projects following disasters.
And Trump’s reentry into the White House later this month could further complicate further federal aid through this channel and others, as the incoming president continues to spar publicly with California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, over wildfires and water policy in a long simmering fight.
Trump also discussed the wildfires Saturday night with a group of House Republicans from California, New York and New Jersey.
These conversations took place during a weekend of meetings and meals between Trump and House Republicans hailing from the various factions of the GOP conference, on hand to discuss the party’s sweeping legislative agenda — specifically the contents of the massive budget reconciliation bill that could span immigration, energy and tax policy.
Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
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