Trump endorses ‘clean’ CR as government shutdown looms

As the prospect of a mid-March government shutdown looms, President Donald Trump endorsed the idea of a continuing resolution to fund the government through the end of September.

“As usual, Sleepy Joe Biden left us a total MESS. The Budget from last YEAR is still not done. We are working very hard with the House and Senate to pass a clean, temporary government funding Bill (“CR”) to the end of September. Let’s get it done!” he declared in a Thursday night Truth Social post.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, told Fox News Digital in a statement on Friday that he will back Trump’s request.

“I will support President Trump’s request for a clean CR to hold spending flat while DOGE continues to identify cuts, the administration re-programs those funds, and Congress readies a strong FY26 appropriation package that cuts waste and reflects DOGE and common sense,” the congressman noted in the statement.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has indicated that “anomalies” can be inserted into a CR to increase or decrease spending, noting that language could be added to reflect spending changes like cuts associated with USAID.

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Johnson made the comments during a Wednesday appearance on CNN after Kaitlan Collins asked him if passing a CR would “refund” programs Elon Musk has been seeking to slash. 

Johnson said he thinks a continuing resolution would largely be a “clean CR,” with changes to account for the “new realities” of “less government” and “more efficiency.” 

“I would have a real hard time voting for a clean [continuing resolution] after everything that we’ve seen out of DOGE,” Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., said, according to The Hill. 

Fox News Digital reached out to Crane’s office on Friday to request a comment from the congressman. “I have little confidence that Congress will be able to keep up with President Trump,” Crane said in a statement emailed over by a staffer who explained the lawmaker was referring to the prospect of Congress making the Trump administration’s actions permanent via legislation.

“Why are we even having DOGE if we’re not gonna solidify and put it in the CR?” Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., asked, according to The Hill.

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Fox News Digital reached out to Norman’s office on Friday, but the office did not provide a comment from the congressman. 

CQ Roll Call reported that it obtained a list of anomalies that the White House budget office sent to lawmakers this week.

The document titled “FY 2025 FULL-YEAR CONTINUING RESOLUTION ASSUMPTIONS,” includes some proposed anomalies to increase spending but others to decrease spending.

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For example, one entry on the list notes, “An anomaly is needed to provide the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program with an additional $3,654 million in order to maintain current services for 2.3 million low-income families in 2025.” The document states that, “At the full year CR level, approximately 230,000 households could lose assistance.”

But another item goes the other direction, declaring, “An anomaly is needed to include a recurring rescission for the Enforcement account of the Internal Revenue Service in the Department of the Treasury in the amount of $20.2 billion. This anomaly would rescind funding that was enacted in the Inflation Reduction Act,” the document notes.

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House on Friday to request comment on the CR situation and seek confirmation of the document obtained by CQ Roll Call, but did not receive a response.