Trump demands House ‘immediately’ pass Senate-approved bill to restore 2025 spending to clean up DC

"Washington, DC, must become CLEAN and SAFE again," Trump wrote. "We need our Great Police back on the street, with no excuses from the Mayor, or anyone else. The House should take up the DC funding 'fix' that the Senate has passed, and get it done IMMEDIATELY. We need to clean up our once beautiful Capital City, and make it beautiful again. We will be TOUGH ON CRIME, like never before. I will work with the Mayor on this and, if it does not happen, will have no choice but to do it myself. Washington, DC, will be better, safer, and more beautiful than ever before!"

Earlier in March, the Senate passed a bill that would reverse a provision included in the continuing resolution that avoided a government shutdown. The stopgap resolution required DC officials to revert to 2024 spending levels after operating at 2025 levels for nearly half a year. If the Senate-passed bill is not approved by the House, DC would be forced to continue at 2024 spending levels, which could require over $1.1 billion in cuts, per WAMU.

A spokesperson for Glen Lee, DC’s chief financial officer, said that he is confident that city agencies will not reach their 2024 spending levels until the fourth quarter of the fiscal year, meaning that the District has until at least the summer for the bill to be passed before it reaches its spending cap.

DC Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office told the outlet that she has begun planning for if a fix cannot be passed. She has reportedly instructed agency heads to check with supervisors before making large spending decisions, and Council Chair Phil Mendelson estimated that almost every area of the city’s budget would need to be cut by 10 percent or more if cuts need to be made.

House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris told The Hill that he has urged GOP leadership to delay bringing the Senate-passed bill to a vote. "We’ve urged the leadership to delay it until we get the budget resolution fixed, and then we should put requirements on that for the District of Columbia." Per the outlet, Harris' comments come as Congressional Republicans "are working to hash out a deal on a budget blueprint that would help pave the way for the party to advance President Trump’s tax agenda."

He said that the GOP party needs "a little while to come up with a list of what requirements we should put on DC,” and criticized the District for spending “dollars in ways that in the past we thought were pretty foolish.”