The Congressional Budget Office
on Wednesday released a stark forecast of when the government’s borrowing limit would be exhausted—increasing the urgency of congressional Republicans’ budget negotiations.
The forecast warns that if the government doesn’t raise the limit of its debt, then it will no longer be able to borrow money and pay its obligations.
“CBO estimates that if the debt limit remains unchanged, the government’s ability to borrow using established ‘extraordinary measures’ will probably be exhausted in August or September 2025,” the office’s summary says.
Although the forecast gives Republicans a few months to put a plan together, it renews pressure for the GOP leadership to get their party behind a debt ceiling increase.
House Speaker Mike Johnson,
R-La., has previously said he hopes to pass a budget reconciliation bill by Memorial Day, which this year falls on May 26.
If the government’s borrowing ability is exhausted, then it “will be unable to pay all of its obligations,” the CBO report asserts. It adds that the Treasury’s resources could be exhausted in “late May or sometime in June” if government spending outpaces CBO estimates.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., called addressing the debt ceiling a way to “prevent Chuck Schumer from holding our economy hostage.” (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
In a statement to The Daily Signal, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer,
R-Minn., emphasized his support of a debt ceiling increase in budget reconciliation.
“President [Donald] Trump has been clear: The debt ceiling must be addressed to prevent [Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.] from holding our economy hostage. House Republicans’ budget resolution achieves this, and we will continue to advocate for the House’s position throughout negotiations,” Emmer’s statement said.
“We’ve been saying that from the very beginning,” Johnson said Tuesday to a reporter who asked about including a new debt ceiling
in the reconciliation bill.
“Of course, it’s included in our reconciliation, and it sounds like Senate Republicans are coming around on that as well. So, that’s a good development.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune,
R-S.D., has also backed the debt limit increase.
But hiking the debt limit could create problems within Republicans’ narrow majorities in Congress.
Sen. Rand Paul,
R-Ky., a fiscal hawk, said Tuesday of the proposed debt ceiling increase, “They’ve lost me,” adding: “There will be other conservatives who they will lose … and the whole thing goes down.”
Sen. Ron Johnson,
R-Wis., who has repeatedly advocated for lower spending levels than those in the House’s budget plan, told reporters
that he wants to use the need for a debt ceiling increase as leverage to shape the bill more to his liking.
“We’ve got to keep that leverage, because obviously, people in my own party aren’t serious about a reasonable spending level,” he said.
Nevertheless, leadership is making optimistic statements about budget negotiations.
Thune told reporters after his meeting with Johnson
that they had had “a very constructive, productive conversation” and that they were “homing in on these final issues we have to decide.”
Three of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet members
defended the administration’s conduct at a House Intelligence Committee hearing on Wednesday, shortly after a follow-up report from The Atlanticshowing messages related to a military attack on Houthis in Yemen that were inadvertently sent to its editor-in-chief.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard
and CIA Director John Ratcliffe both rejected Democrats’ claims that the Signal chat’s exposures constituted a leak of classified information.
At the end of her opening statement, Gabbard acknowledged the unfortunate nature of the leak.
“It was a mistake that a reporter was inadvertently added to a Signal chat
with high-level national security principals having a policy discussion about imminent strikes against the Houthis and the effects of the strike,” said Gabbard, who added that National Security Adviser Mike Waltz had taken responsibility and was investigating the incident.
.@DNIGabbard
: “I want to address, briefly, the Signal chat issue… As the President and National Security Advisor stated, no classified information was shared. There were no sources, methods, locations or war plans that were shared.” pic.twitter.com/thuE1aKs49
However, Gabbard also rejected the idea that classified material was transmitted.
“The conversation was candid and sensitive, but as the president’s national security adviser stated, no classified information was shared. There were no sources, methods, locations, or war plans that were shared,” she said.
Much of the hearing became a back-and-forth between Gabbard and Democrat members of Congress over whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s
message laying out the time frame for the attack on Houthis in Yemen should be considered classified information.
When Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., questioned Gabbard on whether the exposed messages would be classified under her own standards as DNI, Gabbard replied that Hegseth’s standards for classification are his prerogative.
“Ultimately, the secretary of defense
holds the authority to classify or declassify,” she said.
Ratcliffe also pushed back against The Atlantic’s reporting, accusing its Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg of deliberate falsehoods and exaggerations.
.@CIADirector
: “My answers haven’t changed. I used an appropriate channel to communicate sensitive information. It was permissible to do so … and at the end of the day, what is most important is that the mission was a remarkable success.” pic.twitter.com/Mas5YKrz5a
“Those messages were revealed today and revealed that I did not transmit classified information and that the reporter, who I don’t know, I think intentionally intended it to indicate that,” said Ratcliffe.
“That reporter also indicated that I had released the name of an undercover CIA operative in that Signal chat. In fact, I had released the name of my chief of staff, who is not operating undercover. That was deliberately false and misleading.
”
Ratcliffe concluded by categorically rejecting all claims that he had acted improperly.
“I used an appropriate channel to communicate sensitive information. It was permissible to do so. I didn’t transfer any classified information. And at the end of the day, what is most important is that the mission
was a remarkable success. … Because that’s what did happen, not what possibly could have happened.”
As a Democrat in Congress suggests President Donald Trump should investigate and possibly deport first lady Melania Trump, DOGE leader Elon Musk is now reacting.
At an anti-DOGE protest in Los Angeles on Saturday, U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said:
“When he [Trump] talks about birthright, and he’s going to undo the fact that the Constitution allows those who are born here, even if the parents are undocumented, they have a right to stay in America.”
“If he wants to start looking so closely to find those who were born here and their parents were undocumented, maybe he ought to first look at Melania.”
Melania Trump
“We don’t know whether or not her parents were documented. And maybe we better just take a look,” she added.
Deranged Maxine Waters rages about DOGE, floats idea to Trump: Deport Melania.
Waters was alluding to an executive order by President Trump banning birthright citizenship, as it clarifies the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
Musk reposted a Fox News story about the event, and said
early Wednesday: “At some point, the many crimes of Maxine Waters will catch up to her.”
Elon Musk on Thursday, March 6, 2025 (Official White House photo)
Emma Colton of Fox News reported
: “Melania Trump was born in the former Yugoslavia and became a U.S. citizen in 2006, according to official government biographies of the first lady. She is the first U.S. first lady to become a naturalized citizen, and the second first lady to be born outside the U.S. – following President John Quincy Adams’ wife Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, who was born in London in 1775.
President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump (Official White House photo)
“The first lady sponsored her parents, who were also from current-day Slovenia, for green cards and then citizenship after securing her own citizenship, the New York Times reported in 2018. Viktor and Amalija Knavs, the first lady’s parents, officially became U.S. citizens in 2018. Amalija Knavs died in 2024, while her father Viktor Knavs has been spotted with the Trump family during public events in recent months, including sitting next to first son Barron Trump during the inauguration.”
During the Los Angeles protest, waters also said: “We are here because we are not going to let Trump, we’re not going to let Elon Musk, his co-president, or anybody else take the United States Constitution down.”
Online commenters were not kind to Waters, saying:
“When they start investigating Maxine Waters, they will likely need a whole server of space to catalog the crime she is involved in. … She has her hands in everything.”
“Can we deport Maxine Waters? At least from any government position? Bless her heart, she just needs to go.”
“She’s mentally ill. She called for violence against MAGA Republicans during President Trump’s first term and a lot of innocent people were harmed. She should be removed from office immediately.”
“Maxine is a diabolical Democrat who only plays the opposition for the sake of it. This woman stood in front of a crowd of homeless people and told them to go home. She is an a*****e and has the most punchable face.”
“If Congress needed a village idiot, Maxine Waters would be the lifelong incumbent. In a just era, she’d be run out of Washington on horseback.”
Anti-Semite Maxine Waters voted most corrupt politician in the USA 4 times! Democrats love the criminals! pic.twitter.com/QP79yfhXsU
Kari Lake
said the Trump administration is putting the United States government on a diet through spending cuts, and that she will contribute by slashing the United States Agency for Global Media budget.
Lake, President Donald Trump’s
nominee to be director of the Voice of America, is currently serving as special adviser to Voice of America’s parent organization, United States Agency for Global Media. Appearing on Steve Bannon’s podcast “The War Room,” she said she’s working to scale back the agency to its “bare minimum,” in alignment with the president’s recent executive order
aimed in part at lowering federal spending on media.
This morning, I joined @Bannons_WarRoom
to provide an update on my efforts to cut waste at USAGM.
President Trump has tasked me with returning these agencies to their mission, reducing them to the statutory minimum, and putting an END to their rampant abuse of taxpayer money.… pic.twitter.com/eSNL7lYPxx
United States Agency for Global Media is a global media agency designed to “inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy,” according to its website
. Several entities are overseen by United States Agency for Global Media, including Voice of America, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, and Middle East
Broadcasting Networks.
According to Lake, programming supported by the agency does not always serve its pro-American purpose.
“The focus was supposed to be talking and telling the American story
, and they haven’t been doing that,” she said. “I recently tuned in and saw a graphic on Voice of America that showed President Trump with a swastika over his face. That’s not what our taxpayer-funded media should be putting out.”
Lake explained that the cuts are not solely about editorial content but about a broader mission to prevent bankruptcy and rein in government spending.
“We’ve got to get this debt under control, Steve,” she added, “or we won’t have a country anymore.”
Many government agencies—such as United States Agency for Global Media—are created by Congress, so Trump cannot dismantle them through an executive order
. However, funding for the agencies can be cut back to a legal minimum.
Lake is working with lawyers to determine the statutory minimum for the various grantees of United States Agency for Global Media to scale back funding.
She noted that once money is funneled to United States Agency for Global Media’s grantees, there is a lack of transparency. “We don’t know exactly what they’re doing with that money. … So, we just want to have more transparency. They’re trying to give us less transparency and they’re suing us right now to stop us from cutting off the spigot to them.”
When asked about the lawsuits, Lake explained that several employees of Voice of America and other United States Agency for Global Media agencies are suing to prevent reduced funding and layoffs
.
“We are going to fight these lawsuits,” Lake promised. “We believe we’re in the right here and we will continue to fight them.”
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal
.]
