CNN
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President-elect Donald Trump delivered a letter to Capitol Hill on Wednesday that significantly increased the likelihood of a government shutdown just before Christmas while sending the clearest signal yet that he is seeking a dramatic showdown with Democrats over spending.

Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance on Wednesday sharply criticized a deal to fund the federal government through March 14 negotiated by Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, undermining support for the plan on Capitol Hill. just a few days before the closing deadline.

Trump and Vance criticized the bill for containing what they saw as Democratic priorities, but also raised the politically sensitive issue of the U.S. debt limit, which the country is on track to meet after it is reinstated in the new year.

“Republicans want to support our farmers, pay for disaster relief, and prepare our country for success in 2025,” Trump and Vance said in a statement. “The only way to achieve this is a temporary funding law WITHOUT DEMOCRATIC GIVEAWAYS combined with a debt ceiling increase. Anything else is a betrayal of our country.”

Multiple sources told CNN that Trump privately criticized the spending deal in conversations throughout Wednesday. That opposition sparked a row among Republican lawmakers, and Republicans on Capitol Hill described Trump’s opposition as the final death knell for Johnson’s spending deal. There was also the question of whether the Louisiana Republican would have Trump’s support in his own speaker’s race in just over two weeks.

Johnson unveiled the text of his government funding plan on Tuesday evening, but it was met with scathing criticism from the right wing of his party for being too supportive of Democratic priorities. Passing the bill in both chambers of Congress would likely require Democrats.

Then came the final statement from Trump and Vance, in which they called on Republicans to take a tough approach to spending. They called on Republicans to tie demands from the debt limit debate to the bill to keep the government open.

“Republicans need to get smart and tough. When Democrats threaten to shut down the government unless we give them everything they want, call their bluff,” Trump and Vance wrote in the statement.

“Let’s have this debate now,” they wrote about the debt limit. “And we should pass a simplified spending bill that doesn’t give Chuck Schumer and the Democrats everything they want.”

The last-minute grenade into the spending fight — after a bipartisan deal had already been reached — dramatically increases the risk of a Capitol Hill shutdown. Leading Democrats quickly signaled they would not agree to Trump’s new demands for a “streamlined” spending deal that rips billions of dollars out of measures that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries had already negotiated with Johnson.

“House Republicans have been ordered to shut down the government. And they are hurting the working-class Americans they claim to support,” Jeffries wrote in a post on “If you break the bipartisan agreement, you will suffer the consequences that come with it.”

As Vance left his office on Capitol Hill, less than an hour after the joint statement with Trump was released, Vance said they would only support a clean continuation resolution – or CR – if it was coupled with an increase in the debt limit.

“What the president believes is that we should support a clean CR as long as it includes raising the debt limit,” Vance said in response to a question from CNN. “That’s the president’s position and we’re going to try to push for that.”

The avalanche that Trump unleashed on Wednesday afternoon when he spoke out against Johnson’s spending plan at the last minute suggests that Trump’s second term could be marked by the same chaotic governing style he displayed in his first, even if the Republicans will control both chambers of Congress next year.

According to multiple Republican sources, Johnson and his leadership team currently have no clear path forward. It was a remarkable turnaround from just hours earlier, when members of Johnson’s leadership team were mostly positive about how the bill would be received by the Republican Party, many of the same sources said.

However, that support quickly faded on Wednesday afternoon when Elon Musk, a key Trump ally, suggested that Republicans who supported the deal should be given priority. A Republican source in the House of Representatives described the plan as having “collapsed” in the wake of Musk’s comments, leading to a flood of calls to lawmakers’ offices.

“All of these things that we didn’t even know were on the table that are suddenly there – and then we have potentially less than 24 hours to vote on them,” Republican Rep. Michael Cloud of Texas told CNN . “This is everything that’s wrong with Washington and everything we promised we wouldn’t support.”

While many of the GOP members called for this disaster and help for farmers, many conservatives were also angry that Johnson had allowed such a large package to be rushed through at the end of the year.

As Musk pressured Republicans to vote against the bill, support for the package began to crumble, even as lawmakers appeared publicly to hold their ground.

“We’re going to see the new power of Elon,” Republican Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, who opposes the budget bill and hopes Musk’s pressure campaign will influence his colleagues, told CNN.

A moderate GOP Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, who supports the package, told CNN that Musk was “premature” to come out against it so quickly, even though there were many Republican “victories.”

“He should have known the facts,” Bacon added.

The debt ceiling, suspended by the bipartisan Fiscal Responsibility Act in June 2023, will be lifted on January 2nd. The Ministry of Finance must then use existing cash resources as well as so-called extraordinary measures to continue payments to pay the country’s bills on time and in full.

The 2023 agreement took months to draft and brought the country worryingly close to its first-ever default, which would have unleashed global economic chaos and had a significant impact on the finances of many Americans.

The debt ceiling, set by Congress, is the maximum amount the federal government can borrow to finance obligations that lawmakers and presidents have already approved. The Treasury must borrow to pay the bills because the U.S. spends more than it earns in revenue, leading to a budget deficit.

The country’s debt currently stands at $36.2 trillion.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

CNN’s Tami Luhby, Clare Foran and Kit Maher contributed to this report.