President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday that Congress should scrap the debt ceiling, a day after he opposed a deal from congressmen to fund the government before a shutdown.

In a telephone interview with NBC News, Trump said eliminating the debt ceiling entirely was the “smartest thing he (Congress) could do. I would fully support that.”

“The Democrats have said they want to get rid of it. If they want to get rid of it, I would take the lead,” Mr. Trump added.

Trump suggested that the debt ceiling was a meaningless concept – and that no one knew for sure what would happen if it were one day exceeded – “a disaster or meaningless” – and that no one should want to find out.

“It doesn’t mean anything except psychological,” he said.

The debt ceiling is the limit set by the legislature that determines how much the federal government can borrow to pay its bills. No new expenditure will be approved.

On the possibility of a shutdown, which would occur at 12:01 p.m. Saturday if a funding deal is not reached, he said: “If there is a shutdown, we will start it with a Democratic president” – suggesting that the Battle now unfolding in Congress is necessary to provide clarity before his term begins in January.

Asked whether he still had confidence in House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Trump replied: “We’ll see.” “(The funding deal) they made yesterday was unacceptable.” referring to the speaker’s continued resolution. “In many ways it was unacceptable. It’s a trap by the Democrats.”

Trump said he discussed his views on the short-term financing deal with Elon Musk ahead of the X owner’s posts on Wednesday.

“I told him he could make a statement if he agreed with me,” Trump said. “He looks at things from a cost perspective.” He described their views as consistent and “very much on the right track.”

In his call Wednesday for Republicans to abandon the negotiated bipartisan short-term spending bill, Trump also demanded that lawmakers raise the debt ceiling — something that wasn’t even on the table.

Congress last raised the debt ceiling in June 2023 and suspended it until January 1, 2025. Typically, the Treasury Department can extend the deadline through so-called extraordinary measures to give lawmakers more time to deal with the problem.

Before lawmakers passed the latest increase, the White House issued a statement warning of the consequences of not repealing and the country defaulting, saying that a default “would likely cause severe harm to the U.S. economy.” The statement said analysis by the Council of Economic Ads and outside researchers showed that if the government failed to meet its obligations, the economy would quickly go into reverse gear, with the size of the losses depending on the duration of the breach.

During Trump’s first term, he signed legislation raising the caps three times. When he was in the White House, he also floated the idea of ​​abolishing the debt ceiling.

Some Democrats have advocated abolishing it in recent years.

Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., the ranking member of the Budget Committee, has led the charge with legislation called the Debt Ceiling Reform Act that would limit Congress’ ability to use the threat of default as a tactic in legislative negotiations. He introduced it in 2023 with Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, who introduced a companion bill in the Senate.

The House bill has 55 co-sponsors, all Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Boyle told NBC News that “the only way” House Democrats “should vote to raise the debt ceiling under Trump is to permanently eliminate it” — or reform to largely repeal it, like his bill, which would give the president more authority to raise the debt ceiling unless Congress overrides him.

He kept open the possibility of considering it as part of a state funding bill. “As far as inclusion in the CR goes, I would have to consider all the other issues that come with it,” Boyle said.

The president-elect appears to be aware of the legislative logjam that awaits him in the first year of his second term: another round of government funding, a hike in the debt limit and plans to push forward key partisan bills on immigration and taxes beyond confirmation of his administration staff the Senate.