On Thursday (Dec. 19), President-elect Donald Trump expressed his support for eliminating the U.S. debt ceiling. In a phone interview with NBC News, Trump called the move “the smartest thing [Congress] could do” and pledged his full support for the idea. “The Democrats have said they want to get rid of it. If they want to get rid of it, I would lead the charge,” he declared.

Trump criticized the debt ceiling as a “meaningless concept” and added that its potential breach could be “a catastrophe or meaningless.” “It doesn’t mean anything, except psychologically,” he added.

Notably, Rep. Brendan Boyle and Sen. Dick Durbin introduced the Debt Ceiling Reform Act in 2023 to curb the use of the country’s maximum borrowing limit as a political bargaining chip by Congress. “[This legislation] will not only put a stop to Republican manufactured default crises, but it will also restore the debt ceiling mechanism back to the original congressional intention, which was to make it easier for Treasury to pay the nation's bills,” Boyle wrote. The bill was co-sponsored by 55 Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Trump’s comments came after an apparent breakdown in negotiations to avert a government shutdown. A funding deal must be reached by midnight Friday (Dec. 20) to prevent a lapse in operations. According to Trump, the current short-term proposal by House Speaker Mike Johnson was “unacceptable” and “a Democrat trap.” He also suggested that any potential default should occur under Joe Biden’s administration. “If there’s going to be a shutdown, we’re going to start it with a Democratic president," he asserted.

NBC News added that Trump spoke to Elon Musk before the tech entrepreneur publicly commented on the issue. “I told him that if he agrees with me, that he could put out a statement,” Trump said, noting that Musk approaches the situation “from a cost standpoint” and that their views were “very much on track.”

This is not the first time Trump floated the idea of abolishing the debt ceiling. During his first term as president, he signed legislation to raise the limit three times and pushed for its removal as a means to prevent economic uncertainty. Congress previously raised the debt ceiling in June 2023 and suspended it until Jan. 1, 2025. Additionally, the White House warned that defaulting on the nation’s debt could cause “severe damage to the U.S. economy."