Jeffries calls Trump's push to tie debt limit to year-end spending bill a 'premature' discussion

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries , D-N.Y., on Thursday said tying the debt limit to a spending bill to keep the federal government funded, as President-elect Donald Trump has suggested, is a discussion that is "premature at best."

Trump has floated the idea of raising the debt ceiling now or abolishing the cap altogether. In the past, both sides of the aisle have used the debt ceiling as a negotiating tool on spending priorities. The national debt is currently more than $36 trillion.

Republicans in November won the White House and majorities in the House and Senate but the new Congress does not take over until Jan. 3. Federal funding lapses at midnight on Friday. 

Jeffries was asked at a news conference on Thursday about Trump's push to address the debt limit in the spending bill. 

"The debt limit issue and discussion is premature at best," he replied. "This reckless Republican-driven shutdown can be avoided if House Republicans will simply do what is right for the American people and stick with the bipartisan agreement that they themselves negotiated."

Johnson released the full text of the spending bill on Tuesday night after bipartisan negotiations commenced. The bill, which would run through March 14, included a pay raise for members of Congress, about $100 billion in disaster relief funding, full federal funding for the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge, about $10 billion in federal aid to farmers and a provision allowing members of Congress to opt out of Obamacare.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, whom Trump named to run a new government efficiency panel, has been highly critical of the legislation. Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance released a statement on Wednesday in opposition to the bill as well.

Jeffries said Democrats are "fighting for everyday Americans, not the millionaires and billionaires."

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has yet to weigh in on the debt limit issue.