President-elect Trump wants congressional Republicans to figure out a way to avoid a default on the national debt after venting his frustration with the Senate GOP over their failure to raise the debt limit as part of a government-funding package last month.

Trump told Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) at a recent meeting that it’s now up to him to find a way around the debt-limit impasse, according to a Republican source familiar with the conversation.

“The debt limit came up. He’s very unhappy that that’s hanging out there and he made it Thune’s problem. He said, ‘John, I don’t know how you’re going to solve this problem, but you’re going to figure out some way,’” said a GOP senator who attended the meeting.

Republicans say Trump’s unhappy that Congress failed to raise the debt limit before he takes office on Jan. 20 and wants congressional leaders to take care of the looming problem, largely washing his own hands of the matter — at least for now.

“Yes, we have to figure out because we’re in the majority,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said of Congress’s inability to take care of the debt limit before Trump’s inauguration.

“He’s not happy, I’m not happy, but that’s where we are,” Cornyn said.

It’s becoming clear that a debt-limit increase won’t be a part of a budget reconciliation package being plotted out to move much of Trump’s legislative agenda.

Trump wants that package to be moved in one bill that would include border and energy provisions and an extension of the 2017 tax cuts he signed into law. Including a debt hike in that bill would be tough since conservatives say hiking the nation’s debt limit must be coupled with up to $2 trillion in spending cuts.

Trump urged House Republicans last month to vote for a stopgap funding measure bundled with........

© The Hill