Elon Musk scuttled a bipartisan deal to avoid a government shutdown. Trump pushed him by demanding that the bill raise the debt ceiling. The new bill failed. Who is the boss here?
Happy holiday! With Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa just around the corner, cultures around the world celebrate festivals of light this time of year. But the Republican Party seems to have chosen the darkly funny, Seinfeld– the invented holiday “Festivus”, best known for “hanging up grievances”.
For those still mourning the re-election of Donald Trump: Enjoy your the holiday season while the Republican Party vents its grievances and tears itself apart. Schadenfreude will be a wonderful side dish on any festive table.
To recap: After Speaker Mike Johnson announced a bipartisan deal on a continuing resolution that would keep the government open next year, the shadow president Elon Musk smashed itplacing on Xitter 150 times against costs in the account on Wednesday. Not to be outdone by Musk, Trump also suddenly scrapped the deal and included an entirely new requirement that Congress lift or even repeal the debt ceiling.
“Raising the debt ceiling is not a good thing,” Trump said, “but we would prefer to do it under Biden’s watch.” See? He knows raising the debt ceiling is unpopular with his MAGA base, but he thinks they’re dumb enough to blame it on Joe Biden. Perhaps they are; maybe it will play that way in the right-wing echo chamber, but the rest of us see it as a cowardly attempt to raise the debt ceiling so he can extend the budget-destroying tax cuts and increase the deficit.
Politics analyzed the two-stage Musk-Trump meeting thus: Billionaire Tesla “got wow and cornered Trump.” I see it pretty much the same way.
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In case you’ve forgotten the suffering caused by previous shutdowns: Social Security and Medicare payments will continue, but payments to some members of the military will be suspended. “Non-essential” federal workers will go without pay; during the 2019 shutdown, unpaid federal workers crowd Washington, D.C. food banks.
A dutiful and probably doomed Mike Johnson, who was recently heard bragging about his cool texting with Musk and fellow DOGER Vivek Ramaswamy, went back to the drawing board, drafting a bill that met some of Musk’s demands with cost cuts , including cuts to pediatric cancer research, plus a two-year ceiling increase debt to please Trump. But it failed, with 38 Republicans voting against it and all but two Democrats doing the same.
“We must unequivocally reject the illegitimate oligarchy that seeks to usurp the power of the United States Congress and the American people,” said longtime Connecticut progressive Rep. Rosa DeLauro. In this bill, Democrats have done just that.
Some Republicans have balked at such a big role for Musk. Pennsylvania Rep. Glenn Thompson, chairman of the Agriculture Committee, told reporters he “didn’t see where Musk has a voting card,” adding, “I’m not sure he understands the plight of normal working people right now.” The bill torpedoed by Musk contained the farm aid that Thompson supported.
But others welcomed their new Afrikaner overlord. “I would be willing to support @elonmusk for Speaker of the House,” wrote Marjorie Taylor Green on social media. “The establishment must be broken, as it was yesterday. This could be the way.” It should be noted that Musk there is Eligibility to be Speaker: Not being a member of the House of Representatives and being born and raised in South Africa is not an obstacle.
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With the bill he opposed failing and no solution in sight, Musk turned his attention to his other big priority: glorifying Nazism.
Weighing in on German policy, – he praised the Nazi-affiliated far-right anti-immigrant Alliance for Germany (AfD), which is vying for control in the upcoming February 23 election.
“Only the AfD can save Germany,” Musk wrote on X.
Also this week, Nigel Farage, leader of the far-right Reform UK party, posted a photo of himself with Musk at Mar-a-Lago. Musk wants to do more than cut government spending; he wants to remake the Republican Party in the image of Europe’s worst players. Is Trump on board? Probably. He hosted Farage and openly praised Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. He is a friend of dictators around the world.
There is a lot of speculation that by moving forward with sinking Johnson’s bill, Musk has eclipsed Trump and made it clear that he is the leader, and after all, Trump’s ego won’t allow it. Remember, in his first term, Trump fired his campaign manager and top adviser, Steve Bannon, when Bannon was taking—and taking—too much credit for Trump’s actions. Democrats have taken to referring to Musk as “President Musk” serving “Vice President Trump,” hoping to break up the dynamic duo. (What does that leave JD Vance — the coffee maker?)
It may be different. Bannon brought a microphone to the party, but he didn’t bring the billions that would allow Trump to carry out his threats against “primary” disloyal Republicans. With enough concern for Trump, Musk could very well survive as the president’s bodyguard.
Meanwhile, on Friday morning, about 12 hours before the government shutdown, Mike Johnson said that he is preparing a new bill: “We have a plan,” he said Politics. But Trump, who is said that they were weighing the ROI on the shutdown probably doesn’t matter.
“If there is a plan to shut down the government,” he wrote, “let it begin now, under the Biden administration, not after January 20, under TRUMP.”
With a hostile new administration, a vast infrastructure of courts and judges waiting to turn “freedom of speech” into a nostalgic memory, and outdated newsrooms that are quick to abdicate their responsibility to produce accurate, fact-based reporting, the independent media is short on work.
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