Elon Musk torpedoed a bipartisan deal to avoid a government shutdown. Trump one-upped him by demanding that the bill hike the debt ceiling. A new bill failed. Who’s in charge here?
Tesla CEO Elon Musk arrives on Capitol Hill on December 5, 2024. (Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)
EDITOR’S NOTE:
Headline credit goes to my friend the economist Dean Baker!
Happy holidays! Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa are right around the corner—cultures all around the world celebrate festivals of light at this time of year. But the Republican Party seems to have opted for the darkly funny, Seinfeld-invented holiday of “Festivus,” best known for “the airing of the grievances.”
For anyone still mourning Donald Trump’s reelection: Please enjoy your holiday season while the GOP airs its grievances and tears itself apart. Schadenfreude makes a delicious side dish on any holiday table.
To recap: After Speaker Mike Johnson announced a bipartisan deal for a continuing resolution that would keep the government open into next year, shadow president Elon Musk trashed it, posting on Xitter 150 times against the spending in the bill on Wednesday. Not to be outdone by Musk, Trump suddenly trashed the deal, too, and included a brand-new demand that Congress lift, or even abolish, the debt ceiling.
“Increasing the debt ceiling is not great,” Trump said, “but we’d rather do it on Biden’s watch.” See? He knows lifting the debt ceiling is unpopular with his MAGA base, but he thinks they’re dumb enough to blame it on Joe Biden. Maybe they are; maybe it will play that way in the right-wing echo chamber, but the rest of us see it as the craven attempt to lift the debt ceiling so he can extend his budget-busting tax cuts and run the deficit ever higher.
Politico analyzed the Musk-Trump two-step this way: The Tesla billionaire “got waaay out over his spending-slashing skis and backed Trump into a corner.” I see it much the same way.
In case you’ve forgotten the suffering caused by previous shutdowns: Social Security and Medicare payments would continue, but payments to some military personnel would be suspended. “Non-essential” federal workers will go without pay; during the 2019 shutdown, unpaid federal workers crowded Washington, DC–area food banks.
The dutiful and probably doomed Mike Johnson, recently heard bragging about his cool text chain with Musk and fellow DOGEr Vivek Ramaswamy, went back to the drawing board, crafting a bill that met some of Musk’s demands, with spending cuts that included slashing funds for pediatric cancer research, plus a two-year debt ceiling hike 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 authority of the United States Congress and of the American people,” longtime Connecticut progressive Representative Rosa DeLauro said. On this bill, Democrats did exactly that.
Some Republicans balked at Musk’s outsize role. Pennsylvania Representative Glenn Thompson, chair of the Agriculture Committee, told reporters that he “didn’t see where Musk has a voting card,” adding, “I’m not sure he understands the plight of the normal working people right now.” The bill Musk torpedoed contained farm aid Thompson supported.
But others welcomed their new Afrikaner overlord. “I’d be open to supporting @elonmusk for Speaker of the House,” Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on social media. “The establishment needs to be shattered just like it was yesterday. This could be the way.” It should be noted that Musk is eligible to be speaker: Not being a House member and having been born and raised in South Africa is not an obstacle.
With the bill he opposed defeated, and no solution in view, Musk turned his attention to his other big priority: applauding Nazism.
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Weighing in on German politics, he praised the Nazi-adjacent, far-right, anti-immigrant Alliance for Germany (AfD) vying for control in the coming February 23 election.
“Only the AfD can save Germany,” Musk posted on X.
Also this week, Nigel Farage, head 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 scariest players. Is Trump on board? Probably. He’s hosted Farage, and openly praises Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. He’s a friend of dictators around the globe.
There’s a lot of speculation that by moving out ahead on sinking the Johnson bill, Musk overshadowed Trump and made it clear he is the leader—and eventually, Trump’s ego won’t allow that. Remember, in his first term, Trump banished his campaign manager and top adviser Steve Bannon when Bannon was getting—and taking—too much credit for Trump’s moves. Democrats have taken to calling Musk “President Musk,” served by “Vice President Trump,” hoping to break up the dynamic duo. (Where does that leave JD Vance—coffee boy?)
This might be different. Bannon brought a microphone to the party, but he didn’t bring billions that would allow Trump to make good on threats to “primary” disloyal Republicans. With enough solicitude toward Trump, Musk could well survive as the president’s enforcer.
Meanwhile, in a Hail Mary pass Friday morning, roughly 12 hours before the government is set to shutdown, Mike Johnson said that he was preparing a new bill: “We’ve got a plan,” he told Politico. But Trump, who is said to be weighing the ROI of a shutdown, likely doesn’t care.
“If there is going to be a shutdown of government,” he posted, “let it begin now, under the Biden Administration, not after January 20th, under ‘TRUMP.’”
Headline credit goes to my friend the economist Dean Baker!
Joan WalshTwitterJoan Walsh, a national affairs correspondent for The Nation, is a coproducer of The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts The Tonight Show and the author of What’s the Matter With White People? Finding Our Way in the Next America. Her new book (with Nick Hanauer and Donald Cohen) is Corporate Bullsh*t: Exposing the Lies and Half-Truths That Protect Profit, Power and Wealth In America.