How Trump and Elon Musk caused Congress’ nightmare before Christmas
It was government shutdown season in Washington, and all through the House, many creatures were stirring — most notably Elon Musk.
Lawmakers in Congress were expecting a glide path to the holidays. They had a bipartisan deal that would keep the government funded and send them all on their merry way back to their districts.
But then they got a taste of what the next four years might be like with Donald Trump back in the White House and Musk, the world’s richest man, wielding enormous power over the political process.
On Wednesday, Trump — with help from Musk — effectively killed the funding legislation put together by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., a 1,500-page bill packed with the byproduct of the traditional horse-trading that generally defines congressional dealmaking.
Conservative Republicans and right-wing talkers blasted the plan as the sort of status quo Washington politics that Trump campaigned to end during the election. But as negotiations continued, the president-elect remained on the sidelines.
That ended late Wednesday, when Trump torched the plan as “ridiculous and extraordinarily expensive” and doomed it.
Less than a day later, House Republicans released a 116-page plan to keep the government open through March 14. The plan had the support of both Trump and Musk, the billionaire who was Republicans’ biggest 2024 political donor and a frequent presence in Trump’s orbit.
But even after a significant arm-twisting and primary threats from Trump and his allies, the new plan went down in flames on the House floor Thursday night with significant Republican opposition.
It left less than a day before a potential government shutdown.
The failure was a defeat for Trump, who — despite his election win — still cannot single-handedly control everything that happens in Washington.
“To say this is alarming and a setback is an absolute understatement,” a veteran Republican operative said.
But even in the measure’s failure, the negotiations over the budget deal have solidified a handful of new political truths: With President Joe Biden staying completely silent on the negotiations, he has left a void allowing Trump to position himself as a second president, while Johnson’s status as speaker is contingent on keeping Trump happy, and Musk’s role as the nascent administration’s muscle and money is now not just hypothetical but rather something he can use to try to move votes and potentially end political careers.
‘A new sheriff in town’
Musk has his money, but he also has his megaphone. He has the most followers on the social media platform X — more than 208 million — which is not entirely surprising since he owns the site.
Musk, who spent more than $250 million getting Trump elected, posted about his opposition to the original spending deal well over 100 times over the past two days, with threats to fund primary challenges to anyone who voted for the plan, which was six weeks in the making.
“Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!” Musk posted Wednesday afternoon on X.
Later in the day, Trump himself came out against it, making it clear the bill was done.
Brandon Bell/Getty Image
Musk’s outsized role in the saga opened up new scrutiny of his position as an unelected official and the power he appears to have to move votes. Trump has named Musk and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to run a new nongovernment agency aimed at increasing “government efficiency.”
Trump’s team was quick to tamp down any suggestion that Musk was truly pulling the strings.
“As soon as President Trump released his official stance on the [continuing resolution], Republicans on Capitol Hill echoed his point of view,” Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said. “President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. Full stop.”
On Thursday morning, Trump was also quick to tell NBC News in a phone interview that Musk’s flurry of social media posts opposing the original deal came with his blessing.
“I told him that if he agrees with me that he could put out a statement,” Trump said. “He’s looking at things from a cost standpoint.”
Donald Trump Jr. — who had also been posting in opposition to the first bill — said in a brief interview Thursday that the original continuing resolution that his father effectively tanked was “ridiculous.”
Asked about Musk’s and his father’s roles in torpedoing the resolution, Trump Jr. said, “I think they both agree on the insanity of what was in there: 1,500 pages that no one has a possibility to digest.”
The shutdown fight was the first postelection test for Trump and his ability to once again whip Republicans who do not yet control the White House or the Senate, and it put a spotlight on the role Musk is likely to play at least in the early days of his second administration.
After the original deal was scrapped, some Democrats began calling Musk the functional president-elect, while some Republican budget hawks called on him to replace Johnson as speaker of the House.
“It appears that Elon Musk is trying to take the role as an unelected president. And in fact, Donald Trump, it appears, is following his orders,” Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., said Thursday on CNN.
“The Speaker of the House need not be a member of Congress,” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky, posted on social media. “Nothing would disrupt the swamp more than electing Elon Musk … think about it. .. nothing’s impossible. (not to mention the joy at seeing the collective establishment, aka ‘uniparty’ lose their ever-lovin’ minds).”
Many of Fox News’ prime-time hosts, all famously MAGA allies, were particularly pleased with Musk’s efforts to kill the bill Wednesday night.
Sean Hannity said there’s “a new sheriff in town.” Jesse Watters said Musk “blew up the bill all day.”
By Thursday morning, “Fox and Friends,” the network’s flagship morning program, was marveling at the new power Musk wielded.
Musk is now “the center of the universe on Capitol Hill in a way that nobody has ever seen,” Peter Doocy said.
After the new bill was announced, Musk pushed back against significant chatter that he was the true architect, instead giving Trump and Johnson credit.
“I’m not the author of this proposal,” he posted. “Credit to @realDonaldTrump, @JdVance, and @SpeakerJohnson.”
No plan forward for now
One of the Republicans who rejected the new Trump-blessed spending deal Thursday was Rep. Chip Roy of Texas.
“Yes, I think this bill is better than it was yesterday on certain respects, but to take this bill … and congratulate yourself because it’s shorter in pages — but increases the debt by $5 trillion — is asinine, and that’s precisely what Republicans are doing,” Roy said in a fiery floor speech before the so-called plan B budget deal was defeated.
Roy was among the most vocal Republicans opposing the reconfigured budget deal because of Trump’s request to abolish the country’s debt ceiling — which is often used as a political football — without significant spending reductions in exchange. He was joined by nearly 40 Republican members of the House in killing the deal. The proposal the House voted on would have pushed off the debt ceiling until January 2027.
Roy’s public opposition earned him direct threats from Trump about a primary challenge. The threats came with a mention of former Rep. Bob Good of Virginia, who lost to a Trump-backed challenger this year.
Johnson’s speakership was threatened by some in conservative media, but he appeared to have kept Trump’s support for now by getting the new deal to the floor. After its failure, he tried to spin attempts at a budget deal forward.
“We will regroup and we will come up with another solution, so stay tuned,” Johnson told reporters after his second attempt at a budget deal was defeated on the House floor.
Still, at a gathering of conservative activists across the country in Phoenix on Thursday, there was jubilation that they had managed to torpedo the original legislation.
“In just the last 24 hours, we did something that we never would have been able to do before,” Charlie Kirk, the CEO of Turning Point, said at its annual AmericaFest conference, adding, “I want to show the power that you have — is that you, everybody in this room and everyone watching online — you defeated the Washington insiders in hours, everybody, and that CR is dead.”
The debt ceiling, sometimes referred to as the debt limit, is the total amount of money that the United States government is authorized to borrow to meet its existing legal obligations.
But the proposal’s defeat leaves no plan in place as the clock ticks down on a government shutdown — one that could drag into the holidays and into the busy month of January, when a new Congress will take office, the election results need to be certified and Trump is set to be inaugurated.
“There is no new agreement right now, just, you know, obviously looking at a number of options,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told reporters after the second budget deal was defeated.
After the vote, Musk blamed Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York for the GOP-led House’s killing the proposal.
“Objectively, the vast majority of Republican House members voted for the spending bill, but only 2 Democrats did,” he posted on X. “Therefore, if the government shuts down, it is obviously the fault of @RepJeffries and the Democratic Party.”
The Trump-approved budget deal did include disaster relief for states ravaged by hurricanes Helene and Milton, money for construction projects and environmental cleanup, an extension of the farm bill, funding for millions for conservation efforts and rural development disaster assistance.
But it also removed a number of other provisions — and, significantly, Republicans did not consult Democrats in putting the new legislation together, unlike they did with the first one.
Blindsided Democrats largely came out in opposition, saying Americans will be hurt because of the significant spending that was removed from the original deal, and they directed their anger at Musk’s role in shaping the plan.
“Elon Musk ordered his puppet President-elect and House Republicans to break the bipartisan agreement reached to keep government open,” Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the former House speaker, wrote on X. “House Republicans are abdicating their responsibility to the American people and siding with billionaires and special interests.”
Jeffries used his House floor speech to try to turn the spending problem in question on Republicans and Trump’s first four years in office.
“In our nation’s history, 25% of our nation’s debt was accumulated during the four years of the former president, 25%. How dare you lecture America about fiscal responsibility — ever,” he said.
Trump, who spent considerable political capital pushing the second proposed spending plan, has not yet commented on its failure. But Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., suggested that if Trump did speak out — again — it might make a difference.
“Quite honestly, I think one of the ways that this could get fixed fairly quickly would be if President Trump would come up to Washington tomorrow or spend the weekend here and talk to people face to face,” he said Thursday evening. “Let’s face it. … He’s got a lot of sway and persuasion. He acts more like the sitting president than the sitting president. And if he’d come up, I think he could help move things along.”
Peter Nicholas, Nnamdi Egwuonwu, Brennan Leach, Andrew Kirell and David Ingram contributed.
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