Trump and Musk sink bipartisan spending bill (Getty)
What is the No. 1 talent for Donald Trump and Elon Musk when they put their heads together? The most striking clues to that question came on Wednesday when Trump and Musk worked jointly to torpedo a spending bill that was designed to ensure the government keeps running and avoids a shutdown. Given what they did to that bill, it appears their main talent when working in tandem is breaking things. But the road is getting rocky for the GOP's "dynamic duo," as a Trump-backed alternative bill failed last night, leaving Congress headed for a government shutdown tonight.
Reports came out late yesterday afternoon that Trump supported a new bill to fund the government, and and he called it a "very good deal for the American people," and the House of Representatives was to vote on it last night. That measure failed, however, according to a CNN report at about 9:45 CST. But that came only after Trump and Musk had combined to hold the chamber hostage for a grotesque performance of "Chaos Theatre." Trump was demanding that GOP members embrace the new bill in a show of unity. In the process of backing a bill that went down to defeat, Trump reportedly alienated House members on both sides of the aisle. From the CNN report:
Congress is barreling toward a government shutdown after the GOP-led House failed to pass a funding plan backed by President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday, leaving Hill Republicans scrambling to find a path forward.
The Trump-endorsed plan was opposed by almost all Democrats, who are frustrated and angry after the president-elect tanked an earlier bipartisan deal, and a significant number of Republicans.
Government funding expires at the end of the day on Friday.
The GOP measure included a three-month extension of government funding, a two-year suspension of the debt limit into January 2027, as well as roughly $110 billion for disaster relief, according to five sources. The House voted 174 to 235, with 38 Republicans voting against the measure and 2 Democrats voting in favor.
The GOP measure included a three-month extension of government funding, a two-year suspension of the debt limit into January 2027, as well as roughly $110 billion for disaster relief, according to five sources. The House voted 174 to 235, with 38 Republicans voting against the measure and 2 Democrats voting in favor.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told House Democrats in a closed-door meeting ahead of the vote that he was “not just a no, I’m a hell no,” on the new GOP proposal, according to a source in the room.
Democrats have argued that the two-year suspension of the debt limit will help Trump pass his tax plan, and they aren’t willing to make it easier for him, given their opposition to it.
“This bill is designed to set up the GOP tax scam 2.0,” Jeffries said in remarks on the House floor ahead of the vote. “That’s what this bill today fundamentally is all about.”
Trump upended the government funding effort on Wednesday when he came out against the bipartisan plan that House Speaker Mike Johnson had backed. Trump is now demanding that any deal to avert a shutdown also address the looming debt limit, a complex issue that typically requires weeks to months of painstaking negotiations on Capitol Hill to resolve. (Is this another example of Trump not knowing what he's doing, being ignorant of governance.)
In other words, Trump blew up an earlier effort to reach a spending measure, and then tried to bully members into supporting his flawed effort to paper over the problem. That did not work, with Trump leaving members of both parties pissed off at his failed attempts to correct what he had screwed up.
That's the kind of "leadership" delusional Americans (i.e., mostly White conservatives) voted for on Nov. 5, so they can look forward to much more of this incompetence and more episodes of "Trump Can't Govern, and Why Didn't All Sentient Beings Know That Before?" How are Democrats going to bail the country out this time? Republicans show no signs of being able to do it.
When the day was over, Trump critics were openly mocking the president-elect, by referring to Musk as his "shadow president." Trump clearly had been upstaged, and that is likely to make him and his oversized ego highly agitated.
