Everything was going relatively well for Donald Trump.
Coming off a decisive electoral victory last month, he appeared to have rallied his party behind even his most controversial Cabinet picks, and he was enjoying moderate public support. He promised to build a strong economy. Tech titans and foreign leaders are eager to meet with him or fund his inauguration.
Then Wednesday happened.
Two system shocks this week have thrown Washington into disarray, as Republicans scramble to avoid a self-inflicted looming government shutdown and weather a market decline at the height of the holiday season.
As American consumers finished their biggest spending season of the year, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates, causing markets to fall.
At the same time, Trump’s mega-ally Elon Musk attacked Speaker Mike Johnson’s spending bill, sinking it with a barrage of X posts threatening to remove any GOP lawmaker who supported it.
Trump jumped on board, demanding that Congress raise the debt ceiling, and Johnson now has less than 40 hours to avoid a holiday government shutdown.
“As soon as President Trump released his official stance on the CR, Republicans on Capitol Hill echoed his point of view,” incoming White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told POLITICO. “President Trump leads the Republican Party. Full stop.”
It all feels very 2017, when congressional Republicans rammed through a last-minute continuing resolution just five days before Christmas after a heated debate with Democrats over the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, DACA, and disaster relief.
However, this time around, some Republican power brokers, including Musk himself, believe a shutdown would be manageable.
“No bills should be passed [by] Congress until January 20, when [Trump] takes office,” Musk wrote on his social media platform, X, on Wednesday. “None. Zero.”
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tennessee) said Thursday on X, “Shut it down.” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has also stated that she is “all in” for a shutdown “all the way until January 20th as far as I’m concerned.”
Still, government shutdowns have historically been unpopular with voters, and mass furloughs would not be a good start for Washington’s GOP trio just a month before Trump’s inauguration. In a personally concerning move for the speaker, some Republicans began floating Musk as a possible House leader.
Johnson and Trump’s team were in closed-door talks Thursday morning about a stopgap plan that included disaster relief, a delayed debt limit fight, and a farm bill extension, according to POLITICO. They have until Friday at midnight to pull it together.
Democrats, for their part, are watching their colleagues squirm. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre slammed GOP lawmakers for “playing politics” in a statement Wednesday evening, saying a shutdown would “hurt hard-working Americans and create instability across the country.”
“House Republicans have unilaterally decided to break an agreement that would provide support for every day Americans, keep the government open, and avoid a government shutdown,” Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters Thursday morning. “If you break an agreement, you own the consequences visited upon the American people.”
