The Friday News Landscape--Literally Amazing
The impending Musk-Johnson government shutdown and the media
We should not wonder that we are a divided nation—that families will sit down at Christmas dinner and either avoid certain topics or, if they don’t, engage in bitter argument.
My Friday morning reading started with Spokesman.com. “Congress veering toward government shutdown after Trump, Musk sink bipartisan funding bill” appeared far down the webpage after a headline about the weather. To be fair, that article, by Orion Donovan Smith, was the headline in the paper version. Elon Musk’s hand in the impending shutdown debacle came into focus only in the fifth paragraph:
To avoid the Senate filibuster and pass the House on a fast-track basis, a short-term spending bill will require the support of Democrats and Republicans, even after the GOP takes control of the Senate. But in a flurry of posts on X, the social media platform he owns, Musk made several false claims about the bill, called it “an insane crime against the American people” and said it “should NOT pass.”
There was no mention that Musk’s “X” flurry came before President-elect Trump tagged along on Musk’s Wednesday Tweet-barrage that included threats to Republican congresspeople that he would fund a primary challenge against them in 2026 if they didn’t play along. (Of course, funding a number significant primary challenges would represent mere pocket change for the wealthiest oligarch in the world, now worth [following the election run-up of stock value of his holdings] nearly a half a trillion dollars.)
At 8AM Friday when I checked, Foxnews.com featured showman Trump grandstanding with “Trump weighs in on looming shutdown: ‘Biden problem to solve,’ a five short paragraph recounting of a Trumpian Truth Social post. The Foxnews.com/politics showed five, count them, five, links to “DAVID MARCUS: Saving America from bad spending bills is exactly why Trump tapped Musk. What's happening in Washington is messy, but it may be exactly what real change looks like.” How’s that for a Rupert Murdoch endorsement Musk as President?
What should be front and center in every news medium in the U.S. is this: Thanks to an unelected, a now-naturalized former illegal immigrant, half-a-trillionaire weighing in on his privately owned social medium “X,” the United States may face a government shutdown immediately before Christmas, a shutdown that, never-minding the hardship to many, is likely going to cost billions of hard-earned taxpayer dollars to manage. Trump—playing second fiddle to the would-be oligarch—later follows Musk’s lead to demand raising the debt ceiling. Why raise the debt ceiling? To make room for more tax cuts for the wealthy, room that Trump and Musk will then attempt to blame—with enough propaganda fed to followers by Fox and other outlets—on the Biden administration.
And all this while Trump is still only President-elect, all of it touched off by by an unelected, über-wealthy, social media manipulator…
I went on to check the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal online headlines. The WSJ (articles behind a paywall for me) showed several headlines, “Government Shutdown Looms as GOP Struggles for New Path,” “How Mike Johnson’s Misfires Ignited Republican Rebellion,” and “Musk Shook Up U.S. Politics. Will the U.K. Be Next?” that hinted at Musk’s attempted government take-over of Congress, but nothing that made the timing clear. The Washington Post’s headlines were centered on the likely effects of the looming shutdown, but did nod to the fundamental problem with “Musk’s swift accumulation of political power sparks alarm.” The Times also failed to headline Musk’s manipulations. I didn’t have the stomach to survey right wing pundits on AM radio.
For an educated view of the actual governance issues in the U.S. Congress today I found the first part of Robert Hubbell’s Substack post this morning clearer than any of the news coverage. I’ve copied it below and I encourage you to sign up. If only Hubbell’s Substack “Today’s Edition Newsletter” were featured in the national news…
Well, things are clear as mud and changing by the minute. In short, Elon Musk killed a bipartisan continuing resolution (CR) that would have funded the government until next March. Trump—realizing he was becoming irrelevant—shouted, “What about me? What about me?” In an attempt to make the continuing resolution about himself, Trump demanded that any CR eliminate the debt ceiling—a surprise demand the caught almost everyone off-guard.
Early afternoon on Thursday, Speaker-in-Name-Only Mike Johnson announced Republicans had (allegedly) agreed on a bill that met Trump's demands. Trump then posted “SUCCESS in Washington” and took a (premature) victory lap around the All-You-Can-Eat buffet at Mar-a-Lago
The Trump-approved CR needed two-thirds (273) of the voting members in the House to pass. It failed miserably—falling 99 votes short. Republicans have a narrow majority in the House but saw 38 of their members vote against the continuing resolution. Dissenting Republicans did so in large part because they opposed the suspension of the debt limit. Two Democrats voted in favor of the Trump-approved bill.
The CR proposed by Speaker Johnson removed the following programs from the original bill:
$190 million for the "Give Kids a Chance" program for child cancer research
Research on premature labor
Treatment of sickle cell disease
Breast and cervical cancer early detection
Down syndrome research
Minority Leader Jakeem Jeffries posted the following on BlueSky after the Trump-approved CR failed:
The Musk-Johnson government shutdown bill has been soundly defeated.
MAGA extremists in the House GOP are not serious about helping working class Americans.
They are simply doing the bidding of their wealthy donors and puppeteers.
Unacceptable.
The post by Jeffries was brilliant for two reasons.
First, it referred to the “Musk-Johnson” bill—a phrase that will surely infuriate Trump and undermine the relationship between Musk and Trump.
Second, it referred to the “Musk-Johnson government shutdown”—a name that will not only sting but infuriate US military members, TSA staff, border security patrol members, and hundreds of thousands of federal workers who will not be paid over the year-end holiday season because a billionaire does not care about them one bit.
The path forward is murky. Who is in charge? Musk? Johnson? Trump? The 38 Republicans who voted against the Musk-Johnson proposed bill?
By the time most readers open this newsletter, there will be less than 24 hours before the current authorization for government spending expires (at midnight on Friday).
As I understand the situation in the House, any bill would need to pass under a “suspension of the rules” because of the short time remaining before the shutdown deadline. See Congressional Research Service, Suspension of the Rules: House Practice in the 114th Congress (2015-2016).
Under a suspension of the rules, a bill would need 273 votes to pass—while Republicans control less than 219 votes. To pass, a bill would need 54 Democrats to cross-over the aisle to support a Republican continuing resolution.
It seems unlikely that 54 Democrats would vote for a bill that removes the debt ceiling for two years—because that would grant Trump significant leeway in the 119th Congress to pass expensive measures like extending his tax cuts for millionaires and corporations.
Opposing the removal of the debt ceiling now will give Democrats more leverage in the battles to come in 2024 and 2025. If Republicans cannot remove the debt ceiling on their own, Democrats would be foolish to do it for them—because Trump would then blame Democrats for removing the debt ceiling (even though that is the result Trump desires).
I have no idea how Republicans will find an exit strategy. They could simply go back to the bill they negotiated with Democrats on Tuesday. They could pass a short-term “clean” continuing resolution with no debt ceiling relief and vow to remove the debt ceiling at a later date.
Even if Republicans find a way out of the mess that Elon Musk created, the damage has been done. The Republican “landslide” victory has been overtaken by intra-party fights and confusion over who is leading the administration and the Republican caucus in the House.
To the extent that Musk has more power than Trump, it is because he can fund primary challengers against Republicans who do not surrender to Musk’s demands. Trump cannot make that threat credibly.
And the only reason that Musk has that power is because of the US Supreme Court’s decision in Citizen’s United.
Although many in the media claim that Musk is the new president, his only accomplishment thus far is blowing up agreements made by others. That skill will get him nowhere as a political leader.
At some point, the government must function in order to sustain the financial markets and infrastructure that impart value to Musk’s shares in his electric car and spaceflight companies. In that sense, Musk’s fortunes are aligned with every American who has a savings or retirement account or who owns a home or stock in a public company.
Keep to the high ground,
Jerry