Chaos Comes Early

Why wait for the inauguration when you can threaten a government shutdown over Christmas?

It’s back, and it’s ahead of schedule.

We got an early reminder of the pandemonium we lived through during the first Trump term—and which we expect to define the next four years—when Donald Trump and Elon Musk inexplicably and unsuccessfully attempted to derail a bipartisan agreement to keep the government operating during the holidays.

It was a colossal display of capriciousness and arrogance that did wonders to undermine Trump’s attempted resurrection as a feared strongman. Over a few frenzied hours, Trump reminded official Washington about his impulsiveness and legislative impotence while being upstaged by his supposed sidekick.

And—yes—the Beltway needed the reminder.

Last Tuesday, Congress appeared to have agreed on a bipartisan measure to fund the government through next spring before reaching Friday’s shutdown deadline. The bill, which took weeks to hammer out, included Republican priorities like farm aid and bipartisan disaster relief.

It was on a glide path to passage until Musk began feverishly advocating against it on his social media platform last Wednesday, railing against the new spending that Republicans had negotiated and threatening to fund primary challenges to any Republican who supported the measure. He stole the spotlight from Trump in the process, leading to ridicule of Trump as the vice-president-elect to President-elect Musk.

So of course Trump jumped into the fray with an out-of-left-field demand that Congress lift or abolish the debt ceiling as a condition of keeping the government open, presumably so he could cut taxes on the wealthy next year without the inconvenience of being hemmed in by the debt explosion it will cause.

Despite the face-value inconsistency of these two positions, the tandem’s insistence that Congress abandon the funding measure was enough to blow it up.

So it was on to a hastily-arranged Plan B: urgently drafting a substitute bill reflecting Musk’s and Trump’s priorities. Democrats—outraged that the negotiated bill had been scrapped and that they weren’t consulted on the new one—told Republicans they were on their own.

We know from experience what that means. The revised bill failed spectacularly, with 38 Republicans joining 197 Democrats in voting no. The debt ceiling, of late the hostage of choice for Republicans looking to extract spending cuts, is too attractive a weapon to hand over peacefully, even to their MAGA leader.

It was Thursday night, and we were a day away from shutting down the government over the holidays with no clear path forward.

Compounding matters, some Republicans started voicing their opposition to Mike Johnson for his inability to magically control the chaos. The threat this produced to his chances of holding on to the speaker’s office is real. Given the reduced size of his already slender majority, Johnson will have literally one vote to spare as he seeks to be re-elected speaker when the new Congress convenes in two weeks.

As Friday dawned, it became apparent that the only options remaining to House Republicans were to bring back a version of the original bipartisan measure or fill the nation’s stocking with coal. The first option risked further angering Trump, who had already been embarrassed by the defeat of the debt ceiling gambit, while putting Johnson’s precarious speakership in greater danger. It looked like we were heading toward a shutdown. But apparently Republicans didn’t have the stomach to shutter the government over a bill most of them wanted, regardless of what Musk and Trump demanded.

Despite the threats to his leadership and in direct violation of what Trump had ordered, Johnson brought a bill to the floor late Friday afternoon with the same footprint as the one Musk and Trump had scuttled (minus some key Democratic priorities and notably without restrictions on investments in China, which was what Musk wanted dropped all along). It included farm support and disaster relief while funding the government at current levels until mid-March. It did not raise the debt limit, despite a threat by the incoming president—reminiscent of the one Musk had made earlier—to find primary challengers to any Republican who supported a funding extension without an increase.

The measure passed overwhelmingly by a bipartisan vote of 366-34, hours before the government was set to shut down.

Call it Christmas magic.

Or perhaps it’s an instructive harbinger of things to come.

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If we needed a reminder that incompetence rivaled deceitfulness as the hallmark quality of the first Trump administration, we got it last week. It was a critically important refresher that Trump’s bungling and laziness will lead him to do things that make him look inept, and how important it will be to use these moments to undermine his ability to intimidate.

This is especially the case right now, when Trump needs to establish himself as a dominating leader in order to spread fear and apprehension when he takes office. The more he draws attention to his failings, the easier it will be to characterize him—accurately—as a lame duck second-term president on his way out the door, rather than as the strongman he intends to be.

To have a display of weakness like this present itself before Trump is sworn in is invaluable. It can help shape the narrative surrounding the start of his term.

And the problems Trump confronted last week in his failed showdown with Congress will not dissipate when he takes office, because the complications he faces are structural.

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Although there will be fewer institutional guardrails in his way this time to prevent him from immobilizing or overwhelming the constitutional checks and balances designed to constrain a president, overcoming separation of powers may prove to be a heavier lift.

When Trump directs representatives to bend to his will, using threats and bluster to try to get his way, he is demanding they act as a rubber stamp the way any autocrat would expect a legislature to give him what he wants. This was the impulse behind his earlier directive that the House and Senate adjourn to allow him to use the recess appointment power to install his cabinet.

Maybe he can get there at some point, but he isn’t there now. He’s first going to have to capture the institution and make it an extension of the presidency.

This would be easier to do if the executive and legislative branches were designed differently. In some countries, the chief executive is the leader of the majority party in the legislature—the role Mike Johnson currently has in the House and John Thune is about to have in the Senate.

But in our system, legislators and the chief executive represent separate institutions occupied by people elected from different constituencies for terms of varying lengths. Members of Congress represent small districts and are constantly up for re-election. Senators represent more complex states and hold office for six years. Presidents represent the entire country (or at least are supposed to) for four years and can only be re-elected once. This discourages the House, Senate and White House from being completely bound together by giving them different political incentive structures— making them accountable to different sets of voters at different times.

Put another way, if Trump was the leader of the legislative party and the legislative party was elected to advance a cohesive platform, his congressional partisans would share a political interest in doing what Trump wants.

But things don’t work that way here, at least not yet. Unless and until Trump can do away with accountability mechanisms—the elections that tether officials to their constituents—he’s going to fail every time he pulls something like he did last week. Which is why our greatest challenge will be to make sure people feel they can vote without intimidation.

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Stripped to its fundamentals, Trump’s problem is he just doesn't have the congressional majorities he thinks he has. If he did, then right now we would all be wondering what it’s going to take to reopen the government.

I’ll delve into this on Friday, because it speaks to an important dynamic that can be exploited to frustrate the new administration.

Chris will be here tomorrow, then we’re going to take Wednesday and Thursday off. If you celebrate, I hope you have a joyful Christmas. If you don’t celebrate, I hope you find time this week for something you enjoy.