US Shutdown Musk ‘Stops’, Trump ‘Agrees’ to Break Congressional Budget Agreement
In the US, an unprecedented situation occurred where Tesla CEO Musk unilaterally suspended Congressional power over the budget, and President-elect Trump announced that he ‘agrees’ to the House of Representatives’ bipartisan agreement to nullify the budget bill.
Right after President-elect Trump announced a ‘good agreement’ on the ‘raising of the government budget debt ceiling’ agreed upon by the Republican and Democratic parties on the 19th, the Republican conservative right-wing rally participants claimed that ‘let’s elect Musk as the Speaker of the House’ in the first case in US history where CEO Musk suspended the bipartisan budget bill.
AP reported on the 19th that there is no regulation limiting the ‘election of the Speaker of the House’ in the US Congress to members of the House of Representatives, as claimed by Republican hardliners.
Elon Musk, who has been exercising his influence for the first time since President Donald Trump was elected, has been posting on his X Megaphone continuously and has issued a major challenge to Republicans, threatening to “remove the voter who supports it” on the bipartisan budget deal on the 18th, and Trump told NBC News that he had spoken with Musk before the Tesla CEO’s first post, saying, “I told him that if he agrees with me, he can make a statement.” Musk made a blatant threat on the 18th, saying, “Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this ridiculous spending bill deserves to be voted on in two years!” and called the Republican-Democratic deal “the worst,” saying, “This is one of the worst bills ever written.”
The AP said, “The social media warning from the world’s richest man came ahead of Trump’s denunciation of a bill negotiated by House Republican Speaker Mike Johnson that effectively killed a stopgap measure designed to prevent a partial government shutdown.” “Washington erupted a day after Musk’s public pressure campaign, and Trump on Monday refused to say whether he had confidence in Johnson,” the AP reported.
“But later that day, the president praised him and House leaders for having reached a “very good deal” after they announced a new plan to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling. Before the new deal was struck, congressional Democrats taunted Republicans, some saying Trump had been “demoted to vice president.” “Welcome to the presidency of Elon Musk,” wrote Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia (California) on X that day.
Musk, who has paralyzed the US Congress, has emerged as a political force in the Trump campaign, and confirmed on this day that his influence is becoming an exercise of political power thanks to his massive donations to the Trump camp and his own wealth.
In addition to owning X, Musk is the CEO of Tesla and Space X.
The House of Representatives, which holds the power of the US budget, secured a majority of 218 seats in the November 2024 elections for the Republican Party, but this budget agreement reached an agreement with the Democratic Party to ‘raise the debt ceiling’ and ‘formulate a government budget’ to prevent a ‘government shutdown’, and the Republicans surrendered in Musk’s unilateral destruction and the Democrats collectively counterattacked.
On the night of the 18th, Trump wrote on his Truth Social, “This is a nasty trap set by radical left Democrats!”
The next day, on the 19th, Trump pressured Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and succeeded in including a ‘two-year debt ceiling suspension’ in the negotiations as a strategy to prevent a government shutdown.
The rebellion in the House of Representatives occurred on the night of the 19th, when a small number of right-wing Republican lawmakers and Democratic lawmakers who opposed the debt ceiling increase joined in the bill’s failure, and the ‘Trump agenda’ was rejected by 174 to 235, and in the ‘far-right Congressional frenzy’, one Republican lawmaker voted against it as a ‘rebellion’.
Musk spent about $250 million to support Trump during the presidential campaign and donated heavily to America PAC, a super political action committee that deploys campaign workers, airs TV ads, and reaches voters directly digitally in battleground states.
Chris Pack, former communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Senate Leadership Fund, told the AP that day that Musk “has a lot of influence with Republicans right now because of his proximity to Trump,” and that “Musk’s threat poses a potential risk to the House GOP starting next year with a five-seat majority, which will be temporarily reduced as Trump appoints some Republicans to executive branch positions.”
Pack continued that “if you make Republicans lose very thin moderate seats, if they lose in the primary, that’s not going to help you get anything done,” and that “it’s just handing the keys to this district over to the Democrats,” indicating that Republicans would “submit” to Musk’s threat.
Musk responded all day on Tuesday with “gratitude” and “public promises” for House Republicans to post “opposition” to the bill on their Xs.
AP reported that “Musk thanked” Republicans for their “opposition,” and then "Trump said, 'I took a victory lap' and 'The voice of the people was heard. Today was a good day for America,'" Musk wrote on the 19th, responding to a post by Republican Kentucky Rep. Andy Barr, saying, "My phone has been ringing nonstop today. You know why? Because they were reading tweets... from Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy."
Late on the 19th, before the new congressional budget plan was voted on, Musk declared it a 'success' and posted a photo of a new, slimmer alternative to X along with the massive, ingenious measures that helped kill the congressional agreement.
"This shows how important your voice is. And having a president like @realDonaldTrump means your voice is finally being heard."
Conservative enthusiasts at the annual conservative activist America Fest gathering in Phoenix cheered Musk on Tuesday, “welcoming the suggestion that the Musk family could replace Republican Speaker of the House,” the AP reported.
In fact, there is no requirement that the speaker of the House be an elected member of the House.
When right-wing media personality Jack Posobiec asked the festival audience during a live taping of his talk show, “Should Mike Johnson remain speaker of the House?” the audience chanted “No!!” according to the AP.
House Speaker Johnson had originally been scheduled to attend the conservative rally that day, but canceled after the budget negotiations between Republicans and Democrats were thwarted by Musk.
Posobiec, the host of the live broadcast from the right-wing rally, once again called out, “Elon Musk, “Should I be the Speaker of the House?” the crowd “erupted in cheers,” an AP reporter on the scene reported.
Congress has until midnight on the 20th to come up with a plan to fund the government, or federal agencies will be shut down.
A shutdown could mean hundreds of thousands of federal workers are sent home or remain on the job without pay just before the holiday.
Republicans abandoned a bipartisan deal to avert a government shutdown on the 18th after President-elect Trump and billionaire Musk objected.
Trump ordered House Speaker Mike Johnson to renegotiate the deal just days before the federal government’s funding deadline runs out, and he rejected the deal again on the 19th.
Republicans worked out a revised government funding plan that would keep the government open for three more months, until Jan. 30, 2027, and suspend the debt ceiling for two years, but the bill was voted down in the House hours later. The overwhelming vote left the next steps unclear.
The federal government shutdown would expire on December 20, when Congress passes a “temporary funding bill” to keep the government running, after the fiscal year ends on September 30, unless Congress passes a continuing resolution or a more permanent spending bill by midnight on the 20th.
A federal government shutdown in the United States occurs when Congress fails to pass a bill to temporarily or more permanently fund the government, and such a measure is not signed by the president.
The New York Times reported on the 19th in an article titled “Trump Throws Debt Ceiling Grenade into Spending Talks,” “As President-elect Trump has made clear, the decision to raise the ceiling will hold President Biden accountable for raising the borrowing ceiling,” and Stephen Moore, an economist at the Heritage Foundation who advises Trump, said, “It’s clear that Trump wants to clear the deck so that he doesn’t have to fight over the budget and debt ceiling to clean up the mess caused by Biden’s spending expansion.” The NYT continued, “Democratic lawmakers showed on the 19th that they don’t want to go along with that plan, with a majority voting against the House measure to advance the bill, and Democrats have long criticized Republicans for playing a dangerous game with the debt ceiling and have called for its elimination.”