On Wednesday, I asked if Mike Johnson could remain the leader/Speaker of a mainly Democratic caucus in the House. It might seem like a weird question to ask if you don’t understand that, despite having fewer House members than the Republicans, the Democrats are in charge of providing the votes to pass our appropriations bills and increases in the debt ceiling to avoid a disastrous national credit default. It has been this way since the beginning of the now expiring 118th Congress, and it will be even more true in the upcoming 119th Congress.
The Republicans don’t like this situation and many of them are in denial that the situation actually exists. Every time a Republican Speaker, whether Kevin McCarthy or Mike Johnson, puts together a mostly Democratic coalition to fund the government or pay our bills on time, there are calls to replace the Speaker. It actually happened to McCarthy, and the Democrats had to step in to save Johnson last May by preventing a vote on his ouster.
The truth is, Johnson has been serving as Speaker at the Democrats’ pleasure ever since. With the debt ceiling expiring at the end of December and funding for the government running out, Johnson had to go hat in hand to the Democrats again to craft a bipartisan continuing resolution that included many concessions to his supposed political opponents. Predictably, many Republicans began to howl in protest, without acknowledging that Johnson has never been able to pass spending bills or pay our debts relying on only Republican votes. His choice has always been to make a deal with the Democrats or preside over a government shutdown and disastrous national credit default.
Shortly after I published my piece on this subject, Elon Musk began posting a series of lies about the deal Johnson had crafted. He falsely claimed the bill funds bioweapon labs. He falsely claimed it includes federal dollars to build the Washington Commanders a new football stadium. He falsely claimed it includes a 40 percent raise for members of Congress. And he asked that the Republicans simply allow the government to shut down until Trump takes office over a month from now, falsely claiming that this would cause no pain.
Donald Trump then joined the chorus, and J.D. Vance jumped in as well. This forced Johnson to pull the bill. When it was pointed out this would cause us to default on our debts and possibly lead to a global economic depression, Trump came up with a simple solution.
President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday that Congress should get rid of the debt ceiling, a day after he came out against a deal reached by congressional lawmakers to fund the government before a shutdown occurs.
In a phone interview with NBC News, Trump said getting rid of the debt ceiling entirely would be the “smartest thing it [Congress] could do. I would support that entirely.”
“The Democrats have said they want to get rid of it. If they want to get rid of it, I would lead the charge,” Trump added.
Trump is correct that many Democrats want to get rid of the debt ceiling. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution states that “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law…shall not be questioned.” Debating whether or not to pay our public debts is therefore unconstitutional on its face, and there should be no congressional questioning of the issue whatsoever.
But, to avoid a global economic calamity, the debt ceiling still needs to be raised or abolished before the first of January, which can’t happen if Congress is in recess for the holidays. Trump is asking Johnson to push through an abolition by the end of Friday, which would also require the cooperation of the still Democrat-controlled Senate led by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. But the Democrats aren’t interested in capitulating to this nonsense. They reached a deal with Johnson, and they expect him to keep the deal. After all, the Republicans don’t have to votes to pass anything on their own.
Musk instigated this crisis, seemingly on his own initiative. Josh Marshall, certainly believes Trump is just following along.
Trump has brought Musk into the central circle of power. He’s not only de facto Vice President. When was the last time you saw JD Vance? He’s practically co-president. Musk is erratic, volatile, impulsive, mercurial. He introduces a huge source of unpredictability and chaos into the presidency that for once Trump doesn’t control. See it clearly: Musk did this. Trump thrives on chaos, but his chaos. Not someone else’s chaos.
Trump is following. He’s trying to pretend otherwise but he’s following. And unlike all of Trump’s other bad hires or hires he gets tired of, he can’t just shitcan Musk like all the rest.
It shouldn’t be left unsaid here that there is a tremendous irony involved. Trump tasked Musk with co-leading an advisory group called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, with Vivek Ramaswamy. Their mission involves slashing “wasteful government spending” in an effort to get our federal deficit and debt under control. Concern about debt is ostensibly why Musk objected to some provisions of the bipartisan continuing resolution that Johnson crafted, because it included hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending on things like disaster relief and funding for small businesses.
“This is the same old, same old,” [Republican Sen. Josh] Hawley told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday. “This bill right here would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit…”
But to carry out Musk’s plan to kill the deal, the Republicans not only have to keep the government shut down until January 20th, 2025, they have to abolish the debt ceiling, which for at least 15 years has been the GOP’s favorite blackmail tool for forcing the Democrats to agree in cuts in spending. Historically, even when those concessions are successfully extracted, most Republicans still refuse to vote to raise the debt ceiling, forcing the Democrats to be the responsible legislators. To ask the Republicans to abolish it entirely is asking them to give up this leverage.
Naturally, Trump doesn’t give a shit about debts, deficits or congressional Republicans. In truth, no administration of either party wants a debt ceiling because it just creates headaches and risk. And if he keeps his word and leads the charge to repeal it, that would be a good thing. But, as Marshall suggested, this whole move wasn’t planned by Trump and now he’s just winging it. He has put Johnson in an impossible position, and now he’s saying Johnson can only survive as Speaker if he does the impossible:
“If the speaker acts decisively, and tough, and gets rid of all of the traps being set by the Democrats, which will economically and, in other ways, destroy our country, he will easily remain speaker,” Trump told Fox News Digital.
Again, Johnson can’t avoid “traps being set by Democrats” if that means paying our bills on time and making concessions to get their votes. No Speaker can do that with a narrow majority and a divided party caucus.
Blaming Johnson for this is just the latest example of the GOP being in denial about the House actually having a functional Democratic majority. In the next Congress, the functional Democratic House majority will actually be larger than in the current one.
Does Musk understand any of this? Does Trump?
Not really. And this is why it’s wishful thinking to believe that Musk and Ramaswamy can do much with their Department of Government Efficiency. What they’re actually trying to do here is the opposite of reducing the deficit. They’re saying that out of one side of their mouth, but from the other side they’re telling the congressional Republicans to accept no check on debt spending during their administration.
In the meantime, Joe Biden is still the president and is responsible for preventing a national credit default and resulting global recession. Will he tell the Democrats to hold firm or ask them to take a deal to abolish the debt ceiling even if it comes with a government shutdown for the remainder of his presidency?
Fun times.
