One day after Trump derailed a bipartisan government funding bill – with a big assist from tech multibillionaire Elon Musk – he issued a new demand, for a stripped-down government funding bill that would also raise the limit on how much the new debt the federal government can issue to fund its deficit spending.
Trump's demand was a tacit admission that his legislative agenda, heavy on tax cuts and new military spending, was unlikely to deliver the kind of deficit reduction that many on the right have been hoping for.
On Thursday night, this slimmed-down bill, along with a two-year suspension of the debt limit, came up for a vote in the House. Thirty-eight Republicans joined nearly every Democrat in rejecting it. This amounted to a stunning rebuke of the president-elect, who had enthusiastically endorsed the legislation and threatened to unseat any Republicans who opposed it.
Even the best-case scenario for Republicans at this point only pushes the next shutdown fight a few months down the road, when the party will have to juggle funding the federal government while also trying to enact Trump's legislative agenda on immigration, taxes and trade, all with an even narrower House majority.
A worst-case scenario has all this, coming after an extended government shutdown, followed by a debt-limit battle in the summer, when deficit-minded conservatives may be even less willing to fall in line behind the president.
Trump and Elon Musk can kill legislation, but they can't necessarily rally the support to get their proposals over the finish line.
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