Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

People are complicated. Love is not.

In after Baud. Damn.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

This fight is for everything.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Trump has sewn himself into a sack with Elon Musk

Trump has sewn himself into a sack with Elon Musk

by | 189 Comments

This post is in: 

by KC Green

I love this sentence from Josh Marshall.

Trump has sewn himself into a sack with Elon Musk, a few billion dollars, a cat and a snake, and had the sack tossed into the Tiber. That’s the story here. And it will go on for a while.

Here’s a challenge to all you BJ peeps – to come up with a summary of the situation that rivals that one.  Josh Marshall used fewer than 40 words – you guys have 50 words to spend, if you want.

Ready, set, go!

Reader Interactions

189Comments

  1. 1.

    Steve LaBonne

    Sorry, no way I can compete with that. Just wanted to say there used to be a commenter on LGM who called himself Cato the Censor who would frequently recommend that old Roman punishment for various malefactors, so I was particularly amused by Marshall’s gem.

  2. 2.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    Musk’s latest is another example of Big Tech’s Motto: “We do these things not because they are easy, but because we thought they were going to be easy.”

    That’s from Musk’s perspective, not the Orange Fart Cloud’s.

  3. 3.

    Jeffg166

    A bad reality show with a bunch of people who find themselves more interesting then they ever will be. Sad.

  13. 13.

    Princess

    I have so many questions. What is Trump’s cognitive state? If his brain is turning to marshmallows, does he realize he’s in a bag with Musk? Is he capable of figuring out how weak he looks? Are Susie Wiles etc. managing to manage what he sees and hears enough that he’ll keep going along and blistering from time to time to keep the people in the cheap seats happy? Or were we wrong? Is he basically competent? I’m hoping for the latter because that brings more opportunity for chaos and acrimony and Musk as this season’s Omarosa.

  16. 16.

    WaterGirl

    @Princess:

    “This season’s Omarosa” made me laugh.  There was so much drama during Trump I that I have forgotten the details of that one.

    Was her light too bright for Donnie’s taste?

  18. 18.

    Scout211

    Old man in Florida dreams of running the country while the Musk branch of the government makes a smooth transition in Washington.

  19. 19.

    Lobo

    Entry from the Joker:

    “I’m like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn’t know what to do if I caught one, you know, I just do…things.”

  28. 28.

    Scout211

    LOL Trump team needed to clarify . . .

    President-elect Trump’s transition team pushed back against Democratic lawmakers who suggested Elon Musk is the “real leader” of the Republican Party after his aggressive pressure campaign against a stopgap spending measure.

    The Democrats’ messaging seems to be working.

  30. 30.

    geg6

    Can’t beat Josh’s description, LOL.  He has had the best takes of anyone in media since the election.  My subscription to TPM is money well spent.

  32. 32.

    oldgold

    The Devil laughed and thought I haven’t had this much fun since I engineered the the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.

  38. 38.

    Jake Gibson

    • In this shitty remake of The Defiant Ones, we have two malignant narcissists handcuffed together. Will their massive egos allow them to work together to destroy the country? Or will they destroy the country in the process of destroying each other.
  39. 39.

    TS

    Am I misunderstanding or is the Post just getting dumber and dumber?

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/12/19/trump-administration-transition/#link-I75PVJA6LNBFDJRECIY7UL3KZI

    1 The House is now voting on the new funding bill, which Democrats and at least a handful of Republicans have said they would oppose. It needs the support of two-thirds of the chamber to pass.

    I would assume this is doomed to fail from those words

    2 The House is voting on a bill spearheaded by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) to avert a government shutdown, which would extend federal spending for three months and suspend the debt limit for two years in a bid to satisfy President-elect Donald Trump, adviser Elon Musk and the rowdy House GOP conference. The proposal is on shaky ground: It’s unclear whether Republicans will embrace the plan in high enough numbers to force it through the House, and Democrats may not support it, either. 

    This was then posted – if they need two thirds of the chamber this bill is not only on shaky grounds, it is dead without Democratic Party support

  41. 41.

    WaterGirl

    @TS: I haven’t yet read what they wrote, but I’m going for door #2.

    I reserve the right to edit after reading whatever stupid thing they wrote

    edit:  I’m sticking with door #2.  Perhaps AI wrote that?

  42. 42.

    Ruckus

    Tweedledum and tweedledee

    Twin brothers in all aspects shitty and dumb.

    Your choice of which is which.

  45. 45.

    Jeffro

    @Scout211: and it’s still a month to go ’til the inaugurawful!

    LOLOL, GOP

    Want a do-over?  We’ll give you one if you’ll go alllllllll the way back to the J6 impeachment and finally do the right thing.

  46. 46.

    suzanne

    @WaterGirl: Depends on your definition of “well”, I suppose.

    It succeeded in killing any sexual impulse I may have been feeling at the time. It succeeded in allowing me to ridicule the wretched prose!

  48. 48.

    Jeffro

    @WaterGirl: if someone can work up a graphic that shows trumpov and Musk as two swirls a la the yin & yang sign (yet still make them distinguishable) I will print it on t-shirts and share the proceeds.

    Maybe trumpov’s half is orange with a fake blonde hairpiece on it, and Musk’s is just…I dunno, a raging bonfire of dollars?

    mutual parasites, devouring each other…everything in balance…who could ask for more?

    ETA: per Jake’s comment at #38, maybe have tiny handcuffs on opposite sides of the symbol?

  49. 49.

    JetsamPool

    @Princess, the Orange One’s health is the most closely guarded secret in the nation, so it would be irresponsible not to speculate.

  50. 50.

    Schtreaky

    @Scout211: Yes! If the Republicans can make up a bullshit “Department” (DOGE), we can declare Musk their bullshit President. Democrats need to keep hammering on this like Trump constantly referring to Canada as the 51st state.

  51. 51.

    Another Scott

    Their jenius plan failed – 174-235-1. They didn’t even get a majority. Last I saw, 2 Democrats voted Aye, something like 35 GQPers voted No. The House is in recess subject to the call of the chair.

    DJT and EM and MJ – Who knew that vote counting was so very hard!!1?

    [Ron Howard] Nancy Pelosi [/Ron Howard]

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  53. 53.

    Scout211

    House vote fails to pass.

    The vote was 174-235, with one Democrat voting present, falling far short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass it under a fast-track process. Two Democrats voted for the bill and Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, was the lone present vote, while the rest of the party opposed it. Thirty-eight Republicans voted against the bill as well, with conservatives saying it did not substantially reduce federal spending 

  55. 55.

    ETtheLibrarian

    Are there bets on how long it is before Elon’s shtick starts to piss trump off and trump drop kicks the runt?

  58. 58.

    WaterGirl

    @Steve LaBonne: I have been appreciating your comments in the past few weeks, and then I after reading about what you’ve had going on in your personal life recently I am amazed that you are able to be so cogent.

  59. 59.

    Jeffro

    btw back to the contest, here’s my entry:

    trump trumped himself but good…musk musked himself but good, too…and then trump musked musk and musk trumped trump…and then…

    oh never mind, it’s morons, all the way down

    WAIT THAT’S IT

  68. 68.

    Jackie

    @Scout211: Add Nancy Pelosi to the list mocking TCFG being president-elect Musk’s puppet. That’s gonna sting!

    Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) joined a growing chorus of Democrats asserting that Elon Musk is directing Donald Trump, after the president-elect came out in opposition to a stopgap spending deal hours after his billionaire adviser heavily criticized it, the Washington Post reports.

    Said Pelosi: “Elon Musk ordered his puppet President-elect and House Republicans to break the bipartisan agreement reached to keep government open. House Republicans are abdicating their responsibility to the American people and siding with billionaires and special interests.”

  70. 70.

    WaterGirl

    @Another Scott: The highlight of the Trump II Regime might be watching the shitshow when the House Republicans try to elect the Speaker.

    I wonder if for the nominating speeches on the Democratic side could simply be used to highlight all the lies and the pre-broke promises and the threats coming from the incoming administration.

    Hijack the election process for some pointed education of Trump voters.

  73. 73.

    Another Scott

    On the challenge, I tried to pull something together, but it was (shockingly!) too wordy. Anyway, Aesop said something like what I was attempting so much better long ago – The Peacock and the Crane.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  75. 75.

    Paul W.

    Finally, with this CR being voted down I get to go back to my natural state: glib!

     

    To all here this language LOOKS strong from Jeffries. It’s the right tone and combining Musk and Republicans is good.

    Curious for your thoughts in future posts, I think we’re seeing how thin a line Trump has to walk now that he has promised so much to some very powerful “allies”.

    https://bsky.app/profile/hakeem-jeffries.bsky.social/post/

  77. 77.

    Another Scott

    Aaron Fritschner@Fritschner

    24m

    38 Republicans voted no, incredible. Is he gonna primary all of them? Next year is gonna be truly insane

    Dec 19, 2024 · 11:59 PM UTC

    Hey, maybe we’ll pick up 100 seats in the House in 2026?!?

    ;-)

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  78. 78.

    Jeffro

    @WaterGirl:Trump will be afraid to dropkick him – too much of a coward – it would be a real shame if he became a laughingstock to the people who voted for him because he’s so powerful.

    trumpov being mocked daily by all sides as some sort of puppet ‘beta’ for four straight years is the third-best outcome I could have envisioned after last month’s election.  It might even lead to the second-best outcome, him stroking out on camera (preferably in the next month)

    My long-term plan for closing the door on this clown still stands.  A 12-pack of Bud Light drained en route to his grave is all it will take.

  80. 80.

    Jeffro

    WaPo: Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) said Republicans trying to pass Thursday’s funding bill are “stuck on stupid” and suggested Congress should vote separately on whether to suspend the debt limit.

     

    Better be sure to check with Shadow President Musk before you make a move there, Mr. Massie.

  83. 83.

    Jeffro

    Also WaPo:

    “Everything that I just told you was negotiated in a bipartisan pact,” he said. “Both parties agreed to these terms, and that’s what’s on the floor right now. The only change in this legislation is that we are going to push the debt limit to Jan. 30 … 2027. … And that will allow us to do the important work of governing in these times. Why does that matter? Because we are committed to cutting hundreds of millions of dollars of wasteful spending out of the federal budget.”

    Not…not…HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS, Squeaker Johnson!!!

    Why, that’s…wait, that’s .000134 of the federal budget…actually that’s nothing, never mind.

    I’d encourage the Dems from Jeffries on down to make hay over that nonsense, but the American public at large has already proved itself uneducable – “hundreds of millions of dollars” in savings is what we do if we buy 1 or 2 fewer fighter planes, big whoop – so fuck it.

    Just keep (rhetorically) beating the GOP about the head until they do the bare minimum for their jobs, Ds!

  87. 87.

    Jeffro

    Jeffries:

    “The Musk-Johnson government shutdown bill has been soundly defeated,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) said in a social media post on Bluesky shortly after the failed vote. “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.”

     

    I just might get that trumpov stroke-out after all…LOLOLOLOL…

  95. 95.

    Jeffro

    @Starfish (she/her): I’m still sore in my ribs from “The Musk-Johnson government shutdown bill” LOLOLOL

    Drag away, Mr. Future Speaker!

    If you guys want to have real fun, try to picture Mike Johnson explaining all this to Musk and trumpov.

    Johnson: “So…as much as I’d like to give you what you want…we don’t have the votes.”

    Musk (or trumpov, doesn’t matter): “You mean YOU don’t have the votes, Mike.  YOU don’t have them.”

    Johnson: “yeah well whatever…the only people who have the votes here are the Democrats and the handful of Republicans who’d love to see you trip down a flight of st…er…never mind”

  99. 99.

    Nukular Biskits

    For you folks with GOP reps, call them tomorrow and ask if they had supported the bipartisan CR.

    And then ask them how they voted on President Musk’s Gov’t Shutdown CR.

  107. 107.

    NobodySpecial

    Lame duck President.

    Incoming new record number of votes to get a new Speaker, breaking the old record set in 2022.

    One bill gets done, the rest of the two years is spent getting nothing passed of substance.

    83 investigations that never finish.

    The only real danger is the Supreme Kangaroo Court.

    2026 is gonna be a blood bath for Republicans. Blue wave, my ass. More like Blue Tsunami.

  108. 108.

    Scout211

    I wonder if this vote was pre-planned and agreed upon to give President Musk and VP Trump the temporary win and then the vote tonight was to reject their plan.  Leadership would have known who would vote against it and it had to be in a large enough number so that Trump couldn’t punish the few who voted against him. And then at the last minute, the original bi-partisan CR passes.

    Oh hell, who am I kidding?  It was a shit show.

  110. 110.

    M31

    I heard that Musky Johnson is the nickname for Trump’s mushroom

    [sorry, I know it’s dinner time]

  111. 111.

    Harrison Wesley

    I thought “skipping dipshit” was a song by Elton John. My brain is toast after too many misspent years.

  112. 112.

    Jeffro

    btw even Politico is getting in on the act (by at least quoting Dems accurately)

     

    “Yesterday a multi-billionaire, with apparently no working knowledge of government or of appropriations — a self-appointed president of the United States, Elon Musk — issued a marching order for House Republicans to go against their own elected leadership and shut down the government,” DeLauro said. “Soon after, Congress was on a fast track to a government shutdown.”

  115. 115.

    Jay

    After all the Republican birtherism BS about Obama, how ironic that America is about to have a president who really was born in Africa, and he’s a Republican called Elon Musk

  117. 117.

    Princess

    @Nukular Biskits: Or call your GoP reps and tell them indignantly that you didn’t vote for Trump to have Musk act as president (they don’t need to know you didn’t vote for him at all).

  119. 119.

    hueyplong

    @Starfish (she/her): “They removed funding for children’s cancer from the bill.”

    Those cancer kids’ parents need to have more skin in the game.

    Sincerely,

    Mitt Romney

    Elon Musk

    Interim CEO of United Healthcare.

  121. 121.

    Jeffro

    it’s getting harder and harder to spin this BS over at Fox (cue sad violins)

    top story/headline: “House fails to pass Trump-backed* spending bill as partial** government shutdown nears***”

    *um, what? it was President Musk and his coffee boy trump’s bill, thank you

    **um what?? it’s more that ‘partial’…thanks for trying to keep your viewers from panicking for once though, Fox

    ***um?  “nears”?  It’ll happen this weekend, amigos!

    Second story/headline: “Schumer celebrates as government funding bill fails: ‘a good thing’ ”  LOVE IT!  It’s all Chuck’s fault!  Those damn Dems!!

    Third story/headline (y’all had to know this was coming): “Hillary Clinton claims ‘Republicans are taking orders from world’s richest man’ ”     Note how this works on so many levels for the Republican Noise Machine.  It’s true…but if it’s what HILLARY ‘claims…then R voters are effectively inoculated against it.  Sheer genius!

  124. 124.

    Nukular Biskits

    I all but shut down my Twitter account and moved to Bluesky, but I  didn’t delete the Twitter account because I didn’t want to chance someone taking over the handle.

    Also, it’s about the only place to see the bullshit put out by my Republican elected officials.

    Having said that, I do sometimes enjoy going there on days like today and watching the “nukular” meltdown on the right.

    Which includes this in which US Rep. Bennie Thompson hands MS State Auditor (and Trump mini-me & Musk fanboi) Shad White his ass on a silver platter:

    https://bsky.app/profile/nukularbiskits.bsky.social/post/3ldp66rr2mc2h

    (Apologies if that seems a little self-serving on my part).

    ETA:  Stuff like this ALMOST makes me want to start my Twitter activity back up.  But, nope.

  125. 125.

    brantl

    The image is the yin and yang with a nose and balls, each one with his nose in the other one’s balls and little eye dots, and the Stumpy swoosh.

  128. 128.

    Starfish (she/her)

    @Nukular Biskits: Shad desperately wants to be more important than he is, but it is never going to happen because he shanked his own party by finding the corruption in it.

  130. 130.

    TBone

    Bannon:

    Hell. Johnson’s a Democrat. He’s a Democrat. He holds the Bible.

    He’s got he’s got the New Testament wrapped up tight. He can talk happy talk on a handful of social issues, you know, checking his son’s porn site. I don’t know all this crazy nonsense.

    He does all that. He goes down there. He’s a big deep Christian except when it comes to showing courage and being courageous. And maybe bringing people in so it’s not a surprise.

    So now the media can sit there with a big old shotgun to your head and go to go — Oh my gosh No, social security checks – It’s going to be cold – It’s going to be dark for Christmas day. Granny’s going to freeze. The parks are going to be closed. The Smithsonian is not going to be open on Christmas Eve. Not going to get any mail. No Christmas presents.

    Going to go over CNN. Going to have that big camera everywhere; kids crying. No Santa. NORAD’s not going to be able to track. NORAD’s not going to be able to track Santa on Christmas eve. NORAD will not do it. You remember as a kid, every kid sitting there got Santa? He’s leaving the North Pole. It’s not going to happen because the government’s going to shut down. Because government’s out of money.

    https://crooksandliars.com/2024/12/steve-bannon-attacks-speaker-johnson

    Bwahahaha!

  131. 131.

    Nukular Biskits

    @Starfish (she/her):

    Well … he’s part of that corruption as well.  After all, he spent $2 million state taxpayer dollars (which was determined by his nemisis AG Lynn Fitch to have been illegal) to conduct an audit his own office was more than capable of conducting.

    Pot. Kettle.

  134. 134.

    MagdaInBlack

    @TBone: For s second there I thought that was trump-speak. It’s been so long since I watched any Bannon-speak I had forgotten that he is nearly as incoherent as trump.

  138. 138.

    prostratedragon

    @WaterGirl:  It wasn’t cancer, but didn’t he cut off his own grandnephew’s health insurance although the child needed ongoing treatment?

  140. 140.

    Chris

    I’ll borrow a summary from one of my countrymen at the Battle of Waterloo:

    “We are in a chamber pot, and we are about to be shit on.”

  141. 141.

    Quaker in a Basement

    Trump has unwittingly let himself be strapped into a SpaceX capsule. “Trust me,” Musk says. “It’ll work fine with a skeleton crew.”

  142. 142.

    hitchhiker

    @TBone: Isn’t Bannon going to be on trial soon for ripping off those veterans for money that was supposed to be for a wall on the southern border? I thought that was a thing in NY.

  143. 143.

    MagdaInBlack

    @Steve LaBonne: I confess I used to watch clips of “Warroom” just because he is such a lunatic. Also, I’d see Marjorie Taylor Greene on there, and then next day she’d be out spouting exactly the stuff he primed her with.

  146. 146.

    p.a.

    There once was an asshole from Queens

    Had no clue what democracy means

    With help from a South African

    He won an election again

    And now they’re conjoined fascist fiends

  147. 147.

    hueyplong

    So I guess GOPers watch this obnoxious preening and support the one who seems to be the biggest asshole? It’s like a nightmarish nature show.

  149. 149.

    Torrey

    Really, all I want is for reporters to respond to anything Trump says with “Did Elon approve this?”

  153. 153.

    WaterGirl

    @prostratedragon: I recall some horrid story like that.  I’m convinced Trump is a sociopath.  He does’t understand love, or caring, or even smiling.  He tries to mimic actual human emotions and he can’t even do that.

  156. 156.

    tam1MI

    Meanwhile in Michigan, our answer to Kristen Sinema makes sure the term ends in failure:

     Amid infighting and Republican boycotting, Democrats’ final days of control over the state House will end in disarray, with dozens of bills now set to die on the floor.

    The Michigan House will convene one last time this year, at 1:30 p.m. Dec. 31, only to adjourn the session. No bills will be taken up, Michigan House Democratic Caucus spokesperson Jess Travers said Thursday, Dec. 19.

    Thursday’s House session, which was supposed to be the last one of the year, ended without any votes being taken due to a lack of necessary attendance, or quorum.

    Now those bills, and hundreds of others that haven’t yet been approved by the House, will have to be reintroduced next year in a divided government, with Republicans controlling the House.

    That left Democrats needing all 56 members to attend session for a quorum. But Rep. Karen Whitsett, D-Detroit, refused to attend… Thursday issued a call of the House, compelling all representatives, specifically the absent Republicans and Whitsett, to attend session or be brought in by police… That effort didn’t work, and an hour later Democratic leadership announced the session would adjourn due to a lack of quorum. That’s when the final Dec. 31 session day was scheduled.

    After the House adjourned Thursday, Whitsett appeared in the Capitol Building alongside the Republican leader in the House, House Speaker-elect Matt Hall, for an interview with reporters…  “When she told me that she made the decision to come up here to Lansing because she wanted to fight for the people of Detroit and her district and get some specific issues done for Detroit, I told her she was welcome in my office and I would help her get those done, even the ones that I don’t agree with and I’m not going to vote for,” Hall said. “We wanted an honest conversation, a negotiated deal, so all those bills for Detroit would get done.”… This is the poorest leadership I have ever seen in my six years,” Whitsett said of Tate. “It’s a doggone shame in order to get help on issues I had to go to the Republican leader. What does that say about (Tate)?”

    Just cross the aisle like you are dying to do, Karen.  We won’t miss you.

  158. 158.

    Ksmiami

    I volunteer that Trump is strapped in with Musk on an OceanGate submersible with three twinkies, a Wolverine and one very pissed off cassowary.

    it is getting very cold

    and very dark and time is not on their side.

  159. 159.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    Well, I invoke the wisdom of NIN for Speaker Johnson:

    “Bow down before the one you serve.

    Your going to get what you deserve.”

  162. 162.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Good to see the Repubs in complete disarray, & Musk w/ egg on his face. Time for Dems to make hay in portraying the Repubs & Trump’s TechBro billionaires as group of incompetent fools.

    Just who are the two Dems that voted “Yay”, & why?!

  163. 163.

    artem1s

    @Torrey:

    Really, all I want is for reporters to respond to anything Trump says with “Did Elon approve this?”

    You win all the internets today.

  167. 167.

    Another Scott

    Meanwhile, … BlueVirginia.US:

    See below for video of Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA11) speaking on CNN, after “President Musk” blew up the continuing resolution that House Republicans and Democrats had agreed to, and just before “President Musk”‘s alternate plan failed 174-235, with 38 Republicans and all but 2 Democrats voting no. This is going to be a loooong next few years, with Republicans at each other’s throats and the country in turmoil. Great job, Trump voters – YOU DID THIS!

    P.S. The Virginia delegation all voted no on “President Musk’s” plan, except for Reps. Rob Wittman (R-VA01), Jen Kiggans (R-VA02), Ben Cline (R-VA06) and Morgan Griffith (R-VA09).

    “I’m going to follow certainly Hakeem Jeffries in opposing this bill because, at the very bottom of the line, we cannot hand over government to unelected oligarchs who are trolling the trough for their own self benefit, like Elon Musk…Mr. Elon Musk has some self interest in THIS CR, and we all want to know all about. But it’s also about trust. When you shake hands and say we’ve got a deal, and then it gets blown up by outside people who are unelected – apparently Elon Musk is the surrogate president in the United States…I didn’t vote for Elon Musk and neither did the American people…he ought not to be interfering in directly directing and targeting legislators in the Congress to give up their own independence and their own judgement in favor of his. Which, I fear, serves his interests…

    Over and above the issue of trust, which has been broken…your word is your bond up here, and if you’re going to break your word, how can we trust ANY deal going forward? But secondly, the debt ceiling limit increase that that Donald Trump and Elon Musk have asked for is a route to allow the Republicans to pass an enormous tax cut to extend the former Trump tax cuts, which will add trillions of dollars to the national debt…and that’s why they want the debt ceiling increase in this bill, not next year…

    …We’re not the ones who blew up the deal, he was – Elon Musk, President Musk – I’m sorry, not President Musk, that’s President Trump isn’t it? But they’re the ones that blew it up, we didn’t, we had a deal and we agreed to the deal and were prepared to vote for…it was the Speaker who gave his imprimatur to this, he approved it, and he agreed with Democrats and shook hands over it. And they’re now breaking that…bond of trust, and we don’t have a deal. And if you want to have a deal, you’ve got to make sure that when you agree to the elements of that deal, you stick to it.”

    [ embedded video]

    Good, good.

    Gerry knows how to do this politics stuff.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  168. 168.

    Scout211

    @YY_Sima Qian: @WaterGirl:

    Just who are the two Dems that voted “Yay”, & why?!

    I don’t know why, but here are the two Dems voting for the CR.

    Cathy Castor, Florida 14th

    Mary Gluesenkamp Perez, Washington 3rd

  170. 170.

    Old School

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    Just who are the two Dems that voted “Yay”, & why?!

    Don’t know the why, but the Dems votes for were Kathy Castor (FL) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA).

    Marcy Kapur (OH) was the present vote.

  174. 174.

    Bupalos

    There are a bunch of problems with Marshall’s formulation.  If it were solid, then we’d be in good shape politically, right? It would seems to mean Trump is done. Sewed up in a sack with a cat in a river and all that. Right?

    Trump ain’t done.

    Why? what we’ve seemed to miss this entire time is that political situations are relative. Trump is in a moderately bad political situation. Democrats are in a terrible political situation. Trump will be significantly wounded by his association with oligarchy, but the opponents of oligarchy are and will continue to be wounded much worse than that, by their inability to cut the cord between liberalism and the existing bureaucracy…to admit that the captured bureaucratic regulatory state compromised by lobbyists has essentially lapsed. It is no longer democratically legitimate in the eyes of enough of the electorate to continue to function.

    it will not get stronger from this point and will get weaker.

    All of us used to the strong state are feeling like “aha! Easy win for us, for these oligarchs to drop the mask!!”

    The reality is more likely that the oligarchs are now safe to drop the mask, and that the reaction we all think is coming, that “they’ve underestimated…”. Well… probably not. The people you’re imagining making the difference are on their smartphones. Checking gas prices.

  175. 175.

    Jackie

    @WaterGirl:

    Just who are the two Dems that voted “Yay”, & why?!

    I had the very same thought.  Well, right after WTF?

    I want to know who the 47 republicans were that voted “No” – along with the 7? republicans who didn’t vote at all.

    My Rep is Dan Newhouse, who barely got re-elected, only with thanks to Dems voting for him vs his TCFG endorsed MAGA opponent. I need to know whether to begrudgingly thank him, or give him an earful – reminding him of the majority of Dems who voted for him and expect acknowledgment that that significant reason is why he’s still a member of the House.

  179. 179.

    Another Scott

    The MAGA folks don’t know what to do – they’re still flailing.

    TheHill.com (note the framing is all about getting GQPers on board):

    […]

    Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), for example, told reporters after Thursday’s failed vote that he pitched Johnson on splitting the stopgap package into four separate bills: A clean continuing resolution, disaster aid, the farm bill extension and the debt limit suspension, passing them under one procedural rule then voting on each one individually.

    Massie said he pitched Johnson on the idea and that “it wasn’t rejected outright.”

    It’s also unclear if Trump would support that. Massie said that Trump’s team initially asked for a five-year extension of the debt limit, so it would not come up again during his presidential term.

    Another idea brought up to Johnson was to add spending cuts to the bill to offset the unpaid disaster and farm aid spending, one source said, as a means of trying to woo hardline conservatives to support the bill.

    Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), the chairman of the self-proclaimed pragmatic Main Street Caucus, said he “suggested a number” of ideas to Johnson, but would not divulge specifics.

    Another House Republican predicted to The Hill that Republicans would move to a “clean” continuing resolution next. Another GOP lawmaker, meanwhile, said the “rumor” in GOP circles is that the Senate will try to pass the initial proposal negotiated by congressional leaders in an attempt to “jam” the lower chamber.

    Senate Republicans are balking at that idea — but not ruling it out.

    […]

    With time running out, Republicans are urging their colleagues to get down to business.

    “At some point, let’s just put on our big boy, big girl pants, let’s understand that we got to get to 218 here and we got to get 60 over there,” Dusty Johnson said. “Ideas that don’t move us in that direction are not helpful.”

    Dusty Johnson was promptly strung up by his colleagues and thrown in the Tidal Basin, probably.

    I wonder if Schumer will decide to try to get enough Republicans on board with just passing the bipartisan agreement with 60 votes, throwing it over the wall to the House, and leaving town. (Or threaten Johnson with doing that.)

    Hang in there, everyone.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  184. 184.

    tommyspoon

    This is a classic example of the Schrödinger Sandwich: a sandwich where the filling can be both meat and vegetables, the condiments might be mustard and mayonnaise, or using rye or sourdough bread, BUT NOT BOTH ALL AT ONCE. It is as tasty as it is perilous.

    Not my best effort, but it’s late and I had two Pisco Sours earlier in the evening. Happy Holidays!

  189. 189.

    AnnaC

    @Scout211: Agreed.  If you have to come out and say “He’s the leader”, then he’s not the leader.  Genuine leaders never need to confirm it.

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