WASHINGTON (AP) — One of the most turbulent congressional sessions in modern times is about to give way to the next.
The midnight passage of the administration’s shutdown package has brought political fault lines in Washington into sharp focus, as President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., fights for his job and Republicans take control of the House and Senate in the new year.
It took bipartisan votes, Republicans and Democrats, to keep the government running for a few more months and provide some $100 billion in disaster relief. By working together, the parties have shown that the House and Senate can still function at times to achieve the basic principles of government.
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“After a chaotic few days in the House of Representatives, it is good news that the bipartisan approach has ultimately prevailed,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. “It’s a good lesson for next year. Both parties must work together.”
But next year, with big promises from the Republican Party to cut taxes and slash spending while pumping new money to fund Trump’s border security and deportation operations, Republicans plan to go it alone.
“We are ready for a big and important new start in January,” Johnson said. “We can’t wait to get started.”
But first Johnson needs to make sure he has a job.
Johnson’s shaky grip on the gravel
The first vote in the new House, when lawmakers are sworn in on Jan. 3, will be on the election of a speaker. That gives Johnson little time to calm criticism after facing a strong backlash over his management of the government shutdown battle.
Johnson was never Republicans’ first choice for House speaker, but he emerged when they couldn’t agree on a replacement after kicking out the last speaker, Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.
Holding the gavel will only become more difficult. The government shutdown saga exposed the limits of Johnson’s influence over his majority, and over Trump, as his first two funding plans collapsed. It is unclear whether Johnson will receive sufficient support from his ranks.
“It’s always the big question, right?” said Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., among the handful of mostly fiscal conservatives who cast ballots to oust McCarthy. “Ultimately, and let’s be honest, a lot of that will be on Donald J. Trump.”
And yet Johnson was able to buy time and convince Trump that he would meet the newly elected president’s demands to raise the debt limit in the new year. Johnson has worked hard to stay close to Trump — storming to Mar-a-Lago and joining him ringside at Madison Square Garden — and the investment shows.
Johnson insisted Trump was “definitely happy” with the final deal.
“The Speaker has done a good job here given the circumstances,” said Trump ally Elon Musk, who has been mentioned as a potential replacement since the speaker does not have to be a member of Congress.
Johnson is out of votes because he effectively lost seats in the House in the fall elections, shrinking his majority. The Democrats will oppose him with their own candidate for chairman, Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York.
“It is clear that Johnson is not up to the task,” Trump ally and podcast provocateur Steven Bannon said at a conservative conference. “He doesn’t have what we call the right things: that combination of guts and grit, smarts and toughness.”
Musk is emerging as a power broker on Capitol Hill
The richest man in the world is quickly becoming Capitol Hill’s most feared influencer.
Musk intervened in the government shutdown debate, using the enormous power of his social media platform X, to blast Johnson’s original 1,500-page bipartisan bill and quickly kill it.
Post after post, hour after hour, Musk unleashed his criticism and sometimes inaccurate claims, sending his army of online followers to figuratively flood the Capitol, warning that if lawmakers voted for it, he would target them with primaries . His vast wealth and the American PAC supported his threats.
“Kill the bill,” Musk demanded.
Musk had his moment, but also launched a new moment for himself.
Democrat after Democrat, and at least one Republican, turned against Musk and saw not a benevolent billionaire stroll into the political process, but a symbol of extreme American wealth and power run amok.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent in Vermont, denounced health care and other bipartisan provisions that were removed from the bill to scale it back as Musk had demanded.
“The precedent set today in Congress should upset every American,” Sanders said in a statement announcing his refusal to support the final bill. He voted against.
“It appears that from now on no major legislation can be passed without the approval of the richest person in this country,” Sanders said. “That’s not democracy, that’s oligarchy.”
Trump leads the GOP, but not the budget hawks
One of the most outspoken conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus is Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who led the charge against Trump’s demand for a debt limit increase as part of the government shutdown package.
Trump tried to bully Roy into submission. It didn’t work.
“Highly unpopular Texas ‘Congressman’ Chip Roy is standing in the way as usual,” Trump wrote on social media.
Trump suggested there should be a primary challenge against Roy. “Republican obstructionists must be rooted out,” he said.
However, Roy has his own popular following as a leading deficit hawk. He stood his ground, ignoring Trump’s attack and warning his colleagues not to give in to Trump’s demands to raise the debt ceiling and allow more borrowing.
“You go on a campaign, say you’re going to balance the budget, and then you come here,” he shouted, choking up at times during the floor debate. “It’s embarrassing.”
Ultimately, 38 Republicans in the House of Representatives, including Roy, sided with the Democrats and blocked Trump’s debt ceiling increase.
The next debt limit fight is coming
The failure of Trump’s favorite spending bill, with the increase in the debt limit, signals problems ahead.
Republicans will have to raise the debt ceiling in the first half of the year — likely by early summer, according to some estimates — and it will come at a high price. It is a lever for all policy discussions.
As part of Johnson’s deal to pass the temporary government funding package, he signed a “gentlemen’s agreement” behind closed doors with his fellow Republicans ahead of Friday’s vote.
House Republicans agreed to cut about $2.5 trillion in federal spending over the next decade as part of the upcoming tax cut, which is a huge amount in the federal budget, in exchange for increasing the debt limit, as will have to be done to avoid a crisis. federal standard.
Burchett, for example, had no interest in such deals.
“I said, ‘This is not a place for gentlemen,’” he said. “Then I shouted: ‘You’re losing me’.”
Trump may have lost the deficit hawks in the election, but not his own political influence on Capitol Hill.
“He’s still strong,” Burchett said. “People still love him at home. And that’s all that really matters.”
___ Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed to this report.
