Trump Dragged for Letting “President Musk” Run the Government

While Republicans are quickly falling in line over Elon Musk’s missives, Democrats are pointing out that the unelected billionaire bureaucrat may have actually eclipsed Donald Trump.

The president-elect didn’t deliver his opinion on the proposed continuing resolution until the end of the day Wednesday, when he demanded via his vassal JD Vance that Republicans raise the debt ceiling. Meanwhile Musk had already been ranting about it for hours online, threatening to unseat any Republicans who supported it.

During an appearance Wednesday night on MSNBC’s The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell, Representative Dan Goldman pointed out that the president-elect was clearly no longer calling the shots.

“It’s not Donald Trump asking for this, it’s very clearly President Elon Musk asking for this. The fact that Donald Trump has been completely AWOL during these negotiations to the point where only after Elon Musk publicly tweets about his displeasure about this budget deal, all of a sudden, Donald Trump, chief of staff to Elon Musk, comes trotting in and blows up the deal,” Goldman said.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders also called out the unelected billionaire for trying to steer the government into a shutdown.

“The US Congress this week came to an agreement to fund our government. Elon Musk, who became $200 BILLION richer since Trump was elected, objected,” Sanders wrote on X. “Are Republicans beholden to the American people? Or President Musk? This is oligarchy at work.”

Wisconsin Representative Gwen Moore asked her X followers, “Remind me who elected Elon Musk.”

Representative Don Beyer shared a screenshot of Musk agreeing with a post calling for the government to be shut down until Trump’s inauguration. “The richest man in the world says he wants to shut down the government, forcing millions of American workers—including our troops—to go without pay through the holidays,” wrote the Virginia Democrat. “Republicans are following his orders. This is insane.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson has come under heavy pressure to scrap the lengthy bill, and has been reportedly considering a “clean” bill that would not include many of the provisions that Democrats had fought for, such as $10 billion in economic assistance for farmers and $100 billion for disaster relief.

Massachusetts Representative Jim McGovern posted a selfie Johnson had previously taken with a smiling Musk and Trump.

“Johnson negotiated w/ Democrats to keep the government open, then went back on his word (abandoning help for farmers & disaster victims) because, apparently, out of touch billionaire Elon Musk now calls the shots,” McGovern wrote. “At least we know who’s in charge. Grow a spine, Mr. Speaker!”

“President Musk” was predictably trending on X Thursday morning, which would maybe be impressive if Musk didn’t own the website that declared it.

It’s well documented that Trump, ever the showman, doesn’t much care to share the spotlight with members of his inner circle, so it’s possible that Musk may receive pushback for his promotion from billionaire bureaucrat czar of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency to unelected president of the United States—how’s that for democracy?

On Wednesday, the conservative House Freedom Caucus introduced the Disaster Offset and Government Efficiency, or DOGE, Act, which sees the government’s budget slashed by over $100 billion—but conspicuously leaves military spending alone, which happens to be where Musk gets a hefty portion of his government contracts.

It looks like House Speaker Mike Johnson might be at risk of losing his job.

Republican Representative Thomas Massie said Wednesday that he would not vote for Johnson in the upcoming House speaker election in January, according to Punchbowl News’s Melanie Zanona.

Johnson came under fire Tuesday after introducing a 1,547-page continuing resolution to keep the government open until March. The behemoth bill, which includes $100 billion for disaster relief and opens the door to a pay bump for members of Congress, invited a firestorm from the small-government people, including technocrat billionaire Elon Musk and a slate of sycophantic Republicans.

That latter group includes Massie. The Kentucky Republican has seemingly become preoccupied by the potential goings-on of the Department of Government Efficiency, which plans to slash government spending in the trillions (while leaving the military budget completely untouched).

“DOGE is like the U.S. Constitution. It’ll be great … if you can get my fellow lawmakers to follow it,” Massie wrote in a post on X last week. When DOGE co-czar Vivek Ramaswamy said he’d “welcome” Massie’s help, the representative replied, “Count me in!”

Depending on how Johnson proceeds, and how willing Republican lawmakers are to jump off the bridge that is a government shutdown, the House speaker could find that he has trouble shoring up support to keep his gavel in the new year.

If the Republicans fail to select a House speaker in a timely manner, that could mean trouble for anyone actually interested in certifying the results of the presidential election on January 6, which the chamber is legally required to do—resulting in a constitutional crisis.

Johnson’s leadership team began discussing a second plan Wednesday, a “clean” bill that would cut many of the provisions of the massive stopgap measure, including funding for disaster relief, according to Politico.

With a Friday deadline to fund the government looming and Republican lawmakers at loggerheads over House Speaker Mike Johnson’s proposed stopgap spending bill, the conservative House Freedom Caucus is touting a plan to slash federal spending that conveniently leaves the bloated Pentagon budget untouched.

On Tuesday night, the House Freedom Caucus lampooned Johnson’s bill in a post on X, calling it a “Cramnibus” and enumerating demands that include a vote on the Disaster Offset and Government Efficiency Act, or DOGE Act: a piece of legislation introduced Tuesday evening by Republican Representative Chip Roy of Texas.

The DOGE Act would cut nondefense discretionary spending—which, per the Congressional Budget Office, “funds an array of federal activities in areas such as education, transportation, income security, veterans’ health care, and homeland security”—by roughly $114 billion, from just over $710 to $597 billion.

Stephen Semler, a policy analyst and co-founder of the Security Policy Reform Institute, posted that the proposed DOGE Act would shrink these necessary programs, but curiously “reduces Pentagon spending by $0.”

On Wednesday afternoon, Roy appeared on Fox to criticize Johnson’s spending bill, which he said was too expensive.

“How is that a signal to the world that we’ve pulled our financial thing together as a country? It’s not,” Roy said, before promoting the DOGE Act as the solution. “We’ve offered all sorts of opportunities,” he added. “For example, we have a bill that I filed yesterday—it’s called the DOGE Act—that would cut nondefense spending by 13 percent to pre-Covid levels. That’s $113 billion. That would pay for all of this. We just wanted to get a vote on that.”

Responding to the DOGE Act, the antiwar organization Code Pink wrote on X, “Republicans are suddenly interested in ‘government efficiency,’ but they refuse to touch the Pentagon budget. The Pentagon is the ONLY government agency that has never passed an audit and can’t account for TRILLIONS in public resources.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson appears to be getting cyberbullied by “efficiency” czar Elon Musk, over his continuing resolution.

Johnson’s resolution, which was released Tuesday, grants $10 billion in economic assistance for farmers, $100 billion for disaster relief, and enough money to keep the government open until March. It also opens the door for pay raises for members of Congress, among a slate of other things buried in the 1,547-page bill.

But not everyone is happy, especially Musk, the unelected billionaire who wants to slash government funding for pretty much everything except the military through the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

“Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!” Musk wrote in a post on X Wednesday.

The right-wing technocrat’s threat is no joke, as his deep pockets and misinformation efforts were essential to Donald Trump’s victory in November. “Stop the steal of your tax dollars! Call your elected representatives now. They are trying to railroad this thing through today!” a miffed Musk posted on X an hour later.

Musk’s threats didn’t stop coming Wednesday, as he descended into a deluge of hysterics over what some internet trolls dubbed the “omnibus” bill, and Republicans have already begun cheering Musk on.

“In five years in Congress, I’ve been awaiting a fundamental change in the dynamic. It has arrived,” wrote North Carolina Representative Dan Bishop in a post on X. Bishop lost a bid to become his state’s attorney general but was rewarded for loyalty when Trump nominated him for a position in the Office of Management and Budget.

“By now, they should know that I mean what I say,” Musk replied.

From his slew of pissed-off posts, it seems that Musk is mostly mystified by the bill’s length and the fact that it may allow a pay bump for members of Congress.

“This is insane! This is NOT democracy! How can your elected representatives be asked to pass a spending bill where they had no input and not even enough time to read it!!??” Musk wrote in another post. Musk, the unelected bureaucrat, sure has a lot of opinions about what democracy is.

Did Musk have an alternative? No, of course not. His answer to the government funding running out is just to wait until Trump can arrive to save the day.

“No bills should be passed Congress until Jan 20, when @realDonaldTrump takes office. None. Zero,” Musk wrote, as if Trump’s very presence in the White House would magically fund the essential services the government offers.

Musk shared a post from one account called Wall Street Mav, which advocated to “just close down the govt until January 20th. Defund everything. We will be fine for 33 days.”

“YES,” Musk wrote in response. And so the wannabe co-president openly advocated for a government shutdown. Of course, it makes sense. Why struggle to cut government funding when you could simply advocate that the government stop funding itself?

During an interview with Newsmax Wednesday morning, Johnson had gushed over his direct line with Musk and co-efficiency czar Vivek Ramaswamy and indicated that they were all on the same page about the measure.

“I was on a text chain last night with Elon and Vivek about DOGE, cause I’m super excited about that, and I said, ‘Guys, these are the necessary things.’ They don’t like spending either, they said, ‘We know this is not you personally, Mr. Speaker,’ and we got to get through this,” Johnson said.

“Everybody understands the necessity,” he said. Do they? Because Musk seems to be doing his best to tank the stopgap measure via a major social media meltdown.

Donald Trump’s forthcoming presidency might not hinder the proceedings surrounding his Georgia election interference charges, according to an attorney for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

In documents filed to the court on Wednesday, Willis’s office urged an appeals court to reject the president-elect’s request to throw out the case in light of the Supreme Court’s July ruling on presidential immunity. But the filing also suggested that state prosecution isn’t necessarily beholden to federal statute. The lawyer argued that Trump’s legal representation had failed to demonstrate why state prosecution should be subject to a Justice Department mandate preventing the prosecution of sitting presidents, reported ABC News.

“Appellant does not specify or articulate how the appeal—or indeed, any other aspect of this case—will constitutionally impede or interfere with his duties once he assumes office,” Fulton County Chief Senior Assistant District Attorney F. McDonald Wakeford wrote.

“The notice makes mention of these concepts without actually examining them or applying them to the present circumstances,” Wakeford continued in the filing. “In other words, Appellant has not done the work but would very much like for this Court to do so.”

Willis’s office believes they have wiggle room to proceed, due to a lack of legal precedent related to court proceedings against sitting presidents.

“Given these vague statements, to simply invoke the phrase ‘federalism and comity concerns,’ without more, offers nothing of substance,” the filing said.

Trump and 18 of his allies face racketeering charges in Georgia for their participation in the fake elector conspiracy, including ex-Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and former white House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Four individuals have already pleaded guilty, including the architect of the scheme Kenneth Chesebro, though he has since attempted to withdraw his plea.