Summary
House Speaker Mike Johnson angered both his Republican caucus and Donald Trump by negotiating a bipartisan budget deal with Democrats to avoid a government shutdown.
Trump, feeling “blindsided” and “furious,” reportedly encouraged Elon Musk to attack House leadership on X, leading to over 100 posts that derailed the deal temporarily.
While the budget ultimately passed with Democratic support, far-right Republicans were left fuming.
The incident highlights tensions within GOP leadership and Trump’s use of Musk to wield influence over congressional negotiations.
Like I don’t know how Musk has any sway in Congress? He’s a an unelected civilian. Why wouldn’t you just ignore his yapping? What is he going to do? What power could he truly possibly have besides having a Tesla run you over? Like I’d love to be an elected official and deal with that chode. I’m the most stubborn man in the world.
He can fund a challenger.
What if the spectre of an army of Elon-backed challengers is what it takes to finally motivate campaign finance reform?
“Money is Speech, unless it’s funding my opponent” seems very appropriate for today’s Republican party.
I love your optimism and wish I shared in it.
It’s nice to think accelerationism will work this time.
I also think that humans tend to destroy themselves before improving. It’s part of learning after all, not just for individuals but also for society. Peace and progress tend to be born from chaos, when people make mistakes and then learn from it. But I don’t agree with the accelerationism of accelerating the growing chaos just to get on with it. I mean, there is no growing from nuclear war and climate change.
Well, if nuclear war happens, I hope it’s not destructive enough to wipe out all life on earth. And that the utopia that may come from it, as imagined in Star Trek, is what will happen for humanity.
True.
That’s his power and looks like that’s how he can make Congress do what he wants including confirming his cabinet.
Not sure why this is still a hard concept to grab, elections are always bought
The bottom line as always: “Money, dear boy.”
Elon publicly said if you don’t do what he says, he will spend millions to make sure you lose the next election.
In one of Bernie Sander’s response video in regards to the shutdown, he said that Musk threatened to withdraw support from Republicans who would vote for the proposed budget.
Money is power in politics, and the politicians are greedy for more of it. The billionaire class is the one paying for the politicians’ salary. Ours is only a drop in the ocean for them.
Makes sense. Leave it to Bernie to give us the info.
He has a couple million fascist followers who reread The Turner Diaries every other week and can’t cum unless they’re fantasizing about The Day Of The Rope so that’s one thing.
That is brilliant
He controls a propaganda machine that’s popular with an increasingly wide array of their constituents, and he’s personally popular with those same people. The only real thing an elected representative cares about is not being elected again, and musk is a threat of that to some elected representatives.
The rich just get influence. It comes with the money.
Money talks.