Following a last-minute deal in the House which kept the government running until March, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal placed the blame for the House budget chaos on Donald Trump and not House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) who was undercut at every turn by the president-elect.
In a scorching editorial, the editors got right to the point and asserted that Trump’s reliance on billionaire Elon Musk as an advisor is a bad omen for how he will run the country after being sworn in on January 20.
Claiming “There are bad omens here for 2025 and the ability of Republicans to govern,” the editors declared, “The immediate result has been a fiasco by any measure. Mr. Musk, and then Mr. Trump, delivered a social-media barrage against Mr. Johnson’s continuing resolution to fund the government through March 14.”
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Needling Trump by pointing out, “Democrats are chortling about ‘President Musk,’ which can’t sit well with the President-elect,” the editors took aim at Musk’s ignorance about how Congress operates.
“This is how Congress works, and for all Mr. Musk’s brilliance, he hasn’t figured that out. He’s also supposed to be a math whiz, so he can probably count to 218, the votes needed for a House majority when everyone is present. Memorize it,” they wrote before adding, “In 2017 Republicans had a large majority and experienced hands with policy chops like Paul Ryan and Kevin Brady. They had an outline for tax reform that they had spent years socializing among Members. Today’s House GOP has little such institutional or policy memory, and its majority is small and divided. Its majority will probably be 219-215 when Republicans take over in January. Bullying Members will have a short shelf-life if it works at all.”
Calling Trump’s machinations “blundering,” the board pointed out to the incoming president, “the hard reality of governing arrives in January.”
You read the whole editorial here.
