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.
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.
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
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 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.
Money talks.
Trump isn’t president yet. But still it’s a good sign that he can’t just use bully tactics to get what he wants.
He has no negotiation skills. No real political capital. And he’s despised by most of the leaders who support him only transactionally. His only trick will be lies and threats and Elon’s propaganda site. So maybe he won’t be able to do as much damage as we feared.
But what do I know. I thought he’d be in jail by now.
He’s a fucking incompetent loser and he’s way more incoherent now than he was 8 years ago. He’s still very dangerous but there is a chance he just won’t be able to get things done.
His hand looks so small in that picture.
I bet Elons hands are bigger than Trumps hands.
And with the foreshortening it should seem overly large. Trump’s baby hands crack me up
Whiner in chief. What a fucking joke of a person he is.
The part where trump ordered musk is entirely new; and sounds fabricated. The first version of this story sounded like Musk was flexing his muscle and showing his ability to control the house.
And, please, let’s remember that Trump isn’t the president. He’s rattling his sabre now, before even wearing the crown. America is so fucked.
CNN said trump’s team was trying to spin the story this way two days ago. I guess rawstory bought the bullshit.
a “king” and his clown.
I only see 2 clowns.
Does trump smear musks shit on his face?
Cartoon logic tells me he was inspecting the rocket engines when they went off.
By rocket engines you mean musks rear exhaust.
Bonus points if you guess which is which.
It’s Shakespearian. The protagonist now has everything they said they wanted, and will proceed to ruin everything for everyone.
I love seeing musk used as the wedge (and cudgel) that’s breaking apart the Republican Party.
