Trump and Musk Join Forces to Derail Government Spending Bill, Sparking Washington Crisis
President-elect Donald Trump and the Tesla and SpaceX founder, Elon Musk teamed up to scupper a vital federal appropriation measure. The political decision, which stunned Washington elites, aimed at the appropriations measure with about $100 billion in disaster relief and farm support and infrastructure approved by House Speaker Mike Johnson. The intervention has not only endangered the government shutdown but also given a potential scenario of Trump’s second term.
The showdown started when Musk waged a pre-dawn battle against Johnson’s schemes using his X application and slammed the bill for containing excess ‘‘pork’’ through 70-message tweets. The SpaceX founder’s digital broadside quickly circulated MAGA media channels before Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance submitted a statement of the stripped-down spending bill without Democratic priorities. They ensured they caused ripples that in a snap, had lawmakers on Capitol Hill searching for answers.
This is because Trump and Musk are not known to be affiliated with the same political camp; their coming together has caused a lot of political distress to Speaker Johnson whose position is on the brink of being dismissed. Several House Republicans have already declared that they will not vote for his re-election and Democrats, led by Hakeem Jeffries, Minority Leader, have not wasted any time to point to ordinary Americans who depend on government services.
This political crisis has occurred at the time when new economic problems are appearing and the Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen for ten days in succession. This market drop to the lowest ever, or the same as the previous best during Ford’s presidency, shows that the national situation that Trump may well triumph in is volatile. Another issue that the incoming administration will have to grapple with is the recent signal of the Federal Reserve about the prospects of having to adjust its monetary policy in the next year owing to increasing inflation rate.
