Former Democratic lawmaker Bakari Sellers warned that Republicans would "overplay their hand" if they governed by the whims of Elon Musk.
The tech billionaire helped kill a government spending bill negotiated by House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), which could result in a government shutdown, and Sellers blasted the GOP majority for caving to Donald Trump and his outside allies
"No, they can't lead, and the fact is they're being governed by tweet right now," Sellers said, "and I love how my Republican colleagues, including the president of the United States, the future president of the United States, say they won in a landslide. Well, in all actuality, they have the narrowest House majority in the history of the United States Congress. They have the second largest, second smallest, excuse me, presidential popular vote margin. The only one that was closer was Bush v. Gore. I mean, in the swing states, you had individuals that were down-ballot who actually carried the Senate, save for Pennsylvania, and so I love how they believe this."
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"They're going to overplay their hand," Sellers added. "But at the end of the day, what people don't realize is that while these billionaires, Elon Musk and others who were who are unelected, who really have no statutory authority, who do nothing but tweet and make themselves, enrich themselves day by day, it's the troops, it's the TSA workers – it's those individuals who have real lives who are trying to put Christmas gifts under the tree, who are affected by their malfeasance."
Republican operative Brad Todd, however, argued that president Joe Biden should shoulder the blame for a potential government shutdown.
"I think you're letting somebody off the hook here," Todd said. "You know, we have a president. His name is Joe Biden, and it's his debt ceiling that's about to expire. It's his debt that got us up against it, and Joe Biden is going to shut the government down. If he needs to call Chuck Schumer and call Hakeem Jeffries and tell them they drove too hard a bargain, and they've got to walk back in Mike Johnson's office and help him figure this out. This is a partisan failure on the part of Democrats who are still in charge of the White House last anybody checked."
CNN's John Berman pushed back, pointing out that the debt ceiling likely would not be reached until the summer, and he put the onus on Johnson for failing to hold his coalition together after reaching a bipartisan agreement on the funding measure.
"They won't run up against the limit until June, but and I understand what you're saying here," Berman said. "Mike Johnson had a deal, he had a deal – his deal, the speaker's deal. You're trying to put this in Joe Biden's court, but this is the speaker of the House. He's the guy driving this car, he made that deal."
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