Republicans cannot decide who to blame for the government shutdown they may soon cause.
The Democratic-controlled Senate and the GOP-run House had a deal to fund the government for the next three months. The spending bill included disaster relief and farm assistance, and allocated funding to things like childhood cancer research, 9/11 first responders, and money for early detection for cervical and breast cancer, among other things.
But just as the bill was set to come up for a vote in the House, Co-President-elect Elon Musk jettisoned the legislation with lies about what the bill does and threats to spend money in primaries against Republicans who voted for it.
Trump, seeing that Musk is now in control of the Republican Party, got mad and took credit for blowing up the deal himself, claiming he gave Musk permission to trash the funding agreement on X, which led to its demise.
But when it became clear that the media and anyone with eyeballs and a brain know that it will be Republicans' fault if the government shuts down—thereby likely forcing military members and other essential personnel to go unpaid over Christmas—Republicans are now pointing fingers in all directions and trying to shirk responsibility for the colossal mess they could soon create.
On Friday morning, hours before the possible shutdown, Trump said it would be President Joe Biden's fault—even though it is Trump who helped blow up the deal.
“If there is going to be a shutdown of government, let it begin now, under the Biden Administration, not after January 20th, under ‘TRUMP,’ Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform. “This is a Biden problem to solve, but if Republicans can help solve it, they will!”
His comment is akin to an arsonist standing in front of a burning building with a box of matches in hand while pointing at a bystander and blaming them for the blaze.
Similarly, Musk, who started this whole idiotic brouhaha, is blaming Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries, even though Jeffries had made a deal and it was Republicans who reneged at the 11th hour.
“Objectively, the vast majority of Republican House members voted for the spending bill, but only 2 Democrats did,” Musk wrote on X, referring to the plan-B bill that House Speaker Mike Johnson put up for a vote but that failed because 38 Republicans voted against it. “Therefore, if the government shuts down, it is obviously the fault of [Jeffries] and the Democratic Party. Plain & simple.”
Vice President-elect JD Vance also made a ridiculous comment on Thursday, telling reporters on Capitol Hill that Democrats “asked for a shutdown and I think that’s exactly what they’re going to get”—even though, again, Democrats had a deal to fund the government and Republicans blew it up.
Meanwhile, “Fox & Friends” host Lawrence B. Jones claimed Friday that it’s Democrats who need to “pick a talking point.”
More absurd is that Senate Republicans are now blaming their counterparts in the House who are vowing to write a funding bill without negotiating with Democrats—whom they need for the bill to pass.
“When it gets [to the Senate], you need 60 of us,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said, referring to the fact that Senate legislation needs 60 votes to avoid a filibuster. “So the idea that you can write a bill that doesn't have to get some bipartisan support ignores the situation on the ground. We have to have Democrats and Republicans at the 60 level to get anything through the Senate.”
Thankfully, the media doesn’t appear to be falling for the Trump-Musk spin.
“The world's richest man [is] right now holding the country hostage,” CNN’s Erin Burnett said Thursday night on her show. “It’s all him calling the shots, it seems.”
Basically, the Republican Party is currently the living embodiment of the Spider-Man meme.
If the shutdown indeed happens, it won’t be the first time Trump has started one. The government shut down twice during his first term in office, including for 35 days—the longest shutdown on record—in December 2018.
Whether or not the government shuts down this time, it’s not a promising sign of things to come when Republicans take full control of Washington on Jan. 20.
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