According to a deep dive into how House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) managed to get most of his caucus and Donald Trump to agree on a budget package that kept the government working until March, the Washington Post is reporting that Johnson "blindsided" the president-elect by also negotiating with Democrats.
That, in turn, led Trump to prompt billionaire adviser Elon Musk to launch a war on the House leadership in a flurry of attacks on X that derailed the proposed deal at the time.
According to the report, while attending the Army-Navy game the previous weekend, an insider claims Trump believed he made it clear what his expectations were, which forced Johnson to make concessions to Democrats — which in turn angered his caucus.
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According to the Post, "Lawmakers were irate when Johnson laid out details about his bicameral and bipartisan proposal in a Tuesday morning meeting. When Johnson described it as a collaborative process, Ways and Means Chairman Jason T. Smith (R-Missouri) exclaimed 'not true,' according to people in the room," adding that the House Speaker also ended up getting grief from Trump.
"Several people close to Johnson say the speaker talked frequently with the president-elect and kept him abreast of ongoing negotiations," the Post is reporting. "But another Trump adviser described him as blindsided by the bill’s contents and furious. The first adviser said the president-elect was with Musk at the time, and Trump told NBC he encouraged Musk to post messages condemning the bill."
“I told him that if he agrees with me, that he could put out a statement,” reportedly Trump said.
The report notes that is when Musk flooded his X account with over a hundred posts that had Republicans scrambling to put together the final budget that only passed with the help of Democrats, but still left far-right members of his caucus fuming and refusing to support it.
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