GOP's High Hopes Collide With Reality

Musk's influence and Trump's impulsive style throw party into familiar form of chaos

- MOLLY BALL

Until their best-laid plans melted down on Capitol Hill this past week, Republicans had been riding high.

A decisive victory in last month's election had delivered them the presidency, House and Senate. President-elect Donald Trump was holed up at Mar-a-Lago receiving dignitaries and issuing proclamations, occasionally emerging for ceremonial occasions. More often than not, Republicans in Congress swallowed their qualms to hail his unconventional slate of cabinet nominees. Polls showed the public feeling positively about the incoming administration.

All Congress had to do was pass one last governmentfunding bill to keep the lights on and go home for Christmas. House Speaker Mike Johnson had spent weeks negotiating with Democrats, carefully cobbling together the compromises it would take to secure a majority vote in the narrowly divided chamber. It was a delicate construction, a house of cards, that had already begun to teeter when Elon Musk emerged on Wednesday to stomp all over it. By Friday, the government was spiraling toward a shutdown after a series of failed and aborted votes as Republican members bickered and excoriated each other on social media, on the House floor and in acrimonious closed-door meetings.

Democrats, for their part, watched from the sidelines, alternately rolling their eyes and licking their chops at the spectacle of Musk, the world's richest man, triggering a shutdown with dire consequences for the very working classes that Republicans boasted had delivered their electoral victory. As Trump belatedly chimed in to assert that it was all his idea, Democrats pointed out that Musk's demands could have led to the elimination of funding for programs such as pediatric-cancer research, and that a shutdown would lead to government workers' paychecks being suspended.