Not Gonna Happen
Trump has a tremendous amount of power as the executive (some of it still subject to judicial interpretation.) But anything he wants to do that requires Congress is going to be an extremely heavy lift. Notus reports:
But as Republicans try to shake off a close call with a government shutdown and prepare for Donald Trump’s first 100 days, lawmakers are starting to grapple with a simple reality: They may not be able to do much of anything.
“They can’t even extend government funding,” a frustrated Sen. Josh Hawley told NOTUS in December, as the House GOP nearly imploded over a stopgap spending bill. “They’re going to do this all over again in March. There’s a debt ceiling fight coming up,” he said. “Good luck.”
Before Trump even takes office on Jan. 20, House Republicans must elect a speaker — a delicate, historically difficult task given the mutiny currently on Mike Johnson’s hands. Republicans then had to agree to a rules package, which was released on Wednesday. Those rules are rife with potential trip wires, like the nine members required to hold a vote to oust a speaker, and are already under negotiation as Johnson tries to secure the votes he needs for the speakership.
That’s just the beginning. In the first hundred days, Trump wants to confirm his rogues gallery of unqualified, dangerous miscreants to the cabinet, they want an expensive, draconian immigration package to fund mass deportation, drill baby drill and a huge increase in defense spending all done through reconciliation.
Or maybe Republicans plan to first do a tax bill through reconciliation. Or maybe they plan to do just one reconciliation bill for the whole lot. There hasn’t been clarity on the plan, but there’s already a lot of debate.
The continuing resolution expires on March 15th and they will have to negotiate some kind of budget to fund the government for the rest of the year. Maybe.
Throughout those early days, Republicans and Democrats will also be negotiating a larger spending package to carry the government through the rest of the fiscal year, until October. They will likely need Democratic votes for that but it doesn’t look good, especially if Trump lets ELON and Vivek play with their toys. There could easily be a government shutdown in the first 100 days.
They wanted destruction and they may get it. I hope the elected Republicans understand that they’ve entered into a career suicide pact.