Hello and happy Saturday. Here in the Ohio bureau, we are running up against some tight holiday deadlines and everything is a little chaotic. There are presents to be wrapped, a few halls to be decked, and I have not watched Christmas Vacation nearly enough times.
Among the many, many quotable lines from that classic comes early on, when Ellen Griswold (Beverly D’Angelo) is in the kitchen getting dinner ready. Her house is full of family members invited by her husband, her daughter is complaining about the grandparents, and the in-laws are shouting questions from the other room. She looks at her daughter and says, “I don’t know what to say, except that it’s Christmas and we’re all in misery.” And then she shakily lights a cigarette and takes out her frustrations on a head of lettuce.
I imagine that a similar scene—presumably without the smokes and the lettuce and the big knife—played out in congressional offices over the last week. However eager lawmakers might have been to get home for the holidays, they needed to pass a continuing resolution by Friday night at midnight to avoid a government shutdown. And they did … almost on time. The Senate voted 85-11 at 12:30 this morning to pass a stopgap funding bill, hours after the House had voted 366-34, with all the “no” votes coming from Republicans. Such last-minute votes to avoid a shutdown have become standard operating procedure in recent years, but the journey to the finish line was unusually winding this time around—and it provided some insight into the relationship between President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk, his most visible adviser.
The situation seemed urgent but not dire on Tuesday, when Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled a bill with bipartisan support that would fund the government until March 14, 2025, and included extra money for disaster relief and aid to farmers. But then Musk started tweeting.
As Nick Catoggio wrote in Boiling Frogs on Thursday, the Republicans’ narrow majority has enough fiscal hawks to force Speaker Mike Johnson to work with Democrats to pass any spending bill. But the Democrats, understandably, want something in return for their support. In this case, it was $100 billion in disaster aid and $10 billion in aid for farmers. That was too much for Musk, the co-chair of the proposed Department of Government Efficiency, and owner of X, which he treats as a kind of megaphone. As Nick noted:
The second-most influential figure in the GOP lashed the spending bill in more than 100 posts on his social media platform on Wednesday, calling it “criminal” and declaring that anyone who votes for it deserves to be ousted in the next election. He lied egregiously about it in so doing, as tends to happen when populist demagogues are on the attack.
Trump, whose silence on the matter had largely been interpreted as acquiescence to the bill, weighed in a few hours later. He also came out in opposition—not because of what the package included, but because of what it didn’t: an increase in the debt ceiling.
The debt ceiling is set by Congress and authorizes how much the Treasury can borrow to pay off government debt. It gives Congress a mechanism through which to control federal spending, but it’s also been deployed by members of Congress to hold up legislation and force policy concessions.
Musk and Trump’s intervention, which prompted constituents to barrage lawmakers with complaints, killed the bill Johnson had negotiated. But Nick was most interested in what the events said about the relationship between the president and Musk: “Trump wanted the government up and running, Elon didn’t care. Trump was fine with the deal Johnson made with Democrats, Elon wasn’t. The two Jokers’ interests conflicted. Elon won. Interesting, as Musk might say.”
Jonah Goldberg also dove into the debt-ceiling debate in the Friday G-File. He is sympathetic to Trump’s desire to raise the debt ceiling, because “threatening constant debt crises to force Congress to curb spending is a really stupid way to guard the fiscal health of the country.” And he also understands Musk wanting to cut spending, but doesn’t like his methods: “My problem with his antics is that he thinks the skills of being a Silicon Valley disruptor are transferable not just to politics (a defensible belief) but to government.”
Charles Hilu reported on what all of this might mean for Mike Johnson’s speakership. Trump had endorsed the Louisiana Republican after winning re-election last month, boosting Johnson’s chances of keeping the gavel in January. But the spending fight took a toll. After the initial bill died, Johnson put forth a slimmed-down continuing resolution on Thursday that contained a debt-ceiling increase. That bill failed, 174-235, with 38 Republicans voting against it. Johnson is stuck with a Republican conference that is often at odds with itself, a mercurial president-elect, and—as Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told Charles—no chance of being supported by Democrats.
In the end, the bill passed and we can now turn our attention to the holidays. We can switch off the cable news and switch on White Christmas or It’s a Wonderful Life or Christmas Story or Home Alone or Die Hard. (And if you are weird like me and somehow enjoy both Home Alone AND Die Hard, check out Violent Night, though it’s not for the squeamish or the littles.) It might be getting late to do much shopping but … if you need a last minute gift or two, don’t forget that you can send Dispatch memberships to family and friends almost instantly! And if you want to get yourself a little something while you’re treating family members, consider upgrading to Dispatch Premium. You get some cool perks, bonus content—and two free gift memberships to give away.
Every day in The Morning Dispatch, we pose a question to readers in the “Let Us Know” section. I’m going to borrow that concept today: What are your favorite holiday traditions, and are you doing anything new or exciting this year? Happy holidays, and thank you for reading.
That the GOP is now Donald Trump’s party is indisputable. Republican voters have nominated him for president three times, most recently after his second impeachment and while he faced four different criminal proceedings. When Trump won in 2016, many of his Cabinet members and other advisers were more traditional Republicans. But this time around promises to be different. Not only will he be surrounded by loyalists inside the White House, as David Drucker reports, Trump will also be “flanked by an army of outside enforcers prepared to squeeze any Republican who resists his agenda.” Just who are we talking about? People like Steve Bannon, Donald Trump Jr., and Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk—and those who listen to their podcasts and follow their social media posts. “A key feature of the activism on Trump’s behalf, say Republican operatives inside and outside the new establishment, is that it will operate bottom-up too,” David writes.
Which member of Donald Trump’s circle was most instrumental to his election victory? His campaign managers, Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles? Elon Musk, with his millions in donations and campaign appearances and social media cheerleading? What about his 18-year-old son, Barron, who reportedly encouraged him to reach out to podcasts and other media influencers. In The Monday Essay, James Bloodworth looks at how and why figures such as Logan Paul, Joe Rogan, and comedian Theo Von are such big stars in the manosphere—“a loosely affiliated network of masculinist websites, blogs, and online forums.” And then he goes deeper and discusses the social and economic trends that have left so many men susceptible to the influences of “masculinist” media and personalities, from deindustrialization and globalization to the growing educational divide between men and women. And he notes that Trump and the manosphere complement each other well. “The manosphere begins with the feminist movement as the point at which things started to go downhill for men,” he writes. “From there it tells men that in order to feel powerful again they should seek to dominate in their relationships. … For some in the manosphere, it is Donald Trump who embodies the idea that men should always be dominating those around them. Through their eyes, a Trump presidency will function as a vehicle for a re-assertion of power over women.”
And here’s the best of the rest.
- The fall of the Assad regime was a relief to many, but the successful revolt by Turkish-backed militants portends uncertainty for the Kurds who live in Syria. Charlotte Lawson reports on how the return to the White House by Donald Trump, who in 2019 ordered U.S. troops to withdraw from Syria after a call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, further complicates the picture for the Kurds.
- Robert F. Kennedy Jr., nominated by Trump to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, has plenty of kooky (some would say dangerous) ideas about vaccines and other public health measures. And he’s stepping into an important role at a moment when Americans are increasingly skeptical about public health. Michael Warren reports on what all that might mean.
- Kevin Williamson takes a look at the recent events that have left Bashar al-Assad in exile and Russia and Iran in dire straits, and he wonders if Xi Jinping is getting a little nervous in China as reports of unrest there become public. “Beijing may have 2 million active-duty troops at its disposal, but they are not nearly numerous enough—or good enough—to keep down 1.4 billion Chinese people if those Chinese people decide that, like the Syrian people, they have had their fill,” he writes.
- John Gustavsson remembers Europe’s 2015 immigration crisis, which was prompted by Syrians fleeing civil war in their country. He has some advice for how a repeat can be avoided, and explains why it’s best for everyone—Syria especially—if Syrians return home to rebuild their nation.
- On the pods: Jamie Weinstein welcomes Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin, who has reported on Syria for years, to The Dispatch Podcast to discuss what comes next for the divided and war-torn nation. The Supreme Court fast-tracked a hearing for TikTok, which could be banned in the U.S. in January if Chinese-owned ByteDance does not sell it. David French and Sarah Isgur discuss the case with David Lat on Advisory Opinions. And on The Remnant, Jonah Goldberg has a fascinating conversation with Greg Lukianoff of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression on the state of free speech, and the tension between defamation and free expression in the context of artificial intelligence and deepfakes.
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