U.S. presidents have often had informal advisers who were separate from those on the White House payroll.
John F. Kennedy, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and other presidents had “kitchen Cabinets” composed of close unpaid associates and trusted individuals to whom they could turn to hear out ideas or seek unofficial counsel.
And often these advisers-without-portfolio were influential and politically connected people.
But incoming president Donald Trump, with his relationship with billionaire Elon Musk, has taken this concept and perverted it, as the nation saw last week when the two joined forces to kill a bipartisan funding bill designed to prevent a government shutdown.
The move caused chaos on Capitol Hill as Musk threatened to fund the primary opponents of Republicans who went against his and Trump’s wishes.
Fortunately, a new spending bill was passed and signed into law Saturday by President Joe Biden, and the
kakistocratic duo came up on the losing end.
But the episode shows Trump — who won’t even take office until next month — is already willing to use Musk’s outsized wealth and influence to bully Congress.
As for Musk, controlling the levers of government and the legislative process is one of the benefits he expects to receive after spending $275 million to help get Trump reelected.
A Trump-Musk mess
The South African-born Musk, who is the richest person on earth, worth an estimated $400 billion, has no government experience of any type, yet he’ll be a major player in Trump’s administration.
Along with Vivek Ramaswamy, Musk will lead the Department of Government Efficiency, a nongovernmental task force that Trump plans to create once in office.
Through the department, Musk and Ramaswamy want to recommend $2 trillion in federal spending cuts and the elimination of agencies they don’t like.
That’s power enough, but Musk wants more. So the Tesla CEO stuck his hand in the congressional budget process and used his X social media platform last week to argue — without proof — that the 1,500-page bipartisan spending bill put together by GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson would rip off taxpayers.
“Stop the steal of your tax dollars!” Musk posted on X, while threatening to finance the primary election challengers of any congressman who voted for the deal.
“Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years,” he said.
Shortly after, Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance issued a written statement: “Republicans must GET SMART and TOUGH. If Democrats threaten to shut down the government unless we give them everything they want, then CALL THEIR BLUFF.”
Then Trump called for legislation to increase the federal budget debt ceiling — a provision neither congressional Democrats nor Republicans had previously requested.
All of this was a bridge too far, even for some Republican members of Congress who ended up joining Democrats in approving a stopgap funding bill that wards off a government shutdown and does not raise the debt ceiling.
The new, saner spending legislation was later passed by both houses and signed into law Saturday by Biden.
A shadow president?
It’s hard to walk away from this episode without thinking the U.S. is at risk of having two presidents — one elected and sitting in the Oval Office, and an unelected tech billionaire in the shadows, also calling shots.
Trump himself senses this and tried to address the issue last weekend at a gathering in Phoenix.
But his ham-fisted response was more telling than anything.
“No, he’s not going to be president, that I can tell you,” Trump said of Musk. “And I’m safe. You know why he can’t be? He wasn’t born in this country.”
That’s a pretty weak defense of the presidency. Every U.S. third grader knows Musk can’t be elected president in this country.
But with Trump about to take office, Musk looks to have done something even more frightening: He has likely bought a presidency and has the power to make it do what he wants.
Yet it doesn’t have to be this way. GOP members of Congress who were brave enough to give the Trump-Musk spending plan the bum’s rush must now be willing to stand up against these two over the next four years.
With their colleagues across the aisle, they must make it clear to Trump and Musk that money can buy a lot of things, but a democracy can’t be one of them.
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