Shutdown avoided: Trump's first setback

Donald Trump has not yet officially taken office (his inauguration will take place on January 20, 2025) and he has already suffered the first setback of his second term. Republican elected officials in Congress did not follow the president-elect's instructions which would have led to a lack of funding for so-called non-essential federal services, leading to a “shutdown”. The psychodrama lasted three days and in the end, Donald Trump lost. He and his alter ego, billionaire Elon Musk, wanted, before the end of year holidays, to prove that they were already in charge. Observers did not point out that, unlike in 2016, the nationalist billionaire was ready, the proof being provided by the rapid formation of his administration with burst of appointments.

Menaces d’Elon Musk

The vote by Congress for a regular federal government financing law would allow it to carry out a show of force. Extremely rare on Capitol Hill, the seat of Congress, Democrats and Republicans had agreed on a budget package providing more than 100 billion dollars (nearly 96.5 billion euros) in aid against natural disasters requested by Joe Biden, as well as $10 billion in aid to American farmers, but also an increase in the salaries of elected representatives of Congress. Elon Musk, who increasingly appears as second president, opened hostilities. “Kill the text!” “, he ordered on »
Donald Trump took action, believing that the concessions of the Republicans, who have a very narrow majority in the House of Representatives, amounted to a “betrayal of our country”.

Dropped on debt

Panic among the Republican leaders of Congress who, under the aegis of “speaker” Mike Johnson, abandoned the compromise and submitted a new text to the vote, also including a specific request from Donald Trump: the raising of the debt ceiling, subject which was going to come to the tables of elected officials in March. Donald Trump wanted to avoid resolving this problem once he was seated in the Oval Office. It is this provision which angered, paradoxically, the most right-wing Republicans opposed to any increase in the deficit. Thirty-eight of them failed during a vote on Thursday, December 19, and the project, which was to receive the approval of two-thirds of elected officials, was rejected by 235 deputies against 174. First snub for Donald Trump. The second would come on Friday, December 20 with the vote, by an immense majority of deputies and senators, of a financing law, repeating the terms of the first text hated by the two billionaires (Trump and Musk).
The activity of public services is maintained, civil servants have not been placed on technical unemployment, social assistance is not frozen and Donald Trump has just understood that he does not have full powers in Washington, contrary to what ' he thought.