Trump Was Gliding Into His Inauguration. Now He’s Facing A Big Mess.

Everything was going relatively smoothly for Donald Trump.

Coming off a decisive electoral victory last month, he had appeared to corral his party behind even his most controversial Cabinet picks and was enjoying decent public approval. He promised to create a strong economy. Tech titans and foreign leaders are clamoring to meet with him or fund his inauguration.

Then Wednesday happened.

Two shocks to the system this week have cast Washington into chaos as Republicans scramble to avoid a self-created looming government shutdown and weather a market slide at the peak of the holiday season.

As American consumers capped off their highest-spending season of the year, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates — and markets slid.

At the same time, Trump’s mega-ally Elon Musk attacked a spending bill backed by Speaker Mike Johnson, sinking it with a barrage of X posts threatening that any GOP lawmaker who supports it should be ousted. Trump hopped on too, demanding that Congress raise the debt ceiling, and now Johnson has fewer than 40 hours to avoid a holiday government shutdown.

It all feels very 2017, when congressional Republicans pushed through a last-minute continuing resolution just five days before Christmas after a bitter fight with Democrats over the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, DACA, and disaster relief.

But this time around, some Republican power brokers — including Musk himself — are saying a shutdown wouldn’t be that bad.

“No bills should be passed [by] Congress until Jan 20, when [Trump] takes office,” Musk said Wednesday on his social platform, X. “None. Zero.”

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) said Thursday on X: “Shut it down.” And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene(R-Ga.)said she’s also “all in” for a shutdown “all the way until Jan 20th as far as I’m concerned.”

Still, government shutdowns are historically unpopular among voters — and mass furloughs wouldn’t exactly be a bright start for Washington’s GOP trifecta just a month out from Trump’s inauguration. And in a personally worrying move for the speaker, some Republicans started floating Musk as a potential House leader.

Johnson and Trump’s team on Thursday morning were in closed-door talks for a stopgap plan including disaster aid, a delayed debt limit fight and a farm bill extension, POLITICO reported. They have until midnight Friday to pull it together.

Democrats, meanwhile, are watching their colleagues squirm. In a statement Wednesday evening, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre slammed GOP lawmakers for “playing politics” and said a shutdown would “hurt hard-working Americans and create instability across the country.”

“House Republicans have unilaterally decided to break an agreement that would provide support for every day Americans, keep the government open and avoid a government shutdown,” Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters Thursday morning. “If you break an agreement, you own the consequences visited upon the Americans.”

A spokesperson for Trump’s transition did not immediately respond to a request for comment.