House Republicans have an ‘audience of one’ dilemma with President-elect Trump

The drag-out fight over government spending has highlighted how House Republicans — for all the ideological divisions between their clashing in-house factions — are governed by the underlying effort to appease an audience of one: President-elect Trump.

Trump’s 11th-hour decision to jump into the funding fight — with a big push from billionaire Elon Musk — impelled Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to trash the deal he’d initially cut with Democrats, forced GOP leaders into a crisis-mode scramble for an alternative proposal, and brought the country to the teetering brink of a holiday-season government shutdown.

The exhausting three-day saga has inflamed the subsisting tensions within the restive GOP conference; threatened Johnson’s bid to keep the gavel; and raised new questions about how Trump’s return to the White House next month will affect the Republicans’ stewardship of the House next year, when they will control of the lower chamber with an even thinner cushion than the small majority they have right now.

Some Republicans said Trump’s intervention was inappropriate, particularly his insistence that any spending package be accompanied by a hike in the federal debt ceiling — a toxic idea on the right that infuriated House conservatives and made it only harder for Johnson to usher a bill to the finish line. 

“President Trump has a lot of sway with Republicans, obviously, so the things that he says, I'm sure, have influence on individuals. But the House needs to operate as the House, and members of the House have to vote on what the House does, and the Republicans in the House need to do what is right and best,” said Rep. Bob Good (D-Va.), former head of the far-right House Freedom Caucus. 

“I think trying to raise the debt limit was a mistake."

Democrats were much more biting in their criticisms, saying Johnson, in heeding Trump’s calls to renege on the initial agreement, had caved to a figure who’s not yet the president and undermined the trust between the parties going forward.

“The only currency we have in this body is our word. That's our credibility. That's our bond with each other,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the senior Democrat on the Appropriations Committee and a leading negotiator on the bipartisan deal, said on the House floor after Johnson scrapped the agreement. “And when you break that bond, you break the ability to try to come together and be able to govern on behalf of the people of this country.”

Rep. Richard Neal (Mass.), the senior Democrat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee, echoed that message, accusing GOP leaders of ceding congressional authority to another branch of government in ways that betray the Constitution.

“Members of Congress don’t serve under presidents of the United States. We serve with presidents of the United States,” he said. “This was a substantial, well-thought through agreement, with modest victories for both sides. This isn't revolutionary.”

Looking ahead to next year, Trump’s erratic style and unpredictable demands could hobble the Republicans’ ambitious plans to extend tax cuts, repeal climate initiatives adopted by President Biden and slash federal spending across the board. The extraordinary influence of Musk, who appeared to force Trump’s opposition to the initial spending deal, is likely to complicate things further, some lawmakers warned, whether it be the GOP’s partisan agenda or bipartisan deals on must-pass legislation like funding the government.

“The problem is that they’ve sowed distrust,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.). “Working together means you're talking, you figure out a deal, you strike a deal and then you stick by the deal. And it clearly shows that if Mr. Musk or Mr. Trump decides they want to upend [a deal], it leads to chaos.

“We're supposed to be a separate branch of government.”

Faced with a deadline of midnight on Saturday, Johnson rushed a bill to the floor Friday evening, which passed with overwhelming support, and the Senate followed a few hours later to avert a shutdown. But the anti-climactic conclusion to the funding fight belied the upheaval and bitterness of the previous 72 hours.

Announced Tuesday night, the bipartisan deal had come together after long weeks of tense negotiations between the parties, and leaders on both sides thought they were on a glide path to pass the bill and head into the holidays drama-free. 

But Musk launched a relentless opposition campaign beginning in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and Trump followed later in the day, saying the package gave away too much to Democrats and demanding that a debt-ceiling hike be included. Any Republican who voted for a spending deal without that attachment, he warned, should be primaried.

“If Republicans try to pass a clean Continuing Resolution without all of the Democrat ‘bells and whistles’ that will be so destructive to our Country, all it will do, after January 20th, is bring the mess of the Debt Limit into the Trump Administration, rather than allowing it to take place in the Biden Administration,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.

“Any Republican that would be so stupid as to do this should, and will, be Primaried,” he added. “Everything should be done, and fully negotiated, prior to my taking Office on January 20th, 2025.”

Good, who was defeated this year by a Trump-backed GOP primary challenger, had no reason to fear Trump’s threat to reelection. “That scares me a lot,” he said sarcastically. 

But Trump is far-and-away the most powerful figure in the GOP — one whose endorsements can make or break political careers. Even those Republicans who are wary of his volatile leadership style, penchant for vulgarity and willingness to violate conservative orthodoxies are generally reluctant to air those criticisms publicly.  

And Johnson is walking a particularly delicate line as he seeks to secure support for a return to the Speakership next year in the face of opposition from some conservatives frustrated with his leadership style. On Wednesday, the Speaker wasted little time heeding Trump’s call to abandon the bipartisan agreement, and he blamed Democrats when the package with the debt-ceiling hike failed Thursday evening on the House floor. 

“I want you all to remember, it was just last spring that these same Democrats berated Republicans and said that it was irresponsible to hold the debt-limit, the debt-ceiling, hostage. What changed?” he asked reporters after that vote. 

“It is, I think, really irresponsible for us to risk a shutdown over these issues on things that they have already agreed upon.”

If the debate has highlighted Trump’s grip over Republicans, however, it also revealed the limitations to that influence. 

While Trump’s intervention quashed the initial bipartisan deal that Johnson had blessed, 38 House Republicans voted on Thursday against Trump’s preferred legislative package. And the bill that ultimately passed through the lower chamber and became law excluded the debt-ceiling hike that Trump had demanded. Those dynamics have left some Democrats hopeful that House Republicans will be willing to break from Trump next year, if the moment demands.

“We saw 38 Republicans vote against him,” said Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.). “So I think we are going to see a lot of this back-and-forth kabuki dance that plays out, probably pretty early on. But who knows where it all ends?”

Still, most Democrats were furious with Trump’s intervention, and Johnson’s response to it. They maintain the episode sets a terrible tone for how Congress will function — or not — over at least the next two years. 

“Do you think it's going to get easier next year? As we know, when Trump says jump, Johnson usually responds by saying how high,” said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.).

“The bottom line is: Leadership requires that you have to stand up for what's right and tell people the truth, including Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk,” he continued. “At some point, Johnson has to lead, and he's just proven that he's incapable of doing it.”