Trump, the government funding chaos agent, is back

Editor’s note, December 21 10:20 am ET: Shortly after midnight on Saturday, the Senate passed legislation that would fund the government and avert a shutdown. The bill did not include the suspension or elimination of the debt ceiling that Donald Trump had demanded.

This week, we’re getting a potent reminder of what legislating looked like under President Donald Trump — and the turmoil we can soon expect in his new term.

Trump, along with his ally, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, upended a bipartisan spending deal on Wednesday, just days before government funding is set to expire. That agreement would have kept the government open until March 14, bundling $100 billion in disaster aid with $10 billion to assist farmers, and a slew of other measures. Following grumbling from Musk about the size of the legislation, Trump called for Republicans to negotiate a new agreement that both addresses the debt ceiling and strips the deal of so-called “Democrat giveaways.”

House GOP leaders tried to do so, presenting a new bill Thursday. Unsurprisingly, that version of the bill hasn’t been able to garner the votes that it needs to pass — leaving lawmakers once again scrambling with a shutdown deadline looming Friday night.

Trump’s 11th-hour decision to get involved in negotiations, weighing in via social media (and seemingly without coordinating with congressional allies), is reminiscent of his first-term approach to Capitol Hill, when he regularly blew up funding talks and directly caused the longest government shutdown in US history. As such, this week’s chaos is both a callback and preview of the tumult that’s yet to come.

Trump’s history of blowing up deals, briefly explained

During Trump’s first term, he repeatedly called for Republicans to shut the government down in order to put pressure on Democrats to back his priorities, and also proved to be a mercurial negotiator.

In his first year as president, Trump began urging a shutdown as early as August, attacking members of his own party and emphasizing his willingness to endure a stoppage if it meant securing funding for a border wall. He went out of his way, too, to needle Democrats on Twitter ahead of a funding negotiation meeting that November, prompting Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to not attend.

And as a shutdown loomed in January 2018, Trump further helped to scuttle a potential spending deal by throwing in extraneous border security demands. That month, Trump and Schumer famously met for cheeseburgers and appeared to reach an agreement, according to the Democratic lawmaker.

That agreement would have included Democratic backing for increased military spending and potential funding for a wall, in exchange for legislation that created a path to legal status for DACA recipients (a category of undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children). After the meeting, however, Trump reportedly pushed for more hardline immigration measures — including policies to enforce illegal immigration across the country — ultimately killing the deal.

In the week that followed, Democrats withheld their votes on a funding bill in an attempt to force the inclusion of DACA protections, leading to a brief shutdown. That didn’t wind up working, however. The shutdown ended when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell promised Democrats a vote on an immigration bill, which later failed to pass.

Perhaps most notably, Trump went on to cause a 35-day government shutdown from December 2018 to January 2019, after he panned a bipartisan funding deal that lawmakers had already agreed to. His statements prompted House Republicans to pass a different version of the spending bill that included more than $5 billion in funding for construction of a border wall, which Democrats balked at supporting. Because the House and Senate couldn’t find a version of the bill they could both pass, the funding deadline came and went, and the government entered a shutdown.

After more than a month, Trump caved on his demands when it was apparent that he and his Republicans allies didn’t have the votes for the border wall funding and the effects of the shutdown on government services were becoming untenable (his approval rating also suffered noticeably as the shutdown wore on). He ended up signing a short-term funding bill that reopened the government but did not include his requested border wall funds, though he later declared a national emergency in a second, more successful, attempt to secure wall funding.

Even after leaving the White House in January 2021, Trump has continued to meddle with funding bills. Just this past fall, he again called for Republicans to reject funding legislation and shut down the government if Congress didn’t pass a bill to curb noncitizen voting, which is already illegal.

A return to the chaos of Trump’s first term

This week’s developments are yet another indication that Trump’s disruptive style hasn’t changed — particularly with the vocal backing of new allies like Musk.

Trump and Musk’s shared approach to governance by tweet (or Truth Social post) could well amp up the chaos and pressure that Republicans lawmakers will face in the president-elect’s second term.

Neither has been shy about making threats in order to bully people into acquiescing. Musk, for example, has said he’ll financially back primary challengers against senators who don’t support Trump’s Cabinet picks. And Trump has his own history of pushing for primaries against lawmakers who don’t do his bidding, a tactic he reprised this week.

While Republicans will again control both chambers of Congress next year, as they did during the first two years of Trump’s first term, they will hold narrow majorities that pose their own challenges. House Speaker Mike Johnson will need to keep a fractious coalition fully unified — or rely on Democrats — to get anything done. Already this year, Johnson has had to rely on Democrats to help pass multiple funding bills, a dynamic that’s garnered ire from his right flank and could fuel challenges of his leadership in the new term.

Even after lawmakers resolve this funding fight, Johnson won’t have long to rest; the likely next deadline, in mid-March, will be an early test for the return of unified Republican governance. If this week is any measure, GOP leaders will have their work cut out for them — and it’s likely Trump and Musk will throw a few more grenades into the process along the way.