Hello, it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️
It’s five days before Christmas, and Elon Musk — the unelected billionaire who seems to lack even a Schoolhouse Rock! level of civics attainment — is trying to tank another government spending bill.
“So is this a Republican bill or a Democrat bill?” the brilliant legislative mind mused on Twitter.
Though the newest iteration of the spending bill passed hours before the shutdown deadline — Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) had already trashed the bipartisan version, at Musk’s behest — the cracks in Donald Trump’s upcoming trifecta are showing.
Musk, who has appointed himself co-president, is happy to throw grenades into legislative processes he doesn’t understand. Trump can’t let himself be out-MAGAd by the $250 million albatross around his neck. Johnson has to cater to these right-wing rabble rousers, while figuring out a way to push through must-pass legislation that requires Democratic cooperation, given his slim margins and the obstinacy of Republican fiscal hawks.
Much of this internal pressure is being vented on Johnson, as members openly muse about voting him out the first week of January. They have short memories: a succession of Republican speakers has fallen to these recurring dynamics, in their earlier forms. And the conference has only become less well-versed in governing, more incentivized to grab attention.
A governing trifecta can be a powerful thing. Under Joe Biden’s first two years, the Democratic one was incredibly successful, notwithstanding its two gadflies.
If this is a preview of what’s to come with Trump’s, our expectations should be much lower.
— Kate Riga
Here’s what else TPM has on tap this weekend:
- Josh Kovensky gives an update on Donald Trump’s supposed plan to pardon all of the Jan. 6 defendants. Now that he’s actually in office, the devil is in the details, and attorneys for the Jan. 6 defendants are finding those details confusing.
- Khaya Himmelman checks in on the North Carolina Supreme Court race, where the Republican candidate is handling his loss — by 700-plus votes — by challenging the 60,000 votes before the state Board of Elections.
- I do a wellness check on Donald “EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE MY FRIEND!!!” Trump.
— Nicole Lafond
Pardon The Interruption
For January 6 defendants, the euphoria that followed Trump’s election win has been short-lived. If anything, it seems to have been replaced by confusion.
Trump promised during the campaign to issue sweeping pardons to those convicted of crimes on January 6. But now, as they try to figure out how to collect on that promise, they’re mostly bewildered.
To most of us who have watched the GOP for the past several years, the result has been extremely familiar: Trump made a big promise, and now doesn’t seem particularly interested in hammering out the details. He’s made a few noncommittal statements in recent weeks suggesting that those convicted of nonviolent crimes will receive pardons; violent offenders might be subject to a different process. It’s unclear to defense attorneys whether there’s any process for handling this, or where the new administration will ultimately land.
The surreal humor here lies in how predictable it all is. After all, aren’t these the people supposedly most willing to literally go to war for Trump? Shouldn’t they be acutely aware of the man’s penchant for big promises? I can say, from speaking with attorneys for the January 6ers, the lawyers are very aware of who they’re dealing with, and express more than a low note of frustration (or at least anxiety) in surveying how the pardons may work out. Trump could, of course, just pardon everyone come January 20 — that may still be the most likely possibility. But until then, the January 6 crowd is waiting. As Stewart Rhodes attorney Lee Bright expressed to me on Thursday, “I would give my left fucking nut” to speak with Trump about the pardons.
— Josh Kovensky
GOP Effort To Toss 60K Votes In North Carolina Supreme Court Race Lands In Federal Court
After a week of legal maneuvering, here’s where things stand in the still-unresolved North Carolina Supreme Court race, where incumbent Democrat Allison Riggs leads Republican Jefferson Griffin by only 734 votes.
Having failed to get the state Board of Election to toss out a whopping 60,000 votes in hopes of taking the lead, Griffin took the board to court. Instead of suing the board in district court, Griffin took the matter straight to the state Supreme Court, on which Riggs sits and which currently holds a 5-2 Republican majority.
The Board of Elections parried by removing the case to federal court Thursday, citing the federal rather than state laws at issue. Riggs quickly intervened in the federal case. On Friday, Griffin asked the federal court for a temporary restraining order to prohibit the board from certifying the November election results.
The majority of the 60,000 votes are being challenged because they, according to Griffin, contain incomplete voter registration on their voter files. But, as TPM previously reported, if there truly was an issue with these voters, these issues would have been identified in the last couple of years, instead of after the election, especially because North Carolina voter lists are public.
— Khaya Himmelman
Words Of Wisdom
“EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE MY FRIEND!!!”
That’s Donald Trump posting through it on Thursday as the bill that was meant to stave off a government shutdown was imploding at the hands of Elon Musk. Unclear who or what he is referring to but there were about 40 Republicans who, at the time this was posted, were on the cusp of doing the opposite (that is, they were about to tank Mike Johnson’s and Trump’s theoretically Republican-friendly, replacement shutdown-averting bill).
Happy Holidays.
—Nicole Lafond
