The Republican Mike Johnson and his party colleagues have been working around the clock lately. On Wednesday, it seemed like everything was clear for the approval of a budget bill of over 1,600 pages, a carefully balanced agreement with the opposing party, the Democrats.
But then the super entrepreneur and advisor Elon Musk and the future president Donald Trump came with objections and criticism.
"Kill the deal!", Musk wrote on X.
Donald Trump, who will take office as the US president in a month, among other things, demanded that the agreement be combined with an increase in the US debt ceiling – something the Republicans had previously opposed.
The ground is shaking
A new proposal was presented, which included such an increase, but during the night to Friday Swedish time, it was also voted down. Two-thirds of the members of the House of Representatives would have needed to say yes, instead the no-side won with 235 votes against 174.
The deadline for reaching an agreement is midnight between Friday and Saturday local time.
We will regroup and find another solution, said Johnson, when the result was a fact.
But according to American media, the ground is shaking under the speaker after the budget fiasco.
If someone challenges Johnson, he will not be held back. It means that he (Donald Trump) will not save him (Mike Johnson) if he is in trouble, says a Trump advisor who wants to remain anonymous to the newspaper Politico.
The ongoing US congressional session is entering its final stage. The next two-year session opens on January 3, and the same day, the speaker election will be held, a position that until now has been considered secure for Johnson.
Towards a one-man rule?
Hours before the last vote, Trump described the renegotiation as a success on his platform Truth Social and claimed that the US should abolish the debt ceiling for two years.
The Democrats had already rejected the new proposal as unserious, according to news agencies.
The proposal is not seriously meant, it's laughable, said the minority leader in Congress, Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, just before the vote.
The recent days' budget debacle has led political analysts to question who really has the most to say – Donald Trump or Tesla and Space X founder Elon Musk? The Washington Post writes that the outsider and "co-president" Musk's influence on the federal government raises concerns that the US is heading towards an oligarchy.
