Warning signs for Trump as Republican rebels defiant

The government shutdown showdown of December 2024 is becoming the first big test of president-elect Donald Trump’s influence over congressional Republicans.

At least so far, he is struggling.

One day after Trump derailed a bipartisan government funding bill – with a big assist from tech multibillionaire Elon Musk – he issued a new demand, for a stripped-down government funding bill that would also raise the limit on how much new debt the federal government can issue to fund its deficit spending.

It was a big ask for many congressional conservatives who have long demanded that any debt increase at least be accompanied by cuts to what they view as out-of-control government spending. Trump’s demand was also a tacit admission that his legislative agenda, heavy on tax cuts and new military spending, was unlikely to deliver the kind of deficit reduction that many on the right have been hoping for.

On Thursday night, this slimmed-down bill, along with a two-year suspension of the debt limit, came up for a vote in the House. Thirty-eight Republicans joined nearly every Democrat in rejecting it. This amounted to a stunning rebuke of the president-elect, who had enthusiastically endorsed the legislation and threatened to unseat any Republicans who opposed it.

Since that defeat, Republican leaders have been huddling behind closed doors in an effort to come up with a new plan.

They could remove the debt-limit increase– winning over some recalcitrant Republicans but angering Trump. They could renegotiate with Democrats, who may be wary of striking any new deal after Trump torpedoed the first one. They could try bringing each component of the legislative package – government funding, disaster relief, health-care fixes and a debt-limit increase – to separate votes.

Or they could throw up their hands and let the government shut down less than a week before Christmas. That would mean federal workers, including members of the US military, would could miss paycheques just as holiday bills come due – a politically fraught option.

Even the best-case scenario for Republicans at this point only pushes the next shutdown fight a few months down the road, when the party will have to juggle funding the federal government while also trying to enact Trump’s legislative agenda on immigration, taxes and trade, all with an even narrower House majority.

A worst-case scenario has all this, coming after an extended government shutdown, followed by a debt-limit battle in the summer, when deficit-minded conservatives may be even less willing to fall in line behind the president.

However this ends, this latest drama underscores just how tenuous the Republican majority in the House is – and the limits to Donald Trump’s power.

Republicans abhor compromise with the Democrats, but they will be hard-pressed to muster a majority without them.

Trump and Elon Musk can kill legislation, but they can’t necessarily rally the support to get their proposals over the finish line.