Trump, DOGE & The Gambler Gambit

Fox’s David Marcus argues “De facto President Trump’s handling of shutdown threat was a masterclass.” WSJ’s editorial board differs saying “Trump ... on advice of Musk blew up” CR without a plan for Plan B or C. Is The Gambler in the House?

It's clear, even to the WSJ’s naysayers, that calling the Democrats’ bluff & finally forcing the passage of a drastically reduced “clean” budget bill somehow worked in the end. If nothing else, it kept the government funded til March while showing how sticking it in the opponents’ ear can work. Yet, as the famed country singer Kenny Rogers once suggested in song, this chaos, if not bullying management style in politics as well as in poker, has its limits and “you’ve got to know when to” go all in, when to hold ‘em, when to fold ‘em,” or when to cash out. This, the editors remind in praising Speaker Johnson’s patience & on-the-fly logical gymnastics, “has been a fiasco by any measure” if what transpired is really a “bad omen for 2025 & the ability of Republicans to govern” in a hopelessly divided party as well as legislature.

As the editors reminded: “It was Mr. Johnson [who] had put together a Plan C – or was it Plan D – that passed the House and headed to the Senate … the negotiating details are too abstruse to follow … The political damage won’t be great [since] most Americans are too busy to be paying attention” if a shutdown's avoided in the end. On the other hand, they add, “it’s worth noting that Mr. Musk” was again subsequently tweeting his opinion, with or without Trump’s direction, that “no bills should be passed [by] Congress until Jan. 20, when Trump takes office.” The reality? While it was shown how the Trump/DOGE power/chaos/bullying negotiating tactic can work at times & in certain circumstances, the final bill passed by Congress ignored Trump’s “absolute” demand for an end to the ceiling cap. In short, Trump’s “masterclass” may have stuck it in “their” ear, but “they” also stuck it in “his”. By June, then, unless somebody learns something, everyone stands to have cauliflower ears.

Davd Soul