Plan E: Elon Musk Fuels GOP Chaos as Congress Barely Averts Shutdown

The Briefing with Jen Psaki

NBC News

News, Politics

4.5 • 664 Ratings

🗓️ 22 December 2024

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jen Psaki recaps the utter chaos that unfolded on Capitol Hill this past week as Elon Musk's influence over Donald Trump and the House Republican caucus was on full display. Democratic Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries joins Jen to discuss the last-minute scramble in Congress to avert a government shutdown and the challenges of governing in the age of Trump. Next, Jen is joined by Punchbowl Congressional Reporter Melanie Zanona and Republican strategist Doug Heye to discuss Mike Johnson's future as speaker of the house as Trump and some of his allies express doubts about him. Then, Jen breaks down the Musk of it all, as he spreads dangerous misinformation on X and flaunts his massive influence in his bid to bully elected officials. Later, Jen is joined by former U.S. Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal to react to the House GOP's baseless targeting of Former Rep. Liz Cheney as they kick off Trump's fight for retribution against his political enemies. Finally, March for Our Lives Co-Founder David Hogg joins the show to discuss his candidacy for DNC vice chair and to offer his reaction to the Democratic party passing over Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for the top spot on the Oversight Committee.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Well, Donald Trump isn't even president yet, but the chaos has already begun.
0:05.0	Trump and his co-president Elon Musk threw a spending fight into a tailspin and nearly sent the government into a holiday shutdown.
0:12.0	In the end, Democrats kind of saved the day.
0:15.0	So who better to talk to today than the Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries?
0:19.0	Leader Jeffries is standing by for an exclusive interview.
0:22.2	He's coming up first, and I have so many questions.
0:34.5	Well, everyone, I think it's pretty safe to say it was quite a chaotic week here in Washington.
0:39.9	It was also a very educational week, you could say, because we learned a whole lot about what's coming and how the Republican Party plans to govern.
0:48.5	For starters, we learned that Elon Musk is pretty powerful.
0:51.8	I mean, he was really the spark that lit the whole dumpster
0:55.1	fire of this week. On Wednesday, after House Speaker Mike Johnson did a little dealmaking with Democrats
1:00.7	and came forward with a bipartisan spending bill that would keep the government open, a good thing.
1:06.3	The richest man in the world took to the social media platform he owns and fired off over 150 posts
1:13.0	about the bell. Many of them completely falls. I will talk about that later in the show,
1:17.9	demanding that Republicans abandon the deal. And guess what? Many of them did. Those tweets from
1:24.9	Musk effectively torpedoed the original bipartisan agreement and set off
1:30.1	a mad scramble in the House to come up with a new one. In the meantime, Democrats started highlighting
1:35.9	what had become obvious to basically everyone watching. Welcome to the Elon Musk presidency.
1:43.1	Donald Trump and President Musk blew up what was a bipartisan agreement.
1:49.4	President Elon Musk.
1:50.8	President Musk.
1:52.3	President Musk.
	...

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