And good morning. It is Sunday, December the 22nd. Republican rule is taking shape now in Washington, 29 days before Donald Trump's inauguration and less than two weeks before the new Republican Congress is sworn in.

And the chaos of the past week

has raised some questions about what Republican governance will look like with slim majorities

in both the House and the Senate. Ultimately, Republicans needed Democratic votes, lots of them

to pass the latest continuing resolution in order to avoid another government shutdown,

and they may need the Democrats help to pass bills in the next session of Congress as well.

The near government shutdown is also called into question the future of the Republican Party's

congressional leadership. Even though the House GOP conference nominated Mike Johnson for

Speaker just a month ago, the past week has left him a bit bruised and with an uncertain future.

There's some thought that Speaker Mike Johnson may need some Democratic votes to win re-election as Speaker after the debacle two years ago that saw Kevin McCarthy win after 15 rounds of voting

and subsequently be unseated by a member of his own Republican conference. At least one Republican

Congressman Thomas Massey of Kentucky has said in the past week that he does not intend to vote

for Johnson when the full House holds the speakership election at the

beginning of the new year. Johnson can only afford a few Republican defections if he wants to keep the

gavel. Meanwhile, congressional Republicans will also have to navigate working with President

elect Trump and his allies like Elon Musk, who was a key figure in throwing Capitol Hill into chaos last week.

Plus, the president-elect's last-minute demand for Congress to raise or even eliminate the debt ceiling

revealed that Republicans still have some fundamental disagreements on both policy and procedure.

None of this is easy. The work of keeping the government up and running

takes a lot of cooperation and work, but the dysfunction that was on display last week has some

Republicans, particularly those who wish to get down to the business of governing the country,

worrying about how difficult things could get as they prepare to take over Washington with more spending bills

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