disintegrated that body of law not just since october 7 but especially the u.s. in the wake of the 9/11 attacks but i think even more so in the wake of october 7. second of all we can grant israel has accomplished some very impressive tactical feats especially against the militants in crippling iran's axis of resistance but the bottom line is the political drivers of these conflicts still exist. they continue to exist. as we have seen in the u.s. and our own experience in the region you can defeat this group or that group, you can kill a lot of people, you can create a enormous amount of suffering but until you actually address the political sources of the conflicts you will come back to this again and again. >> thank you very much matt.

that is all in on this thursday night, alex tonight starts now. good evening. good evening. of 35 to be elected president of the united states. you have to be a member of the united states senate to be elected senate majority leader, but you d do not have to be a member of the house of representatives or even a natural-born u.s. citizen to be speaker of the house. members of the house can vote for whomever they want, inside or outside of the government, to be their speaker, and republicans are now toying with the idea of using that strange little quirk in the u.s. constitution to hand control of the tilower chamber of the unit states congress to the richest man in the world, elon musk. >> on the wall, unless i'm justi mistaken, it seems to me that itnew leadership in the house i lealmost inevitable. given that they all have expressed such affection for vivek and tifor elon, let them choose one of them, i don't care

which one, to be their speaker.t that would revolutionize everything. >> elon musk is a successful businessman, if he was speaker i think he would do a good job. it's a different world up here and ifi applaud him for spendin his time and effort. he is a brilliant guy and that would make it interesting. ul>> those are republican-elect officials, seriously proposing elon musk as the next speaker of the house. yesterday musk almost single-handedly blew up budget negotiations in the house and has literally brought the country to the brink of a government shutdown. musk tweeted over 100 times railing against the deal, often using false or misleading claims about what was actually in the bill to keep the government open. shortly there afterdonald trump vance released a joint statement that they now also oppose the deal.

today the current speaker of the house, mike johnson, spent the day in damage control mode, trying to cobble together a new budget deal to replace the one that elon musk tokilled. a few hours ago speaker johnson announced a new federal government funding proposal that looked like the old government funding proposal except key provisions had been stripped out, provisions for juvenile cancer research, for combating opioid abuse and lower prescription drug prices, things that tangibly help the american people and that democrats included in this bill as their price for supporting it in the first place. t the new proposal also had a big gift for donald trump, a tr two-year extension of the debt limit that would allow trump to avoid raising the debt limit in his first two years in office which is probably why trump endorsed johnson's latest effort today and called it a very good deal for the american people. elon musk also put his stamp of

approval on the new bill calling it a much better bill, but before ttanyone voted on it democratic leader hakeem jeffries tonight made clear that igwhatever speaker johnson had cobbled together was not party was going to support. >> house republicans have abandoned that bipartisan agreement that we entered into in good faith. a bill that house republicans negotiated. gave up your word that we were going to move forward together on behalf of the american people. it was a republican-drafted bill that was posted by house republicans. and then one or two puppet masters weigh in and the extreme maga republicans decide to do the bidding of the wealthy, the well off, the well connected millionaires and billionaires, ndnot working-class people.

>> democrats were not the only ones lining up against this bill. a here was republican congressman chip roy, again, republican congress, congressman, speaking before the vote. >> what we're doing right now is to continue to double down on the things that are destroying the republic. i am absolutely sickened by a party utthat campaigns on fisca responsibility and has the at that merit to be forward to the mamerican people and say you think this is fiscally k responsible. it is absolutely ridiculous.si this side of the aisle is profoundly unserious about actually reducing deficits. >> in the end the bill failed because 38 republicans broke with their own party, their own speaker of the house, to oppose his bill. republicans so far cannot manage to organize themselves enough to okeep the government open. but to hear republicans tell it, the very republicans who created this mess to begin with, it is

all democrats' fault. >> the democrats just voted to shut down the government, even though we had a clean c.r., because they didn't want to give the president negotiating leverage during his first term -- or during the first year of his new term. and number two, because they would rather shut down the government and fight for global censorship bullshit. they've asked for a shutdown and i think that's what they're going to get. t >> what's the path forward, m vance? >> come on, guys. >> joining me now are congressman lauren underwood a democrat from illinois and congressman eric swalwell, democrat from california. thank you for being here. i'm eager to get your thoughts. first, eric, let me start with you, congressman, is the government going to shut down gotomorrow night? >> eric, please. it better not because the people who i represent, people who rely

on va benefits, social security benefits, small business loans, just fiwant us to work together anand look out for them, and wh they're seeing right now is this brologarchy, this group of donald trump boys that donald ttrump has brought into government are the ones calling the shots. if elon musk and vivek want to make the government more ke efficient, that's great, my constituents want that more, anthere's no one who hates government waste more in my town than me. if this is the way to cut social security and medicare i promise you my colleagues and i will walk through hot coals and fire to stop t what we're sending tonight is a message and you heard it brilliantly from leader jeffries is that republicans are fighting for the rich, we're for the rest. e >> congresswoman underwood, i

thought it was fairly audacious for the vice president-elect to say that this is a democratic shutdown, given the fact that 38 republicans voted against this bill. what can you tell me about the mood inside the democratic caucus? we know there were reported chats of "hell no" coming from a closed-door meeting of democrats this afternoon. how united is the party right now? how firm do you believe everyone is going to stand in opposition to o whatever republicans propo down the line? >> well, democrats remain united behind our leader, hakeem jeffries, who so capably articulated on the house floor our opposition to elon musk's plan to support these billionaires and the corporate tax chiefs through their tax plan and then cut social security for your mom and your granny. i think that house democrats are thgoing to remain united and

focused on delivering for the american people and republicans just need to look in the mirror they need to remember that it was mike johnson, donald trump and elon musk who put us in this position just one day before government funding ends. >> i just -- i guess i am astounded by the fact that, thus far, the plan, if we're calling it that, is scuttled -- elon musk swoops in at the 11th hour, kills the bipartisan bill -- that's wednesday. thursday the speaker of the house comes forward with a bill that e democrats aren't going t countenance, but he can't even get his coown party to vote for it. the government is barreling towards a shutdown in about 24 hours and the house is on recess. congressman swalwell, do you think that their plan now is just into say the democrats did this, go home and then let federal government employees just work through the holiday season orwith no paychecks? i mean, is it about finger

pointing at this stage or do you think there's actually some negotiation that still has yet to tihappen? >> there's no plan, there's no competence. that's the problem with someone tlike musk horning his way in. he wants government to be efficient -- by the way, i do think it's interesting that the department of government meefficiency has two people who are running it. turns out that may not be the best way to be the most efficient. but the real people who are affected here, it's the tsa agent who two weeks ago as this was looming pulled me aside, he knew he was going to be helping me hwith security at the airpo, and whe said, my wife wanted m to ask you are we going to be okay. those are the types of folks who are affected by these billionaire games. to them it's not a game, it's just can i provide for my kids roaround christmastime. also, by the way, i want you to ayknow i was with a few republicans yesterday, as musk was rage tweeting and giving his

orders, and they were completelr apoplectic. i told one leof them, i said, i you let him do this, if he does this and you don't stand up to him now, he's going to own you for the next congress and every bill that's on the floor you're going to wait around on cots to see what elon musk says you're allowed to do and that's no way to represent the people who sent you here. >> those were wise words. at the same time, congresswoman underwood, the fact that 38 republicans voted against the bill that was kind of the last ditch effort from speaker johnson that was endorsed by donald trump, that was cosignedp by, i believe, j.d. vance and elon musk, the fact that they said, huh-uh, no, i mean, isn't that a brush-back of donald trump? it's hard to understand exactly where the sort of center of gravity is right now. >> well, they knew it was a bad deal and that's why they voted a no. so at the end of the day we have the opportunity to come back to the floor and to vote to keep government open. we have an opportunity to

express our values and show up for the american people, to make sure that our economy keeps humming in this holiday season, to make sure essential government services are funded, to make sure that we're offering disaster relief. and then also funding important programs like maternal health and child cancer prevention and making sure that we're lowering the prescription drug costs and all these other things that we have to take l care of in this arcritical funding package. we have an opportunity to do our jobs and i just hope that speaker mike johnson, donald trump and elon musk will get out of the way and let us do our work. >> can i ask you a follow-up to that, though? i mean, is it your sense that if democrats are going to have to help republicans pull this over hethe finish line because there too much infighting in the republican congress that the only thing the democratic caucus will countenance at this point is a return to the original bill. is that the sense you're getting

from leadership? >> when i'm speaking about let us do our jobs is a bipartisan o agreement. it is not our responsibility to bail them out. they have the majority. mike johnson is the speaker of the house and it is his responsibility to unify his conference and to put a bill on the floor that they can support, but what i'm saying is, alex, that we have interference from billionaires like elon musk who are taking the opportunity to play orchestra conductor and donald trump was so eager to comply. so that's how we find ourselves in this position, an unelected billionaire has blown up congressional negotiations and is shutting down the government and that's what is unacceptable. >> eric, congressman swalwell, what's so stunning in the reporting about this, and from what i understand from inside congress is people were generally on board with passing this thing as of wednesday, right? there was no mention of it, you

know, trump wasn't talking about it earlier in the week. >> that's right. >> it's really a confection of elon musk's making and trump has actually almost played catch up to figure out why he's incensed about igit and added in this de ceiling raise, almost as a face-saving mechanism to say i've decided the reason i don't like the original bill is because i need this to be in it. first of all, that's insane that elon musk is actually leading trump to be at odds with his own party, but secondly, do you have a working theory about why donald trump is so keen to get the debt ceiling off of his plate before he takes office? >> and, by the way, donald trump not too long ago did not want his party to raise the debt ceiling. so this is because he is just incapable of governing and so he wants them to do as much as they can now so that he doesn't have to be serious, you know, when sethese decisions come down the pike. as my colleague lauren said, look, we're unified and in the

last congress you've never seen this in any congress in america, in any parliament in the world, the minority party, the democratic noparty, delivered t majority amount of votes on every movote of consequence. multiple shutdowns that were lt averted, lifting the debt ceiling so we could pay our bills, funding the conflict to keep ukraine in the fight. we delivered the majority. d so we're going to show common sense o and competence and they are going e to continue to brin chaos and it's on us to make sure the american people understand the difference. >> it's such an important point that democrats were delivering the majority to get things passed tyeven when republicans were running the chamber. i have to say, congresswoman y, underwood, donald trump isn't in office yet. i think they're going to have at least for the first couple months of the year an even slimmer majority in the house than they do now. how are you guys thinking about what happens next given the utter chaos we are spiraling into before the trump administration has even begun?

>> alex, i was first sworn in in 2019 in the middle of a trump shutdown so this isn't new. this is what we have come to expect from a donald trump presidency and at the end of the day it is our jobs to stand up for the american people and to make sure that their interests are protected from the selfish whims of donald trump and his billionaire friends like elon musk. that's it.lo we have to show up every day and hold the line and that is exactly what we're prepared to do as democrats as we will be united. >> eric, what are you telling your hakids about being home fo christmas? >> i'm not with my kids, my wife was just at a texas roadhouse in the midwest with her family and she said, you better get your ass home soon. so we are all feeling it from feour spouses, but she also kno that that tsa agent is really

counting on all of us, you know, to get it right so that they can pay their bills and take their families s out to dinner as wel around the holidays. >> yeah, i mean, i think for the tsa agent and for the swalwell brood we hope that you are home in time for old st. nick to come down the chimney. congresswoman lauren underwood and congressman eric swalwell, democrats trying to hold the l,line in the craziest caucus - well, i won't say ever because there's always t next year. thank you both for the intel and guidance tonight. appreciate it. >> htmy pleasure. >> thank you. coming up, jeff bezos becomes the latest billionaire to pay tribute to the president-elect down at ri mar-a-lago. what exactly do these billionaires want from donald trump? we are going to discuss that. first shadow president elon musk has a mess on his hands as republicans steer the country towards a government shutdown. we're going to discuss the billionaires lament with guy is that keir. that's next. billionaires lament that keir. that's next.

musk has a mess on his hands as musk has a mess on his hands as

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a lot of people in congress were looking at musk's tweets, you were sitting there on your phones and there were the tweets coming in and you were one of them, i believe, you were looking at those tweets. does musk have too much influence? >> no, i don't think so. i think this is exactly what the american people voted for when they voted for donald trump, they voted for competency. competency. competency. competency? like shutting down the federal government six days before christmas?

joining me now is chief political adviser to senator bernie sanders. fez, thank you for being here. >> thank you. >> wow. here we are. first let's talk about elon musk's role in all of this. i know you've been sort of boosting the notion of elon musk as speaker of the house. >> it's out there, yes. >> can you just talk to me about what you think -- first of all, i assume you're joking but maybe not. can you talk a little bit more about the concept of elon musk running the house of representatives either officially or unofficially? >> you and i have when gone through years and years this have where the republican caucus when they come into power they cannot govern, they cannot keep a faction together. it has happened with john boehner, it has gone through paul ryan, gone through kevin mccarthy. it was inevitable. i mean, even given the break, that mike johnson was heading in that direction. take that as the premise. who is going to replace him? comically and farcical that the direction of this republican party would obviously suggest that elon musk who doesn't know

much about governing but is a billionaire and has bought the last election cycle, spent $250 million plus to get donald trump in can throw dollars into republican race that is they would just say you take it over. the way in which the republican philosophy is governed, there aren't substantive issue at play, it is governed by money and the direction of wealth. to me it was the natural fruition, they're going to land with the billionaire who is going to call their shots and they are all comfortable with it. i kind of made a joke about it last night and here it's coming to fruition where mike lee and all of these senators are now talking about it. >> to be done within a month and a half of the republicans winning the presidency on a wave of, quote, unquote, populism. to have literally the world's richest man decide he doesn't like a continuing resolution to keep the government open because it includes things like funding for pediatric cancer research, lowering the cost of drugs by reforming the pharmacy benefit

managers, i'm not going to get into the weeds on that, but it is really important, and raises for members of congress who are not necessarily well-paid, are not necessarily wealthy themselves, need to own two homes and haven't gotten a raise in 15 years. i mean, talk to me a little bit about the sort of priorities here in terms of republicans saying, okay, elon musk says jump and we say how high and this is what they come up with today. these are the kinds of provisions that they are taking out of their version of the continuing resolution which they couldn't even pass. >> when mike johnson came forward with this bipartisan bill they could have easily sailed and we would move on to the trump administration but out of the blue elon musk wades in. one of the questions we all have to ask is why did you decide at this random moment -- donald trump hadn't said anything, mike johnson comes forward, they all seem to be kumbayaing with each other. why? what was elon musk's design? we don't fully know, but i have a theory. >> i'd love to hear it.

>> that theory is the debt ceiling. so mike johnson comes forward the one missing link in there was the debt ceiling was not included, and the debt ceiling has been used, as you know, i a lengths, for the better part of a decade, since barack obama was president in 2011, republicans have used that as a hostage taking to compel democrats not to do things for working-class people. but when they come into power it becomes a problem for them because they need to raise the debt ceiling so that they can do -- elon musk and donald trump have a lot of plans to spend trillions of dollars not only on tax cuts but to do a bunch of stuff on immigration including building a wall and hiring a bunch of deportation agents. they can't do that if the democrats are going to apply the same logic back at them that says, hey, where is your cuts? how are you going to generate revenue into this government to pay for the things you are doing. they have a problem with their own republican base as many of them wants and want to decrease the eyes of government.

i think elon musk wanted to get the debt ceiling thing into biden's world, get it done now, place the blame on them and i think he heard this from the business class. i have to believe the hedge funds and titans, they want these tax cuts and they know in order to get the corporate tax cuts next year they have to raise the debt limit now. >> if that's the case it really sounds like democrats are ready to play hard ball, we had eric swalwell on and he said democrats have pulled republicans across the finish line every time there's something significant or not even that significant, just the order of operations in terms of the legislative branch, democrats have saved the day, we are not going to do it again. they are barreling towards a real problem including the immediate issue, which is we have -- we're entering peek holiday season and they may shut down the federal government if they don't get their act together by tomorrow night. one of the things that's so 'tis dressing about this, you have a bunch of billionaires, j.d. vance, elon musk, donald trump,

they don't understand what it is like to not get a paycheck during the holidays. they don't understand what it's like to fly, you know, commercial airlines and deal with tsa agents who aren't being paid and the chaos that ensues when you have the infrastructure of transportation derailed by a nonfunctioning government. and these are the people who ultimately hold the levers of power in terms of deciding whether the government shut downs or not in the last of 36 hours. >> they also have begun to spoke their kind of -- whatever they spoke. >> ketamine. no, you can't smoke that. sorry. >> they believe wrongly and have come to believe this when you cut government spending there are no real world impacts because government is loaded it does all kinds of stuff. to all the things that you listed, alex, no he is are correct, however, they live in this really weird world that says you can do all these things without tangible real world harmful impacts on actual people. they are wrong about that. sadly we have to suffer through

these moments in which you learn, yes, we are all dependent, rightly so, on a government that provides for all of us, core essential services and all kinds of protections of all different kinds and maybe that's one of the rainbow -- the linings in the rainbow here is we all learn the government is doing important things. you're right, generally we have an elite class making decisions which are completely dissociated from working class pain and suffering. i hope as we talk about a debt limit, if we take it off the table and end it forever which would be a good idea the democrats are in a strong position to say, okay, let's negotiate. if that's where you want to go we could carry some votes, end the debt ceiling and we have to renegotiate this to have some democrats for democrats, for working class, middle class issues if that's the direction they they go. if they don't want to end the debt ceiling show me the votes, speaker musk, let's go. >> such a testament to

republican incompetence that democrats have the upper hand here. thank you for your time and wisdom this evening. i appreciate you. >> appreciate it. still to come tonight, yet another ceo has reportedly traveled to donald trump's florida beach club to kiss the ring. what do the rich and powerful really want here and will they get it? that is next. really want here ay get it that is next

today six days before christmas the teamsters union launched what it is calling the largest strike against amazon ever. >> we are ready to have a great christmas but we feel like amazon has forced us into this, so whatever impacts we have, whatever packages are late, i just want everyone out there to remember that this is because amazon is refusing to come to the bargaining table. >> we are out here in these conditions, whether it's hot, cold, rain, sleet, typhoon, doesn't matter, we're there and we need that respect. >> amazon says it does not expect packages to be late and says those walking off the job today make up a tiny percentage of its overall workforce, but amazon does not dispute refuse to go come to the bargaining table. the company says it shouldn't have to. while the teamsters union says that it represents the thousands of workers demonstrating today's at seven amazon fulfillment centers in new york, california, georgia and illinois, amazon

disagrees. in a statement today amazon claimed the teamsters union was misleading the public by saying it represents those thousands of workers, saying flatly, they don't. and that dispute is actually key here. in addition to complaints about pay and benefits, the core of this fight is about whether the drivers who deliver amazon packages have the right to unionize and collectively bargain at all. amazon says it has no obligation to bargain with the drivers because the drivers are technically independent contractors and not amazon employees. to show you how well that line of logic is landing all across the political spectrum, here was republican senator josh hawley speaking about it this week. >> this delivery service program employs about 300,000 people and according to amazon none of these 300,000 people their

delivery service partners so-called actually work for amazon, which is convenient because in reality amazon exercises enormous control over these delivery service partners. they control their contracts, they control every aspect of their business, they tell their -- these partners, these independent contractors, which vendors to use, which routes to follow, you name t they even monitor the performance of individual drivers and in some cases they, amazon, unilaterally fire the driver so my question is does that really sound like -- and your understanding of the law -- does that sound like a classic independent contractor? >> no, senator hawley, it sure doesn't. now, amazon isn't just trying to avoid bargaining with this particular union, this year amazon also filed a lawsuit against the agency in the u.s. government that oversees union disputes, that's the national labor relations board. amazon is claiming that that agency itself is unconstitutional.

amazon isn't alone in that particular fight. the company is joined in that effort to overhaul the nlrb by the aerospace company spacex, which is of course owned by elon musk. so last night on the eve of what, again, the teamsters union is calling the largest strike against amazon ever, where was amazon's founder, jeff bezos? well, he was reportedly at dinner at mar-a-lago with these two guys. >> you're the greatest cutter, i mean, i look at what you do, you walk in and just you just say, you want to quit. >> yeah. >> i won't mention the name of the company. they go on strike and you say that's okay, you're all gone. you're all gone. every one of you is gone. >> we have no idea what donald trump, elon musk and jeff bezos discussed at dinner last night. we don't even know if today's pending labor action was even mentioned but come january 20th trump will oversees the national labor relations board that both jeff bezos and elon musk's companies claim is

unconstitutional and that means president trump could play a role in resolving not just this union fight but all union fights at amazon and spacex and tesla and everywhere for the next four years. the "wall street journal's" white house economic policy reporter joins me to discuss what trump's billionaire friendships might really be all about next. billionaire friendships might really be all about next

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that's what elon musk tweeted last night appearing to corroborate the reporting that he met with both donald trump and amazon founder jeff bezos at mar-a-lago last evening. bezos is the latest in a string of ceos including tim cook and sundar pichai. trump's delight that big business is kneeling before him is not exactly a secret. >> the first term everybody was fighting me, this term everybody wants to be ply friend. i don't know. my personality changed or something. >> trump is clearly enjoying all this have attention, but what do these ceos want this return? joining me now is brian schwartz, a white house economic policy reporter at the "wall street journal." i've been on this beat doing great reporting. >> thank you. >> not in the corner at mar-a-lago but clearly well-sourced about who is coming

in and out. can you talk about how different this courtship is compared to the last time trump was the incoming president. >> it's not only different from that but different from president joe biden. this is worlds different because the ceos learned trump 1.0 that going directly to donald trump is the best way to get what you want. with tim cook in the first term of donald trump he was regularly in touch with him and that was a lesson many ceos took from tim cook how to engage with trump on a variety of fronts. it's a regulation or tariffs, if they're trying to look for being excluded for some of those impacts on the tariffs, this is what they've learned and clearly they're going route one right no trump at mar-a-lago. >> you went to tariffs and i want to break down what interest some of these ceos may have. this is speculation because we don't know what the conversations were. tariffs seem to be the looming cloud on the horizon for these

ceos. can you talk about how you see the relationship with trump and maybe these ceos as it concerns those tariffs? >> my sense is this is one of the reasons why many of these executives are getting close to trump now because trump has been very, very clear about what he's going to do or what he intends to do when he becomes president with these tariffs. he's going to try to put these tariffs on goods coming from china, potentially from canada and mexico, and many of these businesses have business -- >> apple in china. >> -- there. >> big business. >> you're looking at it from the perspective of wait a minute, if i can just get close enough to this guy maybe there is an exemption down the road on some level on tariffs potentially, right? from the reporting we've done that's been the thinking from some of these corporate leaders. we have the story on the "wall street journal's" website, we had a guy that reached out directly to us to try to get in touch with peter navarro because he's trying to figure out how to navigate this situation with trump as he becomes president as it comes to tariffs.

>> it is truly personal relationships that may dictate economic policy. >> it is. >> on a major scale. i mean, i see it's already clear why big tech would want to make friends or get friendly with trump, that's mark zuckerberg, giving a million dollars to trump's inaugural fund which is effectively -- what's the right word? it's like a thank you basket that donald trump is collecting around january 20th. google's parent company alphabet, their ceo sundar pichai is down there. can you talk about the relationship between tech and the incoming trump administration because they have had their knives out for silicon valley for a while. >> i mean, look, after the 2020 election donald trump was very public about the issues he has had with big tech. he pushed these ideas that enema of those companies just alluded to were somehow at fault for him losing the 2020 election. so this -- this is really interesting because now these guys are coming right back into the fold again, mark zuckerberg, again, who has been under attack by trump for years came right

into mar-a-lago and now meta is giving the money to the inaugural. again, it's this beginning clearly of this engagement one would argue lobbying effort to get close to trump in case things starting to away that these ceos may not like when he becomes president. >> there's -- we talked about in the reader before this segment began amazon is seeing what the teamsters union is calling the largest strike ever against amazon unfolding at the peak of the holiday season. there is a lawsuit involving both musk and bezos' company and the national labor relations board, something that trump is going to oversee. they have a lot of labor interest that trump could be a deciding factor in and having a close relationship with the president could be a boone for business or the opposite. >> also elon musk is going to be critical here. i think what we're seeing in washington right now -- i watched your show, i saw the segments before. let's get really down to this. elon musk is clearly going to be one of the most influential

ceos, maybe in the world, because of his proximity to trump. there isn't a meeting i have heard of that doesn't include elon musk and donald trump in the same room, whether it's with business leaders, foreign leaders, with potential hires. this has been going on from our reporting for over a month, i mean, since the end of the election. that is something we have to really keep an eye on as we go forward. >> also a potential major conflict of interest. >> absolutely. >> you're saying elon musk is in fact maybe a shadow president or deeply influential adviser. elon musk has government contracts that are very, very lucrative through spacex, tesla is subject to, you know, federal regulations. then of course there are his social media properties. he could make policy effectively. >> also, you know, with the way they teased out this government commission, right, this external group. >> doge. just say it. >> this external advisory group, the way they announced it was that this group is going to have some sort of way over omb.

>> office of management and budget. >> this is a very powerful office. >> very. >> they have sway over regulations and how they're deployed through the various agencies. i mean, that -- and we've done reporting on this -- that right there is a real potential conflict that elon is going to have to face in the coming weeks and months ahead. >> we will see if anyone in the administration cares about it. brian schwartz with the "wall street journal," great to have you on the program. please keep on telling us what is happening down at mar-a-lago. we need to know. >> thank you. great to be back. >> we will be right back. you great to be back. >> we will be right back all yea. ♪ permanent solution! ♪ our local pros are busy installing leaffilter throughout this holiday season, and all the seasons. ♪ year round installation! ♪ leaffilter is the smartest call you'll make all season. so give us a call to save up to 35% call 833 leaffilter or visit leaffilter.com. ♪ and you look like a genius this year. ♪

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i hope that this vote passes tonight, we will send it to the senate. we will extend funding and we

will come back and we will have the america first agenda come in roaring in january for the american people. that was speaker mike johnson sounding optimistic about his latest effort to avoid a government shutdown, minutes before 38 members of his own party defected and the vote failed on the floor of the house. joining me now is brendan buck, former press secretary to former house speaker john boehner and a man who knows a little, which is to say a lot, about capitol dysfunction and shutdowns and showdowns. brendan, steve scalise, office of the majority leader, this is the leader's daily schedule and it says, on friday the house will meet at 9:00 a.m. for legislative business, first and last votes expected, tbd. nobody is saying whether there's going to be an alternative proposed. what do you imagine is happening in the republican conference? >> oh, boy. good to be with you. it's usually never good when i'm here with you because things aren't going well and here we are again. >> yeah.

>> look, if there was an easy way out they would have taken it by now. i think they are coming to terms with the fact that there is nothing that republicans alone will vote for to get at this problem which is how they got into the problem in the first place. what we are talking about here should not be that difficult. all that mike johnson was trying to do was fund the government until march. a three-month, short-term spending package, but because he couldn't pass that on his own because enough republicans won't vote for anything that really funds the government at all, he had to open up the store to hakeem jeffries and add a bunch of stuff to it, of course that upset elon musk and republicans and everybody else and it fell apart. now here again they tried to go back to just a republican-only plan and couldn't do it. i imagine at this point johnson is realizing he's going to have to go back to democrats and see what their price is for their votes to get out of this jam, otherwise we're staring down a shutdown and once you go into

shutdown here i'm not exactly sure what the means of getting out of it would be other than a complete fold to whatever democrats ask for. >> and i also think if johnson does go to democrats and say, sorry, what can i do to make this work? it also means he's not going to be speaker of the house anymore, right? it's basically a professional suicide mission, i will do this for the good of the country but there is no way the house conference and republicans keep him in power, right? >> i'm not willing to say he's not going to be speaker again, but this is the psych that will basically every republican speaker recently has found themselves in. >> yeah. >> you stretch as far as you can to the right to try to keep your members happy, they eventually walk away and undercut you, you're forced to negotiate with democrats, the outcome ends up becoming less conservative, but then those same conservatives who undercut you turn around and blame you for being weak-kneed and negotiating the way -- things with democrats, even though it was them that forced

you into that position in the first place. johnson may be okay, you know, if donald trump says, you know, give him another chance, i'm sure they will, but what looked like it was probably going to be easy sailing on january 3rd when the new congress comes in is probably going to be much more dramatic looking like what kevin mccarthy dealt with two years ago when it took him 15 rounds to get there. this is just a conference that -- republican conference that can't come to terms with the sort of limits of their power. mike johnson talking about next year is going to be so much better. next year is going to have the exact same dynamics that this year has had. >> well, they're going to have an even slimmer majority for the first four months of the year. by the way, i mean, it's hard for me to imagine that if donald trump and elon musk, really elon musk didn't like the first deal with democrats, like the third version of this deal where johnson maybe has to come back begging and scraping to democrats is not going to win elon musk's favor. i mean, purely just ego alone would dictate that he can't like

it. so, i mean, i will say in some ways i have a lot of empathy or i feel sorry for mike johnson who is truly caught between a rock and a hard place. if he gets the democrats on his side it's hard to imagine how he gets the support of elon musk. who is the x factor in all of this, brendan. does it surprise you the degree to which he was able to manipulate this vote which really did look -- i mean, from our reporting it looked like it was on track on wednesday. >> yeah, i mean, mike johnson caught himself in a bad situation with a lot of members because they didn't like it, too. i don't want people to have the impression that it was all smooth sailing before elon musk came along. i guess where i'm probably most simply for mike johnson is elon musk is learning about all of this stuff for the very first time right now. >> yeah. >> as i'm sure you've covered. a lot of his tweets about this were wrong about what was in the bill. you know, he's popping up with a bunch of misinformation about what's in it, makes it impossible to get any support in the conference and if that's

what's hanging over your head at any time when you're trying to whip votes, get things across the finish line at any moment elon musk is going to fire off something that he saw somebody tweet that may or may not be true, impossible situation to govern. it was already going to be really hard with that slim majority and now you have this hanging over you, plus not to mention donald trump can do the same thing at any time. in 2017 he could blow stuff up with a tweet, too. now you have both of these guys hanging over you. >> what a time to be alive. brendan buck, thank you for offering us some historical perspective and prognostication. good to see you, buddy. that is our show for tonight. that is our show for tonight. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. >> my problem is on the republican side, they're like chickens and be they wander off. you can't catch up.n' and that's donald trump. >> the agenda here