Maddow Blog / By stepping on rakes, Trump ruins his own ‘honeymoon’ phase

The president-elect had one demand for the bill to prevent a government shutdown. He didn’t get it. The result made him look weak at an inopportune time.

Dec. 23, 2024, 8:05 AM EST By Steve Benen

Here are the key points from the page:

  • Honeymoon Phase: Typically, a president-elect enjoys a “honeymoon” phase post-election, basking in victory and receiving congratulatory wishes.
  • Trump’s Missteps: Donald Trump, however, has been making missteps, such as demanding a debt ceiling increase in a stopgap spending bill, which was unrelated to the bill’s negotiations.
  • Republican Response: GOP lawmakers were confused and indifferent to Trump’s demands, ultimately passing the spending package without addressing the debt ceiling.
  • Embarrassment: Trump’s intervention led to an unnecessary embarrassment, as his demand was ignored.
  • Pattern of Failures: This incident is part of a series of failures by Trump and his team since Election Day, indicating a chaotic transition phase.
  • Perception of Weakness: Trump’s actions are seen as weakening his political capital, contrary to his attempts to present himself as a powerful leader.

It’s not uncommon for a president-elect to enjoy a “honeymoon” phase in the aftermath of a successful national election. It’s a period of time in which an incoming American leader is able to bask in his or her victory, welcome congratulatory wishes, and imagine a world of exciting possibilities before the real work begins on Inauguration Day.

In theory, Donald Trump could be enjoying his “honeymoon” phase. In practice, the Republican keeps stepping on rakes.

Take last week, for example. Maddow’s MSNBC colleague Hayes Brown summarized:

Leave it to President-elect Donald Trump to take one Washington crisis and add another one on top. As a plan to keep the federal government over the holidays began to waver this week, Trump injected a new demand: pausing — or altogether abolishing — the debt ceiling before he takes office in January.

Throughout his first term, Trump had a habit of screwing up policy agreements with 11th-hour demands that didn’t make a lot of sense, and last week’s developments suggested that the president-elect learned very little from those experiences.

A stopgap spending bill was working its way through the legislative process on Capitol Hill, which generated very little interest from Mar-a-Lago — that is, until late Wednesday afternoon, when Trump published an item to his social media platform demanding that congressional Republicans add a debt ceiling increase to the bill. Failing to do so, Trump added, would be “a betrayal of our country.”

Roughly an hour and a half later, he published a follow-up piece, adding that any Republican who would be “so stupid” as to approve a spending bill without increasing the debt limit “should, and will, be Primaried.”

On Thursday, Trump echoed his demand. A day later, he did it again.

GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill initially expressed confusion — a debt ceiling increase is still months away, and the issue played literally no role whatsoever in the negotiations surrounding the continuing resolution — before ultimately expressing indifference. On Friday night, the House and Senate approved a spending package that prevented a shutdown, and it was silent on the nation’s borrowing limit.

@RalphHightower: Stepping on rakes. That is a hilarious image. If I can find a YouTube video clip from when I watched cartoons, I’ll embed the cartoon.