‘Way to Go Guys’: Fox’s Brit Hume Blames Trump and Elon Musk For Failed Spending Bill
Fox News’s Chief Political Analyst Brit Hume defended Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) over two failed spending bills designed to avoid an imminent government shutdown and instead blamed President-elect Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk for their role in the failed effort.
The House of Representatives failed to pass a spending bill to keep the federal government funded beyond Dec. 21. The vote was 174-235, with 38 Republicans voting against. Passage required approval from two-thirds of voting members because Johnson fast-tracked the legislation by bypassing the House Rules Committee.
Hours earlier, Trump urged Republicans to vote in favor of the 116-page legislation, though that effort was unsuccessful.
“Way to go guys,” Hume sardonically posted on X, the social media platform owned by Musk, in a Friday morning post that accurately portrayed Johnson as a political victim of “Trump, Musk & Co’s” bidding and failure to rally even Republican support for the spending bill.
“Speaker Johnson is getting the blame for the failure of the bills to keep the government open,” Hume wrote. “But how about the team of Trump, Musk & Co? They shot down the first bill. Too full of pork, they said. They demanded a streamlined bill. Johnson produced one and put it on the floor. It failed miserably, with three dozen House Republicans voting against it. Way to go guys.”
Speaker Johnson is getting the blame for the failure of the bills to keep the government open. But how about the team of Trump, Musk & Co? They shot down the first bill. Too full of pork, they said. They demanded a streamlined bill. Johnson produced one and put it on the floor.…
— Brit Hume (@brithume) December 20, 2024
Earlier Friday morning, Trump took to social media amid growing discontent over congressional dysfunction to keep the government open over the holidays and suggested that he’s more interested in the government shutting down over the holidays during the Biden administration than trying to help find a solution to a problem largely undermined by the billionaire who is his most significant advisor.
“If there is going to be a shutdown of the government, let it begin now, under the Biden Administration, not after January 20th, under ‘TRUMP.’” the President-elect wrote on Truth Social. “This is a Biden problem to solve, but if Republicans can help solve it, they will!”
Close observers of Fox News pundit dynamics will note that Hume is the increasingly rare Fox News contributor willing to occasionally criticize Trump regardless of any potential pushback he’d receive from the president-elect.
