‘This Is Not A Great Start’: Maggie Haberman Roasts Trump And Republicans Over Shutdown Showdown

CNN commentator and New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman roasted President-elect Donald Trump and the Republicans over the chaotic self-destruction of their own spending deal.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) thought he had secured a deal to keep the government open with a 1500-plus-page continuing resolution, but after Elon Musk led a charge against the bill, Trump came out against it as well. After a scathing Trump rant Wednesday night, that deal is now in ruins.

On Wednesday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, anchor Kaitlan Collins, and Haberman broke down the developments and agreed it doesn’t bode well for the incoming unified GOP government:

COLLINS: Maggie, I’m just curious what you’re reporting and what you were hearing today.

As Mitt Romney was the one to point out earlier that Trump had not yet weighed in on what he wanted House Republicans to do. I’m not sure that he envisioned that in the end, it would be Trump condemning this bill.

What have you been hearing from sources tonight?

MAGGIE HABERMAN: So Kaitlan, you’ve seen what is unsurprising, and what we have seen in a number of instances, so far. You have seen sort of this chorus of people aligned with Trump going out ahead of Trump and being critical of this bill, and then Trump eventually says something. Or, people going out and criticizing something, and then Trump weighs in.

Trump is trying very hard to preserve as many options as he can to come in late, and then say X, Y, Z is bad, or, This is how he would want something to be.

So, this was an unsurprising result. It was very clear, this was coming. There have been concerns about this, this CR, for a while. And so, where exactly Trump was going to fall on it, concerns within Trump’s world about what this was going to look like.

But at the end of the day, as you said, it’s now very uncertain what is going to happen. Not entirely clear what Donald Trump wants, other than that, he wants the debt ceiling raised before he takes the presidency, because he doesn’t want to have that happen, on his watch. And that’s fine, except that that’s not necessarily how this is going to work.

Will there be a shutdown? Who knows. But this is not a great start, for what will be a unified Republican government.

COLLINS: Yes. What does it say about what this looks like when Republicans have a trifecta, here in Washington, in just a few weeks from now? HABERMAN: Yes, well, number one, it raises real questions about Mike Johnson and how he is going to go forward. He is somebody who has worked very hard to try to have a good relationship with Trump, and try to channel what Trump wants. And he has been trying to do that during this whole process. And here we are.

I think the people around Trump, not surprisingly, are unhappy with what this final product looks like. But once Trump is in control, he is going to have to make some decisions, and he — it is not going to be enough.

As you know, Kaitlan, Republicans controlled the House, the Senate and the White House, in 2017 and 2018. Trump still repeatedly criticized what the House was up to. That was a lot easier when it was Paul Ryan, and he was — Trump was sort of new, and that was the Establishment.

This is a much more MAGA-fied Congress, and a much more MAGA-fied Senate. And so, it’s going to be harder–

COLLINS: Well–

HABERMAN: –to point the finger elsewhere and where things should go.

Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.