Michael Brenner: The Fourth Estate Indeed!

President-elect Donald Trump had dinner Wednesday with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, and the two were joined by billionaire Elon Musk, the Washington Post reports.

“A lot of the Republicans are pushing for him to become speaker of the House, which might be a demotion for him because he’s basically the fourth branch of the government.” — Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), talking to Axios about Elon Musk.

Donald Trump told ABC News there won’t be a spending bill “unless the debt ceiling is done with.” Said Trump: “If we don’t get it, then we’re going to have a shutdown, but it’ll be a Biden shutdown, because shutdowns only inure to the person who’s president.”

Charlie Cook: “The 2026 midterm-election prospects for the two major political parties in the House and Senate are as different as night and day. The Republican majority in the House today is as precarious as either party has seen in that chamber in at least a century.” “Conversely, the GOP’s majority in the Senate is about as solid as can be, regardless of what President-elect Trump’s standing will be in November 2026.”

Paul Krugman: “We’ll have to see how much damage this does, but it’s already clear that assuming the worst happens — and it’s hard to see how it won’t — this will be the dumbest shutdown ever. I’d say that the incoming Musk administration (so far Musk, not Trump, appears to be calling the shots) is trying to hold itself up for ransom, but it doesn’t even rise to that level.

“The National Rifle Association is liquidating investments as it bleeds cash amid legal turmoil, internal tumult, and dwindling membership revenue,” Rolling Stone reports.