My latest Daily Mail column looks at the tension between Elon Musk’s growing power to rally voters against wasteful spending and Donald Trump’s incentives to have the whole spending mess resolved before he takes office:

Elon Musk took on the swamp and won — for now. . . . A government shutdown for Christmas or a new short-term deal would push this spending fight into January. That should be good news for Republicans, who take over the Senate on January 3 and the White House on January 20. But it’s not so simple. Trump has a lot else he wants to do. . . . If Congress has to focus on the short-term budget in January or February, it can’t do those things too. Musk or no Musk, Trump is going to want a budget deal done pronto.