The government shutdown showdown in December 2024 will be the first major test of President-elect Donald Trump’s influence over Republicans in Congress.

At least so far he has problems.

A day after Trump derailed a bipartisan government funding bill — with major support from tech billionaire Elon Musk — he again called for a slimmed-down government funding bill that would also raise the cap on the federal government’s new borrowing to finance its deficit spending.

That was a big demand from many conservatives in Congress, who have long demanded that any debt increase should at least be accompanied by cuts in what they see as out-of-control government spending. Trump’s demand was also a tacit admission that his legislative agenda, which primarily includes tax cuts and new military spending, was unlikely to lead to the kind of deficit reduction that many on the right had hoped for.

On Thursday evening, this slimmed-down bill, along with a two-year suspension of the debt limit, was up for a vote in the House of Representatives. 38 Republicans joined almost all Democrats in their opposition. This amounted to a stunning rebuke of the president-elect, who had enthusiastically supported the law and threatened to force out of office any Republicans who opposed it.

Since that defeat, Republican leaders have huddled behind closed doors to hammer out a new plan.

They could repeal the debt ceiling increase — winning over some recalcitrant Republicans but angering Trump. They could renegotiate with Democrats, who may be wary of striking a new deal after Trump torpedoed the first. They could try to vote separately on each component of the legislative package – government funding, disaster relief, health care overhauls and a debt ceiling increase.

Or they could throw their hands together and shut down the government less than a week before Christmas. That would mean federal workers, including members of the U.S. military, could miss their paychecks just as furlough bills come due — a politically sensitive option.

Even the best-case scenario for Republicans at this point only postpones the next shutdown fight for a few months, when the party will have to juggle funding the federal government while trying to implement Trump’s legislative agenda on immigration, taxes and trade. all with an even smaller majority in the House of Representatives.

A worst-case scenario includes all of this, namely after a prolonged government shutdown followed by a debt limit fight in the summer, in which deficit-oriented conservatives may be even less willing to rally behind the president.

However this ends, this latest drama underscores how tenuous the Republican majority is in the House of Representatives – and the limits of Donald Trump’s power.

Republicans loathe compromise with Democrats, but they will have a hard time achieving a majority without them.

Trump and Elon Musk can kill legislation, but they can’t necessarily win the support to get their proposals over the finish line.