What did Donald Trump do today?

He threatened to campaign against 78% of his own party's members in Congress.

Earlier this week, Trump belatedly joined his "advisor" Elon Musk's last-minute campaign against a routine continuing budget resolution. Musk appeared to simply be flexing his muscled as the self-appointed watchdog for "government efficiency." But Trump also added a demand that Democrats spare him the trouble of increasing the overall debt limit, which will be reached next summer, and will then need to be raised.

Faced with these ultimatums, House Republicans rewrote their own bill and tonight passed a slightly different version. It eliminates, among other things, funding for research into pediatric cancers—so Musk can claim, at least in theory, that he's had an effect, even if that effect comes at the expense of sick children. It also dropped reforms to so-called pharmacy benefit managers, enormous companies that Trump says drive up the cost of medications. Both of these provisions were revenue-neutral.

There's no reason to think that Trump really objects to these deletions. Officially, he was opposed to anything that he called a "win" for Democrats, whether it was funds to fight pediatric cancer, or limits on sneaky "junk fees" added by airlines or hotels, or economic sanctions against China. 

But the bill did not include Trump's demand to eliminate the debt ceiling so that he could spend whatever he wanted during his term.

Trump, again following Musk's lead, had threatened to support primary challengers to any Republican who voted for a continuing resolution without a debt ceiling increase. 170 Republicans, out of 219 total, did just that.

Why does this matter?

• It's almost unheard of for a President be handed a huge legislative loss by their own party before they even took office.

• It's bad if Congress takes a presidential "advisor" seriously but ignores threats from the president.

• The political aspects of the presidency are too important to be left to amateurs.

• Pediatric cancer research is more important than giving the richest person in the world a hobby.