The PBS NewsHour Friday night pundit panel of Jonathan Capehart and David Brooks took on the shutdown showdown. Anchor Geoff Bennett quoting from a “news report” from The Washington Post that sounds a lot like a liberal editorial, that Musk’s advising reeks of “oligarchy.” These people really have to keep insisting democracy on the wane:

BENNETT: Jonathan, David mentioned Elon Musk. I mean, what about his influence? Because he led the rebellion against the initial bill, as you mentioned. And The Post reported that "his swift accumulation of political power has sparked criticism that the incoming Trump administration will function like an oligarchy."

CAPEHART: Well, yes, because, remember, this all got started, not because Donald Trump weighed in first. Elon Musk weighed in. And he's the — he — I just start calling him the first buddy. He is in on all the phone calls. He's in on all the meetings.

No one elected him to anything! no one! And yet Republicans on the Hill listened to what he had to say. Donald Trump listened to what he had to say. There's a reason why Democrats this week were calling — were saying — were calling him President Musk and then calling Donald Trump Donald Trump.

PBS @NewsHour anchor Geoff Bennett quotes from The Washington Post that Elon Musk serving as a Trump adviser somehow reeks of "oligarchy." Jonathan Capehart protests: "No one elected him to anything!" Nobody elects the media either. pic.twitter.com/uYtA4Jq5xs

— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) December 21, 2024

No one elected journalists to run Washington, but here they are routinely intimidating politicians with their advice or critiques. David Brooks offered a little sanity, that gee, presidents have advisers, but he thinks this is very temporary:  “This bromance is going to end in tears. We're all — I give it 30 days, maybe 60 days, something like that. We're all going to be crying as they part ways and they start taking shots at each other.”

But Brooks still suggested Trump and Musk don't know what they're doing: "My posture right now is let's let him try. He's got some instincts that are terrible and some instincts that are not terrible. And let's let him try. But change in government is just phenomenally hard. And you have to really know what you're doing. And neither Donald Trump nor Elon Musk really knows how the game is played."

Then Bennett asked about Biden being nearly invisible in all this, and no one mentioned this week's reporting his long-running mental decline: 

BENNETT: Jonathan, where was President Biden in all of this? And I raise the question because at one point Donald Trump posted on social media, if there is going to be a shutdown of government, let it begin now under the Biden administration, not after January 20 under Trump, and no response from President Biden himself. He really seems to have abdicated the bully pulpit.

CAPEHART: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Why should President Biden get in the middle of a Republican-on-Republican food fight melee? Why should he? If this were any other time, any other president, everyone would be saying the president is staying out of it because, when you're when your opponent is digging the hole, just let them dig the hole.

Or he's staying out of it because his fellow Democrats don't want him to be the babbling center of attention. They just want to let him play president for another month and go away.