The U.S. government is barreling toward yet another pointless, unforced crisis: a federal shutdown just ahead of Christmas. No one planned it, exactly. Yet it seems almost inevitable.

Why? Because President-elect Donald Trump and his unelected co-president, Elon Musk, have accidentally “Art of the Deal”-ed themselves.

Trump is widely expected to “shake things up,” which appears to be a euphemism for indiscriminate destruction. He hasn’t even been sworn in yet, but with another erratic egomaniac billionaire now assisting him in his shake-up (and occasional shakedown), he’s already ahead of schedule.

Funding to keep basic government operations running expires today (Dec. 21). Lawmakers have spent the past few weeks negotiating a relatively banal, bipartisan spending agreement to keep the lights on until March 14 at current funding levels.

Until recently, Trump had ignored these negotiations entirely. But early on Wednesday, Musk decided it was time to start breaking things, so he posted a tirade of incoherent and often outright false complaints about the deal, demanding that it be nuked.

He then added that no legislation should pass until Trump is sworn in on Jan. 20. This would mean a federal government shutdown for about a month (at least). He might get his wish: The original bill died; a replacement bill failed in a House vote Thursday night; and Vice President-elect JD Vance and Trump seemed to cheer on the wreckage, suggesting maybe a shutdown isn’t so bad after all. “If there is going to be a shutdown of government, let it begin now, under the Biden Administration,” Trump posted on TruthSocial.

It might seem difficult to understand how Musk or Trump could possibly view an extended shutdown - especially one lasting through the inauguration - as a favorable outcome. Shutdowns cost the government money, since winding down operations (and then ramping them back up) is expensive. They also weigh on the overall economy; a five-week, partial government shutdown starting in December 2018 reduced U.S. gross domestic product by $3 billion, the Congressional Budget Office estimated.

A shutdown would probably also present political challenges. Usually an incoming administration wants some breathing room in its first few days to focus on its own priorities, not to enter office amid chaos. It’s also unclear how a government shutdown might affect the pageantry of the inauguration, which clearly matters to Trump.

Nevertheless, this sequence of events makes complete sense if you’ve read Trump’s best-selling memoir, “The Art of the Deal,” or looked at any of his prior business, political or diplomatic negotiations. His favorite negotiating tactic is blowing up an (ostensibly) settled deal at the 11th hour. He thinks that’s how he gains the “leverage” he needs to force a counterparty to make some painful, valuable concession.

But there are (at least) three problems with this strategy in the context of the stopgap spending package.

The first is that the counterparty in this scenario is his own party. Trump and Musk are negotiating against their fellow Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), who appears to have been blindsided by the last-minute Musk eruption. Johnson put together the deal, after all, with necessary Democratic support because the GOP house majority is so slim (and the Senate is still controlled by Democrats).

The second problem is that Trump and Musk do not seem to understand if you can’t be trusted to keep your word on a handshake deal, people act accordingly the next time they negotiate with you. Or maybe they refuse to negotiate with you at all.

Finally, the biggest problem is that Trump and Musk seem to have no idea what their demands are. They want leverage for a concession, but they struggle to articulate what that concession would be. GOP lawmakers often know they don’t like some offer on the table, but they can’t come up with a desirable counteroffer. They just think making an ultimatum is a cool power flex, something that might impress their voters. In this case, maybe the concession is an increase in the debt limit. Or maybe, as Musk tweeted, it’s just … doing nothing at all? At least until Trump moves into the White House again.

So congrats, Co-Presidents Trusk. You’ve already ultimatumed yourselves into oblivion.

Catherine Rampell is a Washington Post columnist.