at cross-purposes

We… who made for ourselves a habit of give-and take in the faith that we were not at cross-purposes with anyone, have to confess that if goodwill runs out of the machinery of government and domestication is wrecked, to repose on our security is suicide.

Now that he’s duly elected as speaker, all Mike Johnson has to do is figure out how to pass the president-elect’s legislative agenda through his painfully narrow majority of world-historical misfits working at cross-purposes.

But this new “American Idiot” seems at cross-purposes with itself.

The I.M.F. said that U.S. fiscal policies were adding about a half a percentage point to the national inflation rate and raising “short-term risks to the disinflation process” — essentially saying that the government was working at cross-purposes with the Fed.

Israel’s vow to resume the war is at cross-purposes with Arab countries who negotiated the hostage release and want the temporary truce to evolve into a more lasting cease-fire.