Congress
Capitol agenda: GOP leaders rush into Elon Musk damage control
Hill GOP leaders are in full-on damage control as they scramble to save their megabill — and themselves — from the blast radius of Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s breakup.
But Musk doesn’t seem interested in sparing any part of the GOP trifecta from his wrath on his way out of Washington. The president’s new enemy attacked both Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune Thursday over the cost of the party’s sweeping domestic policy package. Thune brushed it aside.
Johnson, however, is mounting a multi-front rebuttal as he aims to keep Musk from hurting the megabill’s prospects. He’s questioning the tech mogul’s motives for opposing the bill and challenging his claims about its impact on the deficit. Johnson already had to reassure hard-liners concerned about the bill’s spending in order to squeeze the bill through the House last month.
“I’m the same guy that’s always been a deficit hawk, and now I’m the speaker of the House, and I’m working on a multi-step plan to reverse the fiscal insanity that has haunted our country,” Johnson told reporters Thursday. “We have to get the big, beautiful bill done.”
Johnson’s leadership team quickly claimed Musk wouldn’t rattle their members. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise insisted it hadn’t moved any votes. And Whip Tom Emmer, in an exclusive interview with POLITICO, said he’s not tracking Musk’s onslaught on X.
“Sorry,” Emmer said, “he’s not on my phone.”
Some fiscal hard-liners — who share in Musk’s concerns about the bill but allowed it to pass the House — avoided immediately picking sides in the feud. Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.), bombarded with questions about Musk on Thursday, said only that he’s “right on the deficit.” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) posted on X: “But … I really like both of them.”
They may not have to choose. Signs of a détente emerged late Thursday, with Trump brushing off the clash in a phone call with Blue Light News and Musk seeming somewhat open to a reconciliation (just not the reconciliation bill). White House aides are working to broker peace.
Still, if the Trump-Musk divorce goes through, MAGA will likely side with the president. There were signs Thursday that Musk was alienating some of Trump’s biggest Hill boosters.
“Elon is getting too personal. It’s getting out of control,” Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) told Blue Light News. “Some of the most recent comments, I think: Elon, you’ve lost your mind.”
What else we’re watching:
— Rescissions deadline: Congress must act by July 18 on Trump’s request to claw back $9.4 billion in funding or the White House will be required to spend the money, the Senate parliamentarian said. The House is expected to vote next week to approve the request, as submitted. But Senate Republicans are considering their options for making tweaks to the package.
— AI update for the megabill: Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-TX) said Thursday his committee would attempt to rewrite the 10-year moratorium on enforcement of state and local artificial intelligence laws that the House tucked into their version of the megabill.
Rachael Bade, Dasha Burns and Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.
The chair of the House Agriculture Committee said he’s not willing to “accept bad results” as a tradeoff for the benefits of advancements in artificial intelligence — a direct rebuttal to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
“As someone who practiced health care for 28 years, I’m never willing to accept bad results. I think we just need to do our best,” Rep. G.T. Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican, told reporters Monday.
He was responding to Altman’s comments to Decoded by Blue Light News that people “should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology and people having the agency.”
Pressed further on whether he agreed with Altman’s premise, Thompson replied, “No, I think we have to work harder to prevent any bad things from happening.”
Altman’s comments come in the wake of increased panic over the risks of catastrophic destruction from AI, with many industry leaders and experts arguing that guardrails are needed on the technology to prevent it from spinning out of human control.
Pressure is building on Congress to regulate the rapidly-advancing technology, but lawmakers are divided over whether the AI industry needs federal regulation or if it’s capable of governing itself.
The executives of major AI labs and tech companies gathered at the White House last week to discuss solutions with President Donald Trump, who believes overregulating AI will have national security repercussions. The group ended up signing a “morally binding” AI accord that critics say won’t do enough to prevent a worst-case scenario.
Thompson noted Monday he believes that AI will bring “tremendous solutions,” specifically in regards to finding cures for health issues like cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. But he also said AI has to be led with “principle” — comparing it to how he addressed digital assets in a bill to regulate the cryptocurrency industry, which he worked on as chair of the Agriculture Committee.
“The first principle is ‘do no harm.’ So we need to protect consumers, and that means, I think, building some guardrails — some guidelines — to do that,” Thompson said. He added that the second principle is to “foster innovation.”
“I think AI has a lot to do with that,” he added. “I don’t think AI works without RI: Real Intelligence.”
LE SUEUR, Minnesota — Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday there is no “consensus” yet on advancing a bill establishing permanent daylight saving time even as President Donald Trump ramps up pressure on Republicans to pass it.
Thune addressed the matter in a Monday interview after Trump used his Truth Social account multiple times over the weekend to rail against the legislation, known as the Sunshine Protection Act — going so far as to post the personal cell phone number of one of its GOP opponents, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas.
“The president feels strongly on it like he does a lot of issues,” he said. “It’s something we’re having conversations about but there’s no clear path forward or consensus on it yet.”
While Trump singled out Cotton for scrutiny, Thune made clear the opposition to the permanent daylight saving time proposal — which would lead to very late winter sunrises in some parts of the country — ran deeper than one senator.
Cotton has publicly voiced opposition to the proposal for year, citing, among other things, the fact that children in his state would be going to school in the dark for part of the year.
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) voiced similar objections Monday to reporters in the Capitol, saying he was mindful of “safety concerns in the more northern and rural states where children get on the school bus in very early hours.”
Thune, who spoke during a campaign swing in Minnesota with GOP Senate nominee Michele Tafoya, has himself opposed previous daylight saving bills. He said Monday that “a lot of it depends on where you are in the country” and that “your geography probably has as much to do with your position on that as anything.”
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who has aligned himself closely with Trump, is among the lawmakers who have been pushing to get the bill through the Senate. He recently told POLITICO, “I’m going to make sure it gets passed this year.”
Riley Rogerson contributed to this report.
Democrats have pulled back some of their ads in North Carolina’s Senate race, days after the top Senate Republican super PAC paused its future spending in the state.
WinSenate, a group affiliated with the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC, has removed roughly $1.1 million in North Carolina ad buys this week, according to ad tracking firm AdImpact. The group still has roughly $18.8 million in future reservations through Election Day.
“Senate Majority PAC is committed to seeing this race through to victory, and will continue to make spending decisions based on how to best build a strong Senate majority,” Senate Majority PAC spokesperson Lauren French said in a statement.
The move, combined with the GOP-aligned Senate Leadership Fund’s decision to pause future spending, are a signal that both parties are shifting resources amid an ever-expanding Senate map. Democrats are increasingly confident in their North Carolina Senate nominee, Roy Cooper, as he continues to hold a sizable lead in public polling over Republican Michael Whatley — but some privately say states like Michigan and New Hampshire need more resources.
Meanwhile, multiple Republican groups, not just SLF, have retreated from the state in recent weeks, effectively deciding that it’s no longer worth the money to boost Whatley’s campaign.
The Koch-aligned Americans for Prosperity Action left North Carolina off its $22 million list of future spending across key Senate contests, and Old North Action removed $6.5 million in ad reservations last month.
The Cooper campaign, however, is still treating the race as competitive, pointing to North Carolina’s closely divided electorate and the fact that President Donald Trump won the state in each of the past three presidential elections.
“North Carolina is a truly 50/50 state and Democrats haven’t won a US Senate race in 18 years. We can’t take anything for granted or our eye off the ball,” said Morgan Jackson, a senior adviser to the Cooper campaign. “DC is broken and we’re going to continue to run this race like we’re ten points down to ensure North Carolinians get the change they desperately need.”
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