Congress
Elon Musk brings all the deregulation hype to X
Elon Musk’s role in Donald Trump’s administration hasn’t been announced, but the billionaire and Tesla CEO is already sharing some of his enthusiasm for the incoming president and his deregulatory desires on social media.
Musk, who owns the social media platform X, has been posting regularly about politics, deregulation and incoming Trump administration personnel. The prominent Trump ally appears poised to play a significant role advising the incoming administration, and some social media posts indicate he is spending time at Mar-a-Lago advising the president-elect during the early transition.
His public posts indicate how he might seek to shape Trump’s policies.
Musk’s biography line on X currently reads: “The people voted for major government reform.”
“Government Efficiency FTW!!” he posted Monday in response to a Republican lawmaker’s suggestion that a GOP-led Congress should have bills to “shrink government overreach” on Trump’s desk by the first day of his term.
Musk recently has posted criticism of the Education Department, weighed in on the next Senate majority leader and celebrated Trump for selecting Tom Homan as his White House “border czar.”
He welcomed broad deregulation and government spending cuts and reposted a comment from Trump ally Vivek Ramaswamy saying that, “A band of small-government revolutionaries will save our nation. It’s the only way.”
Musk said of Ramaswamy’s remarks, “Absolutely! Would be interesting to hear recommendations for roles in the new administration for consideration by the President.”
Musk also called for “maniacally dedicated small-government revolutionaries” to join the incoming Trump administration.
Trump said in September that Musk had agreed to lead a “government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government.”
Musk wouldn’t officially serve in the Cabinet, Trump told Fox News in October. “He doesn’t want to be in the Cabinet. He just wants to be in charge of cost-cutting.”
The Trump transition team declined to share the details of Musk’s expected role with the incoming administration.
“Elon Musk is a once-in-a-generation business leader and our federal bureaucracy will certainly benefit from his ideas and efficiency. His specific role will be announced when that decision is formalized,” said Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump-Vance transition team.
Congress
Capitol agenda: Cory Mills under fire but not going anywhere
You may hear House members calling for his ouster after the resignations of Reps. Tony Gonzales and Eric Swalwell, but Rep. Cory Mills looks to be on solid footing.
Despite months of scrutiny over a range of conduct issues — including accusations of illicit involvement in federal contracts and stolen valor — members of both parties say the circumstances are different for the Florida Republican.
Republicans and Democrats are leaning on bureaucratic rationalizations before leaping to a fresh wave of expulsions, despite growing alarm around congressional sleaze.
They say they’re waiting for the conclusion of an active House Ethics investigation into Mills before moving to crack down on him — a similar approach they’re taking with Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, who is set to hear her formal punishment from Ethics next Tuesday after the panel found her guilty of two dozen counts of misconduct.
“I have a three part test — Has the member admitted to the conduct in question? Has there been a finding by a court? Or has there been a finding by the Ethics Committee?” Republican Rep. Nick LaLota said. “I don’t think that the Mills case meets any of those three criteria.”
“If there’s expulsion votes, if they’re political, I’m not interested,” said Rep. Brad Schneider, the chair of the centrist New Democrat Coalition. “If they are based on facts established by process, I’m gonna follow the facts.”
Mills said in an interview he had told Speaker Mike Johnson he was “unfairly lumped into this” with Swalwell and Gonzales as well as with Cherfilus-McCormick. Unlike Cherfilus-McCormick, he is not facing a federal indictment. And unlike Swalwell and Gonzales, he is not facing charges of sexual misconduct — something Mills said Johnson has acknowledged.
It’s not clear where the investigation into Mills stands. Johnson told reporters Tuesday he is “looking into” it. Republicans have quietly worried about the accusations against Mills for some time, but the GOP’s narrow House majority has complicated the prospect of leadership engaging in any sort of accountability.
What else we’re watching:
— FISA lives to face its next test: Johnson is figuring out how to move forward with a clean, 18-month extension of a key spy power — Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act— as several Republicans plan to vote against a procedural step up for consideration Wednesday. Talks are ongoing between GOP leaders, hard-liners and the White House as the program faces an April 20 expiration.
— Sanders to Force Israel Arms Sales Vote: Sen. Bernie Sanders plans to force a vote Wednesday on two resolutions to block nearly half a billion dollars in U.S. arms sales to Israel. There’s renewed energy behind Sanders’ push as Democrats separately try to rein in Trump’s power to continue the Israel-US war in Iran.
—Vought’s Budget Pitch: White House budget chief Russ Vought is set to defend Trump’s $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget request when he appears at House Budget Wednesday. Meanwhile House Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers said Tuesday he expects to craft defense policy legislation with a $1.15 trillion budget topline, a move that could make the upcoming NDAA more politically palatable to Democrats.
Riley Rogerson and Hailey Fuchs contributed to this report.
Congress
GOP leaders struggle to keep $75B immigration plan narrow
Senate Republicans plan to forge ahead next week with the first formal steps to pass a party-line immigration enforcement bill totaling $65 billion to $75 billion.
But as GOP leaders scramble to meet President Donald Trump’s June 1 deadline to clear a bill funding ICE and Border Patrol for more than three years, they are facing competing visions within their ranks for what else should be tacked on as the party runs out of time to score more legislative wins before the midterms.
“I think this is it. This is our shot,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told reporters Tuesday, predicting that Republicans would not end up enacting a third filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation bill before Election Day.
“And that’s why you sense some frustration among a lot of the senators,” he added. “Some of which has been voiced and a lot of which it hasn’t.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune laid out the up-to $75 billion price tag for the bill to reporters Tuesday. The bill’s topline was in the range of what Republicans had been telegraphing over the past week but could spark pushback from at least one fiscal hawk — Senate Homeland Security Chair Rand Paul — because it’s higher than the roughly $50 billion it would cost to fund immigration enforcement at current levels for three years.
The worry among some senior Republicans is that expanding the scope of the bill will slow down the process and complicate the measure’s chances of passing. Instead, they want to simply fund the immigration enforcement agencies not covered under the Senate-passed measure House Republicans are still waiting to clear, two months after funding first lapsed for all of the Department of Homeland Security, which houses the immigration agencies.
“We have members who want other things. I mean, I want other things,” Thune said Tuesday afternoon. “But obviously we have a specific mission and purpose here.”
Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C) is expected to release the budget resolution as soon as this week to set the general framework for the final package.
Senate GOP leaders are encouraging Republican senators to offer their ideas as amendments during the chamber’s marathon “vote-a-rama” debate, during which lawmakers are allowed to offer as many germane amendments as they wish.
“There was some suggestion that it ought to be a little broader and everything. I think that’s where the default position is, ‘Then put it in an amendment, and we’ll see if it can pass,’” West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, the No. 4 Senate Republican, told reporters Tuesday afternoon.
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso said Tuesday the chamber intends to vote “next week” on approving the fiscal blueprint that will allow them to later pass the party-line immigration enforcement bill.
Thune can lose three of his own members and still win on the floor with Vice President JD Vance as the tie-breaking vote, and Republicans are cautiously optimistic they will have the votes next week.
But some fiscal hawks aren’t yet backing down from their demand that the immigration enforcement bill be paid for, which could broaden the scope of the measure as well as the number of issues where Democrats could force tricky amendment votes.
Even if Senate Republicans succeed in adopting the budget framework next week, an identical budget measure also needs to clear the House. GOP hard-liners rejected the Senate’s last attempt to end the DHS shutdown and are now demanding that Republicans use the party-line reconciliation process to fund all of the department.
Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson had been expected to hold a weekly meeting Tuesday where they would discuss the path forward on DHS funding, among other issues. But Thune said the sitdown was punted to Wednesday because of scheduling issues.
Mia McCarthy and Calen Razor contributed to this report.
Congress
Mike Johnson faces FISA mayhem
A key procedural step to extend U.S. government spy powers ahead of next week’s deadline is in limbo as members of the House Rules Committee Tuesday night paused their work on the legislation.
GOP leaders are trying to figure out how to get enough support for a clean extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that’s a priority for President Donald Trump, despite opposition from House GOP hard-liners.
Senior Republicans are planning to reconvene the panel at 10:15 p.m. Tuesday to try to make progress, and Republicans privately say they are closer to an agreement, according to five people.
House GOP leaders appear more open to discussing an amendment involving warrants, and hardliners also want a previously promised ban on a central bank digital currency to advance through some vehicle. In exchange, House GOP leaders are pushing for a longer extension than 18 months.
Speaker Mike Johnson wants to put a clean, 18-month FISA extension on the House floor Wednesday with the goal of final passage before the program expires April 20. But at least a dozen GOP hard-liners are vowing to oppose a procedural vote if they’re not given the chance to amend the legislation.
GOP leaders can lose two Republican votes on the committee and still advance the measure.
The next hurdle will be passing the party-line procedural vote on the House floor. Several Republicans, including Reps. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), suggested they would be open to tanking the rule vote on the floor with Johnson’s razor thin majority.
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), a Rules Committee member, said in an interview he told the White House he would vote against the clean 18 month extension unless an amendment to prohibit warrantless surveillance of Americans was added.
“What I want is a FISA amendment for warrants,” Norman said. “You get that, we’ll be good.”
The problem for House GOP leadership, however, is that a warrants amendment is likely to pass if they allow a vote on it, scuttling Trump’s demand for a clean extension. Some Republicans also want an amendment to prevent third-party data brokers from selling information to the federal government, according to five people involved in the talks.
Administration officials invited some of the GOP holdouts to a 6:30 p.m. meeting at the White House Tuesday night, but many of them went instead to the regular meeting of the House Freedom Caucus a few blocks from the Capitol to discuss their own plans.
Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), one member who has supported the White House’s position of a clean extension, was at the Freedom Caucus’ meeting Tuesday night.
GOP leaders have been privately discussing a backup option of a shorter extension, such as 12 months, which some conservatives are open to. But several holdouts said that would not be enough to get their support.
“I don’t think a clean extension has the votes to pass,” Clyde said. “No matter how long it is.”
House GOP leaders have also discussed simply putting a rule for the clean extension on the House floor Wednesday, and letting Trump see who opposes it, before they pursue any backup plans.
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