Congress
House spending leaders on Musk plan: We’ll see
Asked about president-elect Donald Trump’s promise to have Elon Musk draw up plans to radically overhaul the government and “send shockwaves” through Washington, key Republicans on Blue Light News had a slightly more muted message: Sure, we’ll take a look.
“I mean, they might make recommendations that we go ‘nah, not going to do that’,” Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), who leads the panel that funds the Department of Interior and environmental agencies, said Wednesday. “But there’s nothing wrong with having an outside group of people looking at how you’re doing things and how you might be able to do them better.”
Trump announced a new “Department of Government Efficiency” Tuesday night, a non-governmental office with Musk and MAGA investor Vivek Ramaswamy at the helm. He promised “large scale structural reform,” and Musk has said it’s possible to cut “at least $2 trillion” from the federal budget by eradicating waste. (Whether in a year or over a decade, it’s not clear.) Ramaswamy’s vision includes crowdsourcing ideas from X users.
But importantly for any planned cuts, Congress still holds the purse strings. Any spending reductions need to run through appropriators on Capitol Hill, and lawmakers — even budget hawks friendly to the idea — are waiting to see the office’s actual recommendations.
“I’d be very interested in whatever they had to say,” House Appropriations Chair Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told reporters. But he poured water on the prospect of the commission quickly taking out $2 trillion in discretionary spending — the levels his committee sets every year.
“Two trillion when you spend roughly six trillion a year — that’s hard to find,” he added. “That would actually push you into Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, so I don’t know how real these figures are.”
“I don’t think they’re walking in with any preconceived notion that this needs to be cut,” said Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), who is running to lead the influential House and Commerce Committee. “We’ll have to see what they come up with.”
Musk has a fan in House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), who said he was “excited” about the billionaire’s plans and even has some ideas of his own. “Of course, I’m going to try to meet with him. I got a plan I’d like to share with him,” he said.
Democrats were much more skeptical. “Tell me what you’re going to do. You’ve got a dollar amount, but where the hell are you going to find it and from whom?,” asked Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee. “There are a whole lot of people who want to deal with the appropriations process and don’t know anything about the appropriations process.”
Reporters Jennifer Scholtes and David Lim contributed to this report.
The House Oversight Committee on Friday received one non-disclosure agreement involving billionaire founder of Apollo Global Management Leon Black, an associate of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, but the panel deemed it insufficient and promised to follow up with his attorney.
The panel had provided extra time for Black to produce the non-disclosure agreements, but his attorneys only turned over one.
“Leon Black isn’t acting in good faith,” a spokesperson for Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said. “The Committee agreed to extend the deadline two weeks for full production of all NDAs and his attorney has deliberately chosen to only produce one. This is unacceptable and the Committee will follow up with his attorney.”
Susan Estrich, Black’s lawyer, said she sent the committee one NDA between Black and Guzel Ganieva, an agreement she said Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019, was aware of. Ganieva and Black had an intimate relationship that resulted in Black making a payment to Ganieva for approximately $9.5 million. Ganieva filed a lawsuit against Black alleging sexual misconduct and defamation, which was dismissed by a judge in 2023.
“The responsive information includes the only confidentiality agreement that predated Epstein’s death and the only one of which Epstein was aware. Epstein was not involved with drafting this agreement,” Estrich said in a statement. “This confidentiality agreement with Guzel Ganieva resolved her attempts to extort Mr. Black.”
“The New York State Supreme Court dismissed Ms. Ganieva’s baseless lawsuit against Mr. Black with prejudice and that decision was affirmed by an appellate court,” the statement continued. “Ms. Ganieva expressly acknowledged that she never met Epstein.”
The House Oversight Committee’s subpoena demanded all NDAs for which Black is a party to, or that relate to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell — a convicted sex offender and Epstein accomplice — that Black may have in his possession.
That information “is vital” to the panel’s inquiry, Comer said when he issued the subpoena after Black refused to answer questions about the agreements. “We need the NDAs to be able to move forward with the investigation,” Comer said at the time.
Black told the committee in June that he paid Epstein $158 million between 2013 and 2017 for “highly valuable and legitimate tax and estate planning services for my family office.”
Estrich said, “to imply misconduct because of the existence of a confidentiality agreement is entirely unjustified” and argued the agreements “are routinely used in business.” She also noted that “to the extent that Mr. Black may have executed confidentiality agreements in his business and private endeavors, they are not relevant to the legitimate purpose of the Committee’s work.”
Estrich added that Black “had no awareness of the criminal activities that led to Epstein’s arrest in 2019” and that Black “never abused a woman.”
The White House is quietly trying to discourage a candidate previously endorsed by the president from switching congressional districts in Louisiana, as the GOP looks to pick up an additional seat in the state following a freshly drawn gerrymander.
White House officials relayed in calls earlier this week that state Sen. Blake Miguez — whom President Donald Trump backed in February to run in Louisiana’s 5th District, which is being vacated by Rep. Julia Letlow — was making moves to run in the newly redrawn 6th District, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.
Republicans are seeking to flip the 6th District after the Supreme Court’s ruling striking down major parts of the Voting Rights Act allowed the state Legislature to lock in a new 5-to-1 GOP majority map. In May, state lawmakers erased Rep. Cleo Fields’ (D-La.) sprawling, majority-Black and majority-Democratic district in favor of a safely Republican one.
Miguez is facing allegations of sexually assaulting a woman in 2007. Miguez has denied the claims of sexual assault, which resurfaced in March media reports and blindsided many Trump officials, according to three other people with knowledge of the conversations.
Jon George, the White House Southeast regional political director, said in the calls this week that Trump officials told Miguez in a recent meeting he would not immediately have the president’s endorsement to enter the race for the 6th District. White House officials would continue to assess the race.
George said Trump’s endorsement of Miguez in the 5th District would not be rescinded. He said on the calls that Miguez then indicated he would still push ahead to run in the 6th District.
His campaign website is now locked and password protected.
The people with knowledge of the calls and the president’s political operations were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. When reached for comment, a White House official — similarly granted anonymity — reiterated Trump has not pulled his backing.
“President Trump has not rescinded his endorsement of Blake Miguez. He will look at the candidate field after candidate filing if necessary, but at this point he has not made any changes nor does [he] have an intent to,” the official said. “If new information changes things, [we] will cross that bridge when we get to it.”
Miguez did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Louisiana’s redistricting transformed Fields’ district from one then-Vice President Kamala Harris carried by about 15 points in 2024 to one Trump would have won by over 30 points, according to calculations from The Downballot.
Fields announced earlier this week he will not seek reelection, instead running for the state Senate.
Trump endorsed Miguez in February to run in the 5th District, after he ended his Senate bid to help clear the field for Letlow, who was Trump’s pick to primary GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy.
The 5th District was deep red before the Legislature redrew the lines earlier this year, and remains safe Republican territory even as the boundaries shifted a bit. A slew of GOP candidates are already in the race to replace Letlow, including state Rep. Michael Echols, the majority leader of the Louisiana House of Representatives.
State. Sen. Rick Edmonds, Speaker Mike Johnson’s former pastor, and several other Republicans are either already in or taking steps to run in the 6th District. The state’s filing deadline is Aug. 7.
Liz Crampton contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump is ramping up pressure on Senate Republicans to quickly advance a $95 billion budget blueprint — even as the mood on Capitol Hill signals GOP senators are inclined to wait until later this year, if ever.
“I am asking that the Senate adopt a Budget Resolution, which can pass with a simple Majority, before leaving for the August recess,” Trump wrote Friday on Truth Social. “We are ready to work side-by-side with the Senate to get this done for the American People!”
House Republicans approved the budget resolution before leaving town for weeks. It’s the first step in a two-part plan to use the reconciliation process to bypass the Senate filibuster and pass billions in funding for the Iran war, farm assistance and election-related grants.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune hasn’t directly ruled out taking up the budget blueprint but warned Thursday that he doesn’t believe it currently has the votes to succeed.
“I can’t count to 50 right now on a budget resolution, but we’ll see. … The priority is funding the government, and so to me, that’s the thing we’ve got to keep our eyes on,” Thune said.
Most Senate Republicans don’t expect Thune to put the measure on the floor before the Senate leaves town in early August for its extended summer break given the deep concerns surrounding the House’s blueprint inside the GOP conference: Deficit hawks want offsets, defense and farm-state Republicans want more money for their priorities and some GOP senators aren’t convinced they should pursue a third reconciliation bill to begin with.
Even if Thune was able to overcome all of those hurdles, the Senate will need to change the resolution to add instructions for its committees to draft portions of the reconciliation measure itself — meaning the House would need to vote on the budget resolution a second time later this year to kick off the reconciliation process in earnest.
But Trump is still attempting to twist Thune’s arm. Earlier this week he urged supporters to call the senate majority leader to tell him to pass the GOP election overhaul bill known as the SAVE America Act, noting parts of it could be included under a third reconciliation bill.
Some GOP senators have pointed out, however, that the SAVE America Act would need to be ruled germane to the reconciliation process by the Senate parliamentarian, and there’s no guarantee the proposal would withstand her scrutiny. A few GOP senators have also previously voted against versions of the bill.
Senate Republicans have also tried to explain to the president for months that the bill doesn’t have the 60 votes needed to advance and that there isn’t enough support to blow up the filibuster to ram it through that way, either.
Trump’s allies expect the president to keep hammering Thune in any case — though how hard Trump pushes could depend on the outcome of the midterms.
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