{"id":10006,"date":"2025-06-06T20:32:13","date_gmt":"2025-06-06T20:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/gop-lawmakers-stick-with-trump-in-messy-musk-breakup\/"},"modified":"2025-06-06T20:32:13","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T20:32:13","slug":"gop-lawmakers-stick-with-trump-in-messy-musk-breakup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/gop-lawmakers-stick-with-trump-in-messy-musk-breakup\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP lawmakers stick with Trump in messy Musk breakup"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Amid the messy ongoing divorce<\/a> between the president and the world\u2019s richest man, this much is already clear: Donald Trump has sole custody of the House GOP.<\/p>\n

Republican lawmakers are making clear that, if forced to choose, it\u2019s Trump \u2014 not Elon Musk \u2014 they\u2019re sticking by as leaders race to contain the fallout for their \u201cone big, beautiful bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who helms a House panel inspired by Musk\u2019s Department of Government Efficiency initiative, blasted Musk\u2019s public attacks on Trump as \u201cunwarranted\u201d and criticized his \u201clashing out on the internet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica voted for Donald Trump on Nov. 4, 2024 \u2014 every single vote mattered just as much as the other,\u201d Greene said in a brief interview. \u201cAnd whether it was $1 that was donated or hundreds of millions of dollars, the way I see it, everybody’s the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like many Americans, GOP members watched Thursday’s online exchange with a sense of car-crash-like fascination. Many shared that they hoped Musk and Trump could somehow patch things up<\/a>. But many \u2014 including some of the former DOGE chief\u2019s biggest backers on Capitol Hill \u2014 were wholly unsurprised to see the billionaire suddenly cut down to size after months of chatter about who was really calling the shots at the White House.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s President Trump, not President Musk,\u201d said one lawmaker granted anonymity to speak frankly about prevailing opinions inside the House GOP.<\/p>\n

Speaker Mike Johnson made no secret of where he stands on the public breakup.<\/p>\n

He told reporters Friday that he hoped the two men \u201creconcile\u201d and that it would be \u201cgood for the party and the country if all this worked out.\u201d But in the nearly same breath, Johnson quickly reaffirmed his allegiance to the president and issued a warning to Musk.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo not doubt, do not second-guess and don\u2019t ever challenge the president of the United States, Donald Trump,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cHe is the leader of the party. He is the most consequential political figure of this generation and probably the modern era. And he\u2019s doing an excellent job for the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other House Republicans concurred with the speaker\u2019s assessment Friday, even as they faced the looming threat of Musk targeting them in the upcoming midterms or at least pulling back on his political giving after pouring more than $250 million into the 2024 election on behalf of Trump and the GOP ticket.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s unfortunate,\u201d said Rep. Tim Moore (R-N.C.) of the breakup. \u201cBut Donald Trump was elected by a majority of the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio, who was one of only two Republicans to oppose Trump\u2019s megabill in the House last month, also made clear he stood with the president over Musk.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe does not have a flight mode \u2014 he’s fight, fight, fight \u2026 and he’s been pretty measured,\u201d Davidson said of Trump. \u201cI think Elon Musk looked a little out of control. And hopefully he gets back and grounded.\u201d<\/p>\n

GOP leaders who have spent weeks cajoling their members to vote for the sprawling domestic-policy bill hardly hid their feelings as Musk continued to bash the legislation online, even calling on Americans to call their representatives in an effort to tank it.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrankly, it’s united Republicans even more to go and defend the great things that are in this bill \u2014 and once it’s passed and signed into law by August, September, you’re going to see this economy turning around like nothing we’ve ever seen,\u201d Majority Leader Steve Scalise said in a brief interview Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ll be waiting for all those people who said the opposite to admit that they were wrong,\u201d Scalise added. \u201cBut I’m not expecting that to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few Republicans are still trying to walk a fine line by embracing both Trump and Musk \u2014 especially some fiscal hawks who believe Musk is right about the megabill adding trillions to the national debt.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Elon has some valid points about the bill, concerns that myself and a handful of others were working to address up until the passage of it,\u201d Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) said in an interview. \u201cI think that’ll make the bill stronger. I think it’ll help our standing with the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Trump and Musk \u201chave paid a tremendous price personally for this country,\u201d Cloud added. \u201cAnd them working together is certainly far better for the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Notably, House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, a key Musk ally on Blue Light News, declined to engage Thursday when asked about the burgeoning feud. Instead, the Ohio Republican responded by praising the megabill Musk had moved to tank.<\/p>\n

Democrats, for their part, watched the unfolding and public breakup with surprise and a heavy dose of schadenfreude.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are no good guys in a fight like this,\u201d Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.). \u201cYou just eat some popcorn and watch the show.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amid the messy ongoing divorce between the president and the world\u2019s richest man, this much is already clear: Donald Trump has sole custody of the House GOP. Republican lawmakers are making clear that, if forced to choose, it\u2019s Trump \u2014 not Elon Musk \u2014 they\u2019re sticking by as leaders race to contain the fallout for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10006\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}