{"id":9867,"date":"2025-06-03T20:17:16","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T20:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/musks-latest-megabill-bombshell-exasperates-gop-lawmakers\/"},"modified":"2025-06-03T20:17:16","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T20:17:16","slug":"musks-latest-megabill-bombshell-exasperates-gop-lawmakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/musks-latest-megabill-bombshell-exasperates-gop-lawmakers\/","title":{"rendered":"Musk’s latest megabill bombshell exasperates GOP lawmakers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Elon Musk’s declaration that the GOP’s domestic-policy megabill, the centerpiece of President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda, is a \u201cdisgusting abomination<\/a>\u201d rocketed around Capitol Hill Tuesday \u2014 and frustrated a host of Republican lawmakers.<\/p>\n

Inside the Senate Republican lunch, it \u201cgot spread around pretty quick,\u201d said Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin \u2014 who, like other GOP senators, was swarmed by reporters afterward seeking reaction to the tech mogul’s blunt musings.<\/p>\n

Speaker Mike Johnson had just gaveled the House into session after a quiet recess week when he was set upon with questions. He immediately declared Musk\u2019s take<\/a> on the House product \u201cterribly wrong\u201d and \u201cvery disappointing\u201d \u2014 and revealed he\u2019d walked the tech mogul through the bill as recently as Monday.<\/p>\n

Majority Leader John Thune, characteristically diplomatic, said only that GOP senators \u201chave a difference of opinion\u201d with Musk and that he hoped \u201che\u2019ll come to a different conclusion\u201d after learning more about the bill.<\/p>\n

Democrats were more than happy to play up the discord over the GOP’s legislative centerpiece, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer emerging from the Democratic lunch with a printout of the post and giddily telling reporters, \u201cI agree with Elon Musk!\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether Musk, with all the power he wielded in D.C. over the past several months, will now be able to shape the megabill \u2014 or kill it entirely \u2014 is another question, though.<\/p>\n

The answer is, probably not, according to several mostly exasperated Senate Republicans who weighed in Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s entitled to his opinion,\u201d said North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, who gave a one-word answer on whether Musk\u2019s message would affect amendments to the bill: \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even MAGA conservatives who have been among Musk\u2019s biggest Hill backers brushed him off: \u201cWe need spending reductions, no doubt. But we\u2019re going to work through it,\u201d said Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri. <\/p>\n

Added Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, \u201cI think the Senate should make the bill substantially better, and I hope and believe we\u2019ll do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota said he just didn\u2019t see Musk\u2019s opposition moving the ball much: \u201cI think the people that are of the same view are encouraged, and I think others are sort of dismissive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI like Elon Musk,\u201d he added, \u201cbut he\u2019s one man.\u201d<\/p>\n

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misspelled Sen. Eric Schmitt’s name.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elon Musk’s declaration that the GOP’s domestic-policy megabill, the centerpiece of President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda, is a \u201cdisgusting abomination\u201d rocketed around Capitol Hill Tuesday \u2014 and frustrated a host of Republican lawmakers. Inside the Senate Republican lunch, it \u201cgot spread around pretty quick,\u201d said Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin \u2014 who, like other GOP […]<\/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-9867","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\/9867","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=9867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9867\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}