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{"id":9908,"date":"2025-06-04T15:17:20","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T15:17:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/johnson-thune-push-back-on-musks-megabill-criticism\/"},"modified":"2025-06-04T15:17:20","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T15:17:20","slug":"johnson-thune-push-back-on-musks-megabill-criticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/johnson-thune-push-back-on-musks-megabill-criticism\/","title":{"rendered":"Johnson, Thune push back on Musk\u2019s megabill criticism"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>The top two congressional Republicans rebutted Elon Musk\u2019s criticism of their \u201cbig, beautiful bill\u201d Wednesday as the tech mogul and former Trump administration cost-cutter continued attacking the GOP legislation overnight.<\/p>\n<p>Speaker <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/242539\" data-person-id=\"242539\">Mike Johnson<\/a> spent several minutes during a closed-door House Republican Conference meeting on Wednesday morning pushing back on Musk and trying to reassure Republicans after Musk signaled that he thinks lawmakers who support the megabill <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/live-updates\/2025\/06\/03\/congress\/elon-musk-big-beautiful-bill-abomination-00383370\" target=\"_blank\">should be ousted next year<\/a>, according to three people in the room granted anonymity to describe the private meeting.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson told his conference that he\u2019s tried to call Musk to explain the process behind the <a href=\"https:\/\/legislation.politicopro.com\/bill\/US_119_HR_1\" target=\"_blank\">megabill<\/a>, as well as a separate bill to claw back billions in spending. Johnson\u2019s message, in the meeting, according to the attendees: People will have differences of opinion; don\u2019t take it personally.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think he&#8217;s flat wrong, and I&#8217;ve told him as much,&#8221; Johnson said at a news conference after the meeting. <\/p>\n<p>Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/51242\" data-person-id=\"51242\">John Thune<\/a> downplayed the impact that Musk\u2019s criticism would have on his whip count. Republicans can afford no more than three defections in the chamber, and Sen. <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/151828\" data-person-id=\"151828\">Rand Paul<\/a> (R-Ky.) is already expected to oppose the bill.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Obviously he has some influence, got a big following on social media,\u201d he said. \u201cBut at the end of the day this is a 51-vote exercise here in the Senate, and I think it&#8217;s going to be the question for our members is going to be would you prefer the alternative. And the alternative isn&#8217;t a good one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thune said he had spoken to Musk \u201ca couple of days ago,\u201d ahead of his latest attacks. Musk called the bill a \u201cdisgusting abomination\u201d yesterday, and he continued attacking the bill and the GOP Congress overnight for <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1930149571801559198\" target=\"_blank\">not doing more<\/a> to address \u201cmassive deficit spending.\u201d The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated Wednesday the bill <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/06\/04\/house-gop-gets-megabills-official-price-tag-2-4t-00384596\" target=\"_blank\">will add $2.4 trillion in deficits<\/a> over the coming decade.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are going to be a lot of people who share commentary about this, and we just got to make sure we&#8217;re doing everything we can to get our arguments out there,\u201d Thune added.<\/p>\n<p>House Majority Leader <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/59655\" data-person-id=\"59655\">Steve Scalise<\/a> also downplayed Musk\u2019s potential threats to GOP members in a brief interview, saying that the party is \u201ccontinuing to see fundraising goals get exceeded\u201d ahead next year\u2019s midterms.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe speaker, myself, our whole team continues to exceed fundraising goals, because people know what&#8217;s at stake next year,\u201d he added. \u201cAnd President Trump&#8217;s all in, by the way, too, helping us hold the House. \u2026 He\u2019s been our best, most effective deliverer of support.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Johnson said at the news conference that Trump is deeply unhappy about Musk torching the centerpiece of his legislative agenda \u2014 reiterating comments he&#8217;d made inside the closed-door meeting: \u201cAs you know, he\u2019s not delighted that Elon did a 180 on that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The top two congressional Republicans rebutted Elon Musk\u2019s criticism of their \u201cbig, beautiful bill\u201d Wednesday as the tech mogul and former Trump administration cost-cutter continued attacking the GOP legislation overnight. Speaker Mike Johnson spent several minutes during a closed-door House Republican Conference meeting on Wednesday morning pushing back on Musk and trying to reassure Republicans [&hellip;]<\/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-9908","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\/9908","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=9908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9908\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}