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\n

Mike Johnson has spent his 19 months as speaker forging a close relationship with President Donald Trump \u2014 in part to avoid the social-media bombshells<\/a> that derailed so many Republican priorities during Trump\u2019s first term.<\/p>\n

Now he has to deal with another, perhaps even more unpredictable online bomb-thrower.<\/p>\n

Elon Musk\u2019s decision to launch a sudden scorched-earth campaign against the GOP\u2019s domestic-policy megabill<\/a> has forced Johnson into a sudden scramble to save the centerpiece of the Republican legislative agenda.<\/p>\n

Starting in the moments Tuesday after Musk first called the bill a \u201cdisgusting abomination\u201d through the tech mogul\u2019s open breach Thursday<\/a> with Trump, the speaker has mounted a multi-front rebuttal to the criticism \u2014 aiming to keep the backlash from spinning out of control.<\/p>\n

That has included questioning Musk\u2019s personal motives for opposing the bill, challenging Musk\u2019s claims (backed up by independent scorekeepers) about the bill\u2019s fiscal impact, promising other legislative actions that will address Musk\u2019s concerns and otherwise questioning the Tesla and SpaceX chief\u2019s understanding of the legislative process.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, I’m a fiscal hawk myself,\u201d an exasperated Johnson told reporters Wednesday evening. \u201cIf I could cut $8 trillion in federal spending today, I would do it, but I do not have the votes for that. So, this is a deliberative body. It requires consensus. It took us over a year to reach the consensus, to get 217 votes necessary to make the cuts that we have.\u201d<\/p>\n

He described a \u201cmultiple step process\u201d for securing conservative wins that includes the spending \u201crescissions\u201d Republicans are now pursuing, as well the upcoming fiscal 2026 appropriations process and the prospect of \u201canother reconciliation package\u201d in addition to the megabill.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere may be a third one,\u201d Johnson floated, adding that \u201cwe have to do it in the proper sequence.\u201d<\/p>\n

It remains unclear just how effective Musk\u2019s attacks will be with Republican lawmakers \u2014 especially after he openly attacked Trump, suggesting without evidence<\/a> the president was implicated in wrongdoing with the late sex predator Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n

Most in the GOP enthusiastically embraced the charismatic automaker and rocketeer as he fully aligned himself last year with Trump and the GOP, and they cheered on his chaotic bureaucracy-slashing efforts in the White House.<\/p>\n

But they also see Trump, not Musk, as their political lodestar and so far there is no sign the president is wavering on the legislation, even after Musk told his 220 million followers on X Wednesday to call their representatives and \u201cKILL the BILL.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Top House leaders have publicly and privately emphasized Trump\u2019s ongoing support for the bill. Johnson said at a Wednesday news conference that Trump is \u201cnot delighted that Elon did a 180\u201d on the legislation.<\/p>\n

Asked about the possibility of Musk targeting House incumbents who vote for the legislation, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise pivoted to Trump\u2019s role as \u201cour best, most effective deliverer of support.\u201d<\/p>\n

GOP leaders and White House officials have also called in backup from online conservative influencers to publicly back the bill on X and other platforms amid Musk\u2019s all-out assault, according to two people granted anonymity to describe the private conversations.<\/p>\n

Johnson, for instance, shared a list<\/a> of \u201c50 MAJOR wins from Trump\u2019s Big Beautiful Bill that the media is ignoring\u201d from Turning Point USA\u2019s Charlie Kirk on his official speaker X account alongside endorsements from top Trump aide Stephen Miller and several of his own members.<\/p>\n

The speaker has also been willing to suggest that Musk\u2019s criticisms aren\u2019t entirely based in conservative principle \u2014 he noted to reporters on multiple occasions that Tesla, Musk\u2019s electric vehicle firm, would be negatively affected by the termination of clean-energy tax credits in the megabill.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that has an effect on his business and I lament that,\u201d he said Tuesday, later adding in a Bloomberg TV interview Wednesday<\/a> that the tax credits were \u201cimportant to the leader of Tesla.\u201d<\/p>\n

Musk on Thursday took direct aim at Johnson, suggesting the speaker had betrayed his past views on deficit spending by pushing the megabill forward \u2014 to which Johnson responded<\/a>: \u201cThe Mike Johnson of 2023 is the SAME Mike Johnson who has always been a lifelong fiscal hawk – who now serves as Speaker and is implementing a multi-stage plan to get our country back to fiscal responsibility and extraordinary economic growth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The main risk for Johnson right now is that Musk\u2019s attacks could buoy fiscal hard-liners at a critical moment for the legislation, with the Senate poised to make significant changes that could reduce the size of the spending cuts in the House passed bill. The bill will then have to come back to the House for final passage, and Musk is only emboldening potential holdouts.<\/p>\n

One such House hard-liner, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, said Musk\u2019s broadsides \u201cwouldn’t have hurt our case about two to three weeks ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps even more worrying for Republicans: Musk\u2019s critique of the bill\u2019s fiscal impact \u2014 adding $2.4 trillion in deficits<\/a> according to a new Congressional Budget Office analysis \u2014 is opening up a new line of attack on their incumbents as they work to sell the bill to the public ahead of the 2026 midterms. They\u2019re already under heavy fire from Democrats, who are training attack ads on the GOP\u2019s planned Medicaid cuts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think he\u2019s killing the bill,\u201d said one House GOP lawmaker. \u201cI\u2019m more worried he\u2019s killing our sales pitch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, who leads the House GOP campaign arm, dismissed Musk\u2019s threats in a brief interview Wednesday evening: \u201cHe’s been a friend and he’s just wrong about this bill,\u201d he said. \u201cI think long term, this is nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

But privately, wary GOP incumbents are noting that Musk isn\u2019t just another scorned administration official or outspoken MAGA Republican: He poured more than $250 million into the 2024 elections to help Trump and congressional Republicans take power. His veiled threats to target Republicans in the midterms are deeply worrying to members who can\u2019t afford to fend off Musk\u2019s intervention in their races \u2014 or might have been hoping he\u2019d write them a check.<\/p>\n

For some House Republicans, however, the public break with Musk comes as a welcome development. Many have been irritated<\/a> that Musk would not take responsibility for some of the chaos his slash-and-burn operation had unleashed in their districts \u2014 with some left stunned after Musk told them in a closed-door meeting back in March that his DOGE operation \u201ccan\u2019t bat a thousand all the time<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) called Musk \u201ca brilliant businessman\u201d but lamented that the billionaire isn\u2019t likely to change his mind about the bill \u2014 which Gimenez described as a first step in slashing government spending.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a process, and he’s an impatient person,\u201d Gimenez said. \u201cYou have to be more patient than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mike Johnson has spent his 19 months as speaker forging a close relationship with President Donald Trump \u2014 in part to avoid the social-media bombshells that derailed so many Republican priorities during Trump\u2019s first term. Now he has to deal with another, perhaps even more unpredictable online bomb-thrower. Elon Musk\u2019s decision to launch a sudden […]<\/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-9954","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\/9954","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=9954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9954\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}