As the Senate debated President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” before a final vote, Musk issued a stark warning via his social media platform X. “Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their head in shame! And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth,”
Elon Musk vows to help defeat Republicans who vote for Trump’s megabill
We begin tonight with what President Trump calls his big, beautiful bill, which could be headed for a final vote in the Senate after a long day of debating amendments to it and perhaps for some Republican members, staring into the abyss. Here’s why. Polling consistently shows it is strikingly unpopular with voters.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates it adds more than $3 trillion to the national debt and could deprive nearly 12 million Americans of health insurance through Medicaid. That, and it now comes with a double dose of existential terror for Republicans on the fence. On the one hand, the president over the weekend managed to drive one opponent of the bill out of seeking another term.
On the other, Elon Musk has just weighed in on anyone voting yes, quoting him now. Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their head in shame. And if that weren’t enough, he adds, and they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this earth.
Now given that his Mars mission won’t be ready to go for years, that’s a lot of primaries. But that’s not all. He also reiterated his call from three weeks ago for a new political party and says he would start one a day after the bill passes.
Rock meet hard place. North Carolina’s Tom Tillis chose the rock, announcing that he will not seek another term and he slammed the president on the bill’s Medicaid cuts. What do I tell 663,000 people in two years or three years when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding’s not there anymore? It is inescapable that this bill and its current form will betray the very promise that Donald J. Trump made in the Oval Office.
So today White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt said that Senator Tillis is, in these are her words, just wrong. But listen to what the president has been saying on the subject going back a decade and decide for yourself. Save Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security without cuts.
Have to do it. We’re going to love and cherish Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. We’re not going to do anything with that.
Can you guarantee that Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security will not be touched? Yeah, I mean, I have said it so many times, you shouldn’t be asking me that question. What happens if it comes to your desk, has the tax cuts, but also cuts to Medicaid? Would you veto that? We’re not doing that. Would you veto that? I would if they were cutting it, but they’re not cutting it.
We’re not cutting Medicaid. We’re not cutting Medicare. A lot to get to tonight.
Chief White House correspondent Caitlin Collins starts us off. Caitlin, how concerned is the White House about potential cracks in the Republican coalition? I mean, they’re watching all of this and watching Senator Tom Tillis, you know, in that scathing floor speech on Sunday, John. But then, of course, after he announced that he was not going to be seeking reelection, the president was cheerleading that and saying essentially good riddance to Tom Tillis, given they believe he’s been a thorn in their side during all of this.
And John, obviously, when they look at this overall, and I’ve been talking to White House officials about what they think is ultimately going to happen here, they do think this will pass. They don’t think Republicans are going to defy the president on his signature legislation, as big and sweeping as it is, and with those potential cuts. The question is how long it’s going to take to get this through, to get this done.
And that’s what they’ve been watching, obviously, very closely at the White House. But with Senator Tillis there, as he’s coming out and he’s saying that the president is being misinformed by his advisers on what is actually in this bill, and that it’s going to make him essentially go back on the promises that you just heard him say there about not interfering with people’s Medicaid benefits, I mean, the White House is just flatly rejecting that and arguing that it’s wrong. But I think you have to look at, you know, with Tillis’ decision yesterday to say he’s not going to be seeking reelection, he doesn’t really have a lot to lose here in terms of why he is speaking out and why he is saying that, or any incentive to say something that he doesn’t actually think could put Republicans in peril.
And so that is something they’re watching, obviously, closely at the White House. They just essentially want to get this passed. They want to be able to talk about tax cuts and have that as something that they are trumpeting.
And you’re seeing how the president is working on this in terms of writing scathing-truth social posts of people who are disagreeing with him, and also taking senators out for golfing trips, calling them up on the phone and chatting with them, as this slog right now on Capitol Hill is happening with all these amendments that they are trying to get passed, and none of them so far have gotten passed. Well, speaking of people who disagree with him, Elon Musk came out with a new-slash-old threat today, saying he would primary or, you know, push to primary any lawmakers who support this bill. That’s a split, again, with the president.
How does the White House view this? Well, it’s interesting, because a few White House officials were surprised that he came out today and said this, given he had gone largely quiet on his criticisms of the president and of legislation that he’s trying to get passed. He had actually come out and said he regretted some of the things he said about Trump when they were sniping back and forth at one another previously. And so now, to look at this, what he’s saying, I mean, he’s going after this and saying Democrats and Republicans are both in the wrong here.
A new political party needs to be formed that all of Washington, he says, is in agreement more than they are in disagreement, and threatening to primary Republicans who vote yes on this. Obviously, John, that is a lot of Republicans who are likely expected to vote yes on this that he’s saying that he would be going after. But he’s essentially trying to highlight what he says is the criticism of Republicans who complain about big spending in Washington and that are about to vote on this, given the estimates that we’ve seen, including from the budget office this weekend, of just how much this is going to add to the deficit.
Yeah, that’s a lot of primaries. He better have deep pockets. Kaitlin Collins, thank you very much.
And, of course, you can join Kaitlin at the top of the hour for The Source. She’s going to speak to Senator Elizabeth Warren tonight. Right now, let’s bring in Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.
He’s on the Armed Services and Judiciary Committee. Senator, nice to see you. Any prediction on what will happen tonight and what time? Certainly, I have no prediction on time.
And I’ve just come from the Senate floor. There’s a real question about whether they have the votes. They are really struggling because they face this dilemma of making $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, which require them to make slashing cuts in Medicaid, in nutrition programmes, in aid to veterans and student loans, and much, much more, which will have really drastic effects on their constituents.
So right now, they’re engaged in this horse trading kind of process, providing exemptions or exceptions for parts of populations in certain states, trying to get their approval with earmarks, as they used to be known. And the reason they’re struggling is that the American people get it. That’s why two to one, they disapprove of this bill.
The tax cuts for the billionaires of $4.5 trillion are absolutely necessary, ballooning national debt by $3.3 trillion, absolutely abhorrent. And so I think that they’re going to be struggling for the better part of this evening, maybe into tomorrow morning or later. What does Senator Tillis, his announcement that he won’t seek reelection, what does that tell you? What it tells me is that any Republican who stands up to Donald Trump will be hit by this torrent of vitriol and vehement threats and intimidation.
And so Donald Trump is running this show. He is betraying not only his own promises, but the values and promises that Republicans have made to their constituents. And what Tillis’ decision tells me is their positions in many ways have become unsustainable both politically and morally.
How does it feel to be aligned with Elon Musk tonight, who also opposes this bill? And what difference do you think that his speaking out today will make? Well, needless to say, Elon Musk and I are not coordinating our public positions, but I think he has it right. And the numbers tell the story, not only the debt that will balloon and the real suffering that people will see in their everyday lives, kids who break their arms on playgrounds or women who find a lump in their breast and they go to the emergency room, they’re uncovered, seniors who are kicked out of nursing homes. The pain is undeniable.
And Elon Musk may not feel or see that pain, but top line, he knows the financial markets are going to begin reacting to the levels of debt that will be generated. The economy is at risk. The ramifications and ripple effects throughout the economy will be terrible.
And I will just say one more thing, John. You know, the Republicans have corrupted this democratic process. They have, in effect, relied on an accounting trick.
It is called baseline budgeting and the baseline current policy that enables them to disguise a part of the effect on national debt. So this reliance on accounting tricks, on corrupting the reconciliation process, which was designed only for budgeting, they’re adding all kinds of policy restrictions, I think will be seen by the American people as fundamentally destructive of the democratic process. We will see, certainly, maybe see what happens in the Senate sometime tonight.
