Trump and the Republican Party’s “big, beautiful bill” is creating some GOP drama, as House Reps like Marjorie Taylor Greene are coming out against the legislation she voted for and tacitly admitted she did not read, while Senators like Ron Johnson and Rand Paul are threatening to torpedo this bill in the Senate while claiming they have the votes to do it. All the while, Elon Musk is #Resistance posting on Twitter, begging his followers to “KILL the BILL.”
Trump’s (former?) first buddy said Trump’s impending signature accomplishment is a “disgusting abomination,” and that “mammoth spending bills are bankrupting America! ENOUGH.” Speaker Mike Johnson said he reached out to Elon after this outburst and didn’t initially hear back, but they are supposedly texting now and are going to speak today. Johnson laments that Elon “seems pretty dug in right now, and I can’t quite understand the motivation behind it.”
This comes on the heels of Elon Musk “leaving” Washington with a black eye (and Stephen Miller’s wife in tow) and a bunch of GOP knives in his back. Musk is not really leaving per Trump and many other Republicans’ own admission, though. His ties to the administration are still firm as his famed lieutenant “Big Balls” Edward Coristine and others recently just became full-time government employees at the General Services Administration. That all said, Elon is lobbing a lot of trollish posts today at Trump like the one below, and Trump is firing right back.
As always with trying to understand the Kremlinology of Trumpworld, nobody knows anything except for the Mad King, and he knows very little. What Trump and the GOP clearly do understand though, are the political vulnerabilities their heinous Medicaid cuts pose in their Well, We Are All Going to Die Act, as they just outright lie about the scale or existence of these cuts. It’s difficult to envision any Republican moving out of lockstep with their cult leader, but I wouldn’t downplay the possibility that the cult leader’s savvy political instincts have escaped his melting brain to find a way to try to sell this bill currently being rejected from all parts of society.
Between the opposition to some Medicaid cuts within their own party and the bond market threatening to spiral into a crisis upon the passage of this bill, it’s obvious that the Republican Party has to polish this turd before they pass it. Ron Johnson is one of the last Senators I would use the word principled with, and his inclusion in this drama is the best evidence that the “opposition” in Congress is likelier like the kayfabe of professional wrestling than a true Congressional debate. This is a common tactic within the GOP, where Congresspeople will put on a show of defiance in order to make some small changes around the edges of some signature legislation, and then the Republicans can claim that whatever political vulnerability voters were protesting was addressed.
Someone like Rand Paul might be a tougher nut to crack for the GOP. He actually believes in all that libertarian bullshit, and a bill that explodes the deficit to such a degree that the threat of its passage got America’s credit downgraded is probably a tough pill for him to swallow. The narrow Republican majorities in Congress demand that nearly everyone vote in lockstep with dear leader (the GOP can afford three no votes in the Senate), and due to how the animating principle of the GOP is going along with whatever Trump’s current bullshit is, I cannot imagine the Well, We Are All Going to Die Act looking much different than it does now after it passes the Senate.
But this Elon kerfuffle does seem to be genuine to some degree, which throws a bit of a wrench into this whole operation as it provides cover for other Republicans to echo their non-deranged donors telling them that they are an existential threat to the bond market. Musk is reportedly pissed off that he donated all this money and Trump still fired his hand-picked man for NASA, Jared Isaacman, who said he “didn’t think the timing was much of a coincidence” when he was let go at the same time Musk supposedly left Washington. Trump shot back and dismissed Musk’s criticism of the bill by alleging Elon was rankled over Isaacman’s dismissal and also said, “Elon is upset because we took the EV mandate, and you know, which was a lot of money for electric vehicles. And you know, they’re having a hard time, the electric vehicles, and they want us to pay billions of dollars in subsidy.” Musk replied in his classic angsty teenager tone, “Whatever. Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil & gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), but ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill.”
Add in the fact that Musk’s DOGE cuts are not enshrined in this bill, and how his carbon credits company that sells a couple of electric vehicles will be harmed by the elimination of electric vehicle subsidies, and Elon Musk is a loser in this bill. Musk also seems to understand that he sells–or sold–cars to liberals, and the closer he is tied to MAGA, the more of his Tesla customer base will flee to the litany of other electric vehicles on the market. There is something to be said about Trump’s allegation that Musk’s attacks are motivated by his companies, as there is a natural divergence of interests here.
DOGE is not gone, not by a longshot. Musk has a foothold in government and has already demonstrated an ability and a desire to usurp power from Congress. His Twitter feed alone today makes it seem likelier that he will get more active in politics, not less. It will probably just be less publicly visible (unless he and Trump want to keep passively aggressively posting shots at each other), as there is a clear PR campaign being waged by Musk to try to turn around the public perception of his businesses. Trump is waging a PR campaign too, and these turd polishing endeavors are in direct conflict over Trump’s signature piece of legislation.
The bond market is genuinely threatening to teeter into some kind of crisis/chaos entirely because of this bill, and Musk is positioning himself on the “I told you so,” side of this conflict. If Trump and the GOP pull off their traditional kayfabe to get this bill passed, it will not change the math that bonds trade on, and should a financial crisis emerge because of this bill and Trump’s stupid trade war, that’s the moment to look for a genuine Musk/Trump split as it would leave the Mad King vulnerable, creating a power vacuum for another one to try to take his place.
UPDATE: The sniping between the two continued after this was published, and there’s too much drama to recap here, but Trump has fired the most notable salvo in threatening Elon’s $38 billion in government contracts. Get your popcorn ready, this schism is happening.
