Trump Sure Seems Pissed at Elon Musk Over the Spending Bill

Trump is rushing to remind the media that he is the captain of the GOP, not Elon Musk.

The “President Musk” rhetoric gained steam among Democrats after the billionaire helped kill the continuing resolution to keep the government open, voicing his opposition long before the president-elect did.

But Trump wants the world to know he’s still the one calling the shots.

“As soon as President Trump released his official stance on the CR, Republicans on Capitol Hill echoed his point of view. President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. Full stop,” said Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt, as reported by Business Insider’s Bryan Metzger.

The statement may be a sign of growing friction between Trump and the world’s richest man, who backed his return to the White House.

Musk has been threatening Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, about the spending bill, even as the prospect of a government shutdown looms. “Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!” the SpaceX CEO and Department of Government Efficiency co-lead posted on Wednesday.

“It’s not Donald Trump asking for this, it’s very clearly President Elon Musk asking for this,” Representative Dan Goldman said Wednesday on The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell. “The fact that Donald Trump has been completely AWOL during these negotiations to the point where only after Elon Musk publicly tweets about his displeasure about this budget deal, all of a sudden, Donald Trump, chief of staff to Elon Musk, comes trotting in and blows up the deal.”

There’s no telling just yet how much of a rift this has caused between the two men, as Musk seems to be a long-term fixture in Trump’s inner circle. But if this kind of public one-upping continues, who knows how long this bromance will last.

Donald Trump’s defense secretary pick Pete Hegseth still isn’t in the clear just yet—and now even Republicans want to see the receipts. 

At least 12 senators have requested to review the FBI’s background check on Hegseth, according to Politico. While Hegseth’s nomination was believed to be safe earlier this month after a media blitz by his mother and a few laps around the Senate, this surprising development suggests otherwise. 

Hegseth’s background check was initially delayed by Trump’s refusal to sign key transition documents but is now likely to be completed before Hegseth’s confirmation hearing on January 14.  

“It would be helpful, given the allegations that have been lodged against Mr. Hegseth, to be able to see the FBI background check,” Republican Senator Susan Collins told Politico. 

“I’m going to see it,” said Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville. 

Usually two senators handle this kind of check, but the litany of allegations against Hegseth has prompted more attention on his confirmation. 

The former Fox & Friends host is accused of sexual assault, harassment, financial mismanagement of two different veterans’ groups, and workplace misconduct, including intoxication and sexism.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has thrown her weight behind Senator Rand Paul’s ridiculous proposal that Elon Musk be elected the speaker of the House of Representatives.

“The Speaker of the House need not be a member of Congress,” Paul posted Thursday morning on X. “Nothing would disrupt the swamp more than electing Elon Musk … think about it … nothing’s impossible. (not to mention the joy at seeing the collective establishment, aka ‘uniparty,’ lose their ever-lovin’ minds).”

Quote-tweeting Paul’s proposal approvingly, Greene wrote that she would be “open to supporting” Musk for the speakership.

“DOGE can only truly be accomplished by reigning [sic] in Congress to enact real government efficiency,” Greene wrote, referring to the austerity agenda of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, an advisory panel to be co-led by Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. “The establishment needs to be shattered just like it was yesterday. This could be the way.”

On Thursday afternoon, according to Daily Mail reporter Jon Michael Raasch, Greene emailed her constituents a survey asking if they would support Musk as House speaker. “DOGE could become the legislative branch,” the accompanying message says. The congresswoman posed the same question in a poll on Musk’s platform, X, which has garnered over 57,000 votes by the time of writing—82.7 percent of which are in favor of him getting the gavel.

If Paul and Greene were to have it their way, Musk would be the first nonmember to hold the speakership.

Musk has been crusading against Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson’s bipartisan spending bill to avert a government shutdown. On Wednesday, the billionaire sent over 100 tweets on X railing against the bill—with “a number of misleading or outright false claims,” per Politico—and expressing indifference about the prospect of a shutdown.

Musk’s efforts culminated in President-elect Trump coming out against the bill, dealing “a likely deathblow” to budget negotiations, per the Associated Press. As Trump and Musk send the government hurtling toward a shutdown, many observers have criticized elected officials for taking marching orders from an unelected billionaire.

Amid this wrangling, the right-wing populist House Freedom Caucus, of which Greene is a member, expressed its dissatisfaction with the proposed bill, touting instead Representative Chip Roy’s proposed DOGE Act, which would slash federal spending—though not, of course, the Pentagon budget.

There’s scarcely a better illustration of Greene’s phony brand of populism than her support for installing the world’s richest man to, as she put it, reign in the people’s elected body.

This story has been updated.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has begun the steady descent out of Donald Trump’s favor.

A source close to Trump told NOTUS Thursday that the president-elect initially supported Johnson’s plan to keep the government funded, but was surprised to find that the whopping 1,547-page bill was filled with plans to spend billions of dollars on Democratic priorities, farmers, and disaster relief.

Senator Josh Hawley told CNN Wednesday that Trump had said Johnson had not told him everything in the massive spending bill.

Trump has been a staunch ally of the Louisiana Republican, including in May when Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene tried to have him removed from the speakership. Johnson has remained cozy with the president-elect, but all of that could change in the wake of his continuing resolution, which is particularly unpopular with unofficial, unelected co-President Elon Musk.

Trump’s defection could spell trouble for Johnson, who needs to be speedily reelected next year so that Congress can go on to certify the results of the presidential election.

Trump spoke with Fox Digital Thursday and indicated that Johnson would have no trouble getting reelected … so long as he is able to clean up the spending bill.

“If the speaker acts decisively, and tough, and gets rid of all of the traps being set by the Democrats, which will economically and, in other ways, destroy our country, he will easily remain speaker,” Trump said.

Meanwhile, members of Johnson’s own party appear to have already moved on. Representative Thomas Massie said Wednesday night he would not vote for Johnson as speaker in January, and some lawmakers are even suggesting Musk as a potential replacement.

Trump floated completely abolishing the debt ceiling on Thursday, surprising Democrats and Republicans alike.

The shocking demand comes as the president-elect revealed his opposition to the bipartisan spending bill, bringing the federal government another step closer to a shutdown.

Trump told NBC News over the phone that it would be the “smartest thing” Congress could do.

“I would support that entirely.… The Democrats have said they want to get rid of it. If they want to get rid of it, I would lead the charge,” Trump said.

He went on to assert that the debt ceiling is a frivolous, imaginary concept intended to scare people into abiding by it. “It doesn’t mean anything, except psychologically,” he said.

This isn’t necessarily new for Trump, who signed laws to lift the debt ceiling three separate times during his first term while also suggesting the debt ceiling be killed off in 2017. “It complicates things, it’s really not necessary,” he said of the debt ceiling then.

Still, it goes against the rest of his party, as Republicans often campaign against raising the debt ceiling, let alone abolishing it entirely. That’s not the case with Democrats. Pennsylvania Democratic Representative Brendan Boyle has been advocating for his Debt Ceiling Reform Act since 2023, a law that would weaken Congress’s ability to use shutdown as a threat to pass legislation. The bill currently has 55 Democratic Party co-sponsors.

Already, at least one Democrat has backed Trump’s demand.

“I agree with President-elect Trump that Congress should terminate the debt limit and never again govern by hostage taking,” Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote on X.