Trump trashes must-pass funding bill as Musk calls for the GOP to shut down the government
Musk wrote that “any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!”
In a post on X on Wednesday afternoon, Elon Musk endorsed the idea of shutting the government down until January 20, the date that President-elect Donald Trump is set to be sworn into office.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2024
It was the latest missive in a pressure campaign that Musk, along with fellow DOGE co-lead Vivek Ramaswamy and a host of hardline Republicans on Capitol Hill, have been leading against a so-called “continuing resolution” that would fund the government through March 14.
Just over an hour later, Trump and Vice-President-elect JD Vance called on Republicans to renegotiate the bill in a joint statement, saying that the current one contained too many “giveaways” to Democrats.
Trump and Vance also called on Congress to raise the debt ceiling, a task that lawmakers had not contemplated as part of the funding bill and that they had planned to tackle in the first months of the new year.
A statement from President Donald J. Trump and Vice President-Elect JD Vance:
The most foolish and inept thing ever done by Congressional Republicans was allowing our country to hit the debt ceiling in 2025. It was a mistake and is now something that must be addressed.…
— JD Vance (@JDVance) December 18, 2024
“I expected Elon to go off on this a little bit,” Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, a staunch Trump ally, told reporters on Wednesday. Mullin said that he remains undecided on the bill, but said that Musk’s and others’ campaign would “greatly” affect its fate in the House, where lawmakers could take a vote as soon as Wednesday evening.
Opponents of the bill have pointed to a range of provisions that they view as wasteful, including an extension of pandemic preparedness legislation, provisions to allow the Washington Commanders to use the old RFK stadium in Washington, DC, funding for the Global Engagement Center at the Department of State, and a provision that will allow lawmakers to see a modest pay increase for the first time since 2009.
Wednesday’s pressure campaign, which ramped up over the course of the day after Musk and Ramaswamy expressed initial opposition to the bill, provided an early glimpse of how the two men may approach government spending fights under Trump. Both of them are leading an initiative tasked with recommending up to $2 trillion in cuts to government spending by 2026.
Musk and Ramaswamy’s voices appeared to only be amplified by the fact that Trump himself didn’t weigh in on the bill until late in the day.
“What we’ve heard from both Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy is they want us to shut down government,” said Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, according to HuffPost. “Is that the posture of the President?”
Great outline on several of the reasons I’ll be a NO vote https://t.co/CbEoes4dDO
— Congressman Michael Cloud (@RepCloudTX) December 18, 2024
Several House Republicans directly cited Musk and Ramaswamy as they expressed their opposition to the bill on Wednesday, while others invoked DOGE to pressure their colleagues to join them in voting against the bill.
“So many members of Congress want the clout of working with @DOGE and @ElonMusk,” Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado wrote on X. “Only a handful are actually interested in cutting spending.”
Musk also wrote that “any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!”
Unless @DOGE ends the careers of deceitful, pork-barrel politicians, the waste and corruption will never stop.
Therefore, there is no choice but to do so.
I wish there was another way, but there is not.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2024
Just as Musk’s prior pressure campaign to install Sen. Rick Scott of Florida as Senate GOP leader failed, Wednesday’s campaign against the continuing resolution appeared to show the limits of Musk’s grasp on Capitol Hill and legislation.
Both Musk himself and the DOGE X account claimed that the bill would increase lawmakers’ salaries by 40%, a vastly inflated figure. According to the Congressional Research Service, the maximum possible increase would be 3.8%.
