Donald Trump fired back at Elon Musk after the tech billionaire criticized his ‘One Big, Beautiful Bill.’
The president was asked about his close ally’s comments on Wednesday while speaking with reporters inside the Oval Office.
Trump argued Republicans “have to get a lot of votes.”
“We can’t be cutting,” Trump said. “We need to get a lot of support, and we have a lot of support. We had to get it through the House.”
The president was responding to Musk, who slammed the legislation in an upcoming interview with CBS News’ Sunday Morning.
“I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Musk said.
The bill focused on the president’s domestic agenda squeaked through the House just before Memorial Day by one vote, 215 to 214.
Trump complained on Wednesday that no Democrats supported his bill, which extends the tax provisions from the 2017 tax law passed during his first term, while providing billions of dollars for the border and defense, along with other provisions.
Trump said they would be negotiating the legislation.
“I’m not happy about certain aspects of it, but I’m thrilled by other aspects of it. That’s the way that goes,” Trump said of the legislation with a shrug.
The billionaire’s comments directly contradicted the White House, which has repeatedly claimed the bill would not add to the deficit.
The bill is projected to increase the federal deficit by $3.8 trillion over a decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
Musk spent the first months of the Trump administration looking to cut government spending with his Department of Government Efficiency.
“I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful,” Musk said. “But I don’t know if it can be both. My personal opinion.”
Trump administration officials, including Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, were quick to push back on Musk’s words.
Miller wrote a long post on X about how Senate rules limit the reconciliation bill by preventing discretionary spending cuts, which is what DOGE had largely focused on.
He also rejected the CBO’s analysis of the bill’s impact on the deficit, calling it an “accounting gimmick.”
However, the Penn-Wharton Budget Model also estimated it would add $3.3 trillion to the deficit over a decade, while Moody’s estimated that making the 2017 tax cuts permanent would add $4 trillion to the deficit.
“It’s the big, beautiful bill, but the beautiful is because of all of the things we have,” Trump argued Wednesday.
The president noted that the bill now has to make its way through the Senate before it reaches final passage, but he predicted Republicans will be successful in getting it done.
The post Trump Hits Back at Musk Over Big, Beautiful Bill appeared first on The Daily Beast.
