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Democrats in the Senate labeled a billionaire Elon Musk “co-president” and “shadow speaker” among other titles as they reacted to the collapse of the original interim spending deal on Wednesday after he and eventual President-elect Donald Trump came out against it.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said Musk “seems like the guy who’s running the country now,” reacting to his apparent ability to influence the bill’s prompt failure despite bipartisan congressional leaders agreeing with him.
If Congress doesn’t pass a government funding measure and President Joe Biden signs it by midnight Saturday morning, a partial government shutdown will go into effect.
From Thursday, US national debt was $36,167,604,149,955.61 and continues to grow rapidly.
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Musk is credited with pulling down the first version of the spending budget. (Brandon Bell)
After the 1,547-page short-term spending bill was introduced this week. Musk quickly took to X, formerly Twitter, to trash it, pointing out various seemingly unimportant provisions as well as its price and length.
Other critics soon joined him, with President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance issuing their own statements opposing the bill.
That led to significant criticism from Democrats unhappy with Musk’s apparent ability to influence Trump and Republicans in Congress.
Warren said Musk is running the show. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“He seems to be the one calling the shots,” Warren told reporters.
“Elon Musk is the one who is obviously in charge of the Republican Party and he blew that deal. So I don’t know how the Republicans plan to recover from that,” she said.
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., suggested that Musk is “already a shadow House Speaker,” a sharp contrast to House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.
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Fetterman called Musk a “shadow speaker.” (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“I don’t think he got elected and he did a lot of damage,” said Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga.
He asserted that Republicans in Congress are “busy listening to Co-President Musk and Co-President Trump.”
“I’m listening to the people of Georgia, especially the farmers who are struggling to get aid after the disaster. And we need to make sure we get that across the finish line.”
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., reiterated that Musk is not an elected official. “He has no official job in the government,” he said.
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Kelly pointed out that Musk was not elected. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
“We had a deal with the Republicans in the House of Representatives and now, because of it, the president-elect is on the verge of people losing their jobs and not getting paid over the holidays,” he said of a potential partial shutdown if the bill didn’t expire by midnight Saturday. in the morning.
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Despite the claims of their Democratic colleagues, Republicans rejected the idea that Trump was influenced by Musk. Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., noted that there are “a lot of people around President Trump,” adding that he doesn’t think Musk has any control over what the president-elect does.
Trump chose Musk, along with former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, to lead what is being called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)a proposed advisory committee in charge of removing government waste.
