House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters he was ‘surprised’ by Elon Musk’s criticism of the ‘big, beautiful bill’ after the two of them discussed the legislation. 

While the speaker expressed confidence in the bill, he acknowledged that it took Congress ‘decades’ to reach a point where the national debt has crept past $36.2 trillion and that it would take more than one bill to fix the situation.

‘The Trump administration needs four years to do all this reform, not two years. The Biden administration, Biden-Harris, made such a disaster of every metric of public policy, it’s going to take us more than one bill to fix it all,’ Johnson said.

The Republican House leader said he and Musk, whom he considers a ‘friend,’ had a ‘great conversation’ about the ‘big, beautiful bill’ Monday. The tech billionaire apparently joked that the bill could not be ‘big and beautiful,’ to which Johnson replied, ‘Oh, yes it can, my friend. It’s very beautiful.’

‘Elon and I left on a great note. We were texting one another — you know, happy texts,’ Johnson told reporters. The speaker added he was surprised when Musk came out against the bill the next day. 

‘I think he’s flat wrong,’ Johnson said. ‘I think he’s way off on this, and I’ve told him as much.’

Johnson also praised the ‘obviously brilliant’ tech billionaire for his work with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to cut government waste.

Despite seemingly ending his tenure with the Trump White House on good terms last week, Musk came out swinging against the ‘big, beautiful bill,’ calling it a ‘disgusting abomination.’ 

‘This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it,’ Musk tweeted.

Musk also retweeted multiple pleas from Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, for the Senate to improve the bill and avoid saddling Americans with more government spending. 

On Wednesday, during a weekly press briefing, House Republican leadership advocated for the ‘big, beautiful bill,’ saying it was necessary for funding the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration. Multiple leaders, including Johnson and House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., cited the antisemitic attack in Colorado allegedly carried out by an illegal immigrant as an example why the bill’s funding is needed.

‘We need to go find the other Solimans and get them out of America,’ Johnson said in reference to suspected Boulder, Colorado, attacker Mohamed Soliman, the Egyptian national accused of throwing Molotov cocktails at a group of people calling for the release of hostages being held in Gaza. 

Now that the bill has passed the House, it’s up to Senate Republicans to meet President Donald Trump’s July 4 deadline.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., is widening his investigation into the alleged ‘cover-up’ of former President Joe Biden’s mental decline by seeking interviews with five more former White House aides.

Comer sent letters to five more top former Biden staffers, putting his total outreach in the investigation to 10 people so far.

The latest round of letters are being sent to former White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, former senior communications advisor Anita Dunn, former top advisors Michael Donilon and Steve Ricchetti, and former Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Bruce Reed.

‘The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is investigating the role of former senior White House officials in possibly usurping authority from former President Joe Biden and the ramifications of a White House staff intent on hiding his rapidly worsening mental and physical faculties,’ Comer wrote to the five former aides.

‘The Committee has been investigating this issue for nearly a year. The Committee seeks to understand who made key decisions and exercised the powers of the executive branch during the previous administration, possibly without former President Biden’s consent. The Committee requests your testimony to evaluate your eye-witness account of former President Biden’s decline.’

Each letter also detailed specific reasons the committee is seeking to speak to each person.

‘You served as Chief of Staff for former President Biden. Before departing the White House in 2023, you had been by former President Biden’s side ‘for more than three decades.’ You returned to the former president’s side in 2024 to aid his campaign and prepare him for the June 27, 2024, debate with President Donald Trump,’ the letter to Klain read, citing a recent Politico article.

‘According to an interview, you cut short the debate prep ‘due to the president’s fatigue and lack of familiarity with the subject matter’ and said that the former president ‘didn’t really understand what his argument was on inflation.’ The scope of your responsibilities—both official and otherwise—and personal interactions within the Oval Office cannot go without investigation.’

To Dunn, Comer wrote, ‘Former President Biden confided in you extensively over the past decade. The Committee seeks to understand your observations of former President Biden’s mental acuity and health as one of his closest advisors.

‘If White House staff carried out a strategy lasting months or even years to hide the chief executive’s condition—or to perform his duties—Congress may need to consider a legislative response,’ the letter said.

Comer has asked each of the five aides to appear for closed-door transcribed interviews. 

He told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that it was a more effective investigation tactic than a public hearing that could easily devolve into an unproductive spectacle.

‘You’ve got one hour, you’re not interrupted, you don’t have to go five minutes back and forth,’ Comer said. ‘So to extract information, we’re going to go with the interviews.’

Comer previously reached out to former Biden doctor Kevin O’Connor and former White House aides Annie Tomasini, Anthony Bernal, Ashley Williams and Neera Tanden to appear. 

The committee said it expects the witnesses to voluntarily comply with the investigation and will release transcribed interview dates later this week. Comer has not ruled out the threat of subpoenas, however, if talks go awry.

Less than a week after leaving his position as head of the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk is calling on Americans to urge their senators and representatives to ‘kill’ the ‘big, beautiful’ budget bill backed by President Donald Trump.

Musk has grown increasingly critical of Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill,, claiming that if passed, it would increase the U.S. budget deficit by $5 billion.

On Wednesday afternoon, Musk posted an image of the 2003 Uma Thurman movie ‘Kill Bill,’ appearing to reference his call to nix the Trump-backed bill.

‘We need a new bill that doesn’t grow the deficit,’ Musk said on X. 

In another post, Musk urged: ‘Call your Senator, Call your Congressman, Bankrupting America is NOT ok! KILL the BILL.’ 

Musk said Tuesday afternoon that he ‘just can’t stand it anymore.’

‘This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,’ Musk said. ‘Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.’

Musk previously criticized the bill during an interview with CBS, noting he was ‘disappointed’ in the spending bill because ‘it undermines’ all the work his DOGE team was doing.

The bill passed the House in late May, ahead of Memorial Day, largely along party lines. However, two Republicans did vote against the measure, citing insufficient spending cuts and a rising national debt. GOP Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has also signaled he likely will not vote in favor of the bill in its current form, citing a debt ceiling increase that is a red line for him. 

Trump has lashed out at Paul and others for opposing the bill, but so far he has taken a more measured approach to Musk’s criticism.

‘Look, the president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill,’ White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a Tuesday afternoon briefing when asked about Musk’s most recent criticism.

‘It doesn’t change the president’s opinion. This is one big, beautiful bill and he’s sticking to it,’ she said. 

Fox News Digital’s Alec Schemmel contributed to this report.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is rebuffing Elon Musk’s call for a brand-new budget reconciliation bill, deepening the tech billionaire’s rift with Republicans in Washington.

‘A new spending bill should be drafted that doesn’t massively grow the deficit and increase the debt ceiling by 5 TRILLION DOLLARS,’ Musk wrote on X Wednesday.

He ratcheted up his rhetoric shortly after, posting, ‘KILL the BILL.’

But Johnson said the timeline was working against Congress and that an overhaul of President Donald Trump’s massive agenda bill was unfeasible. 

Johnson said when asked for a response by Fox News, ‘We don’t have time for a brand new bill.’

‘I want Elon and all my friends to recognize the complexity of what we’ve accomplished here. This extraordinary piece of legislation – record number of savings, record tax cuts for the American people and all the other benefits in it,’ the speaker told reporters.

‘We worked on the bill for almost 14 months. You can’t go back to the drawing board, and we shouldn’t. We have a great product to deliver here.’

Johnson cautioned critics of the bill not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

‘We’re proud of this product. The House Republicans are proud of it, and we’re happy to go out and explain that to everybody,’ Johnson said.

The Louisiana Republican said during a press conference earlier that he was ‘surprised’ by Musk’s criticism.

The speaker previously also pointed out that Republicans are planning to codify spending cuts identified by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in a different vehicle than the reconciliation process.

Musk has been bearing down hard on the legislation, putting Republican lawmakers in a difficult spot after months of lauding his work with DOGE.

The massive bill passed by the House and currently being considered by the Senate advances Trump’s priorities on taxes, immigration, energy, defense, and the debt limit.

It passed the House 215 – 214 with all but three House Republicans not voting ‘yes.’

House GOP leaders, noting their slim margins, have urged the Senate to change as little as possible in the bill. But the Senate GOP has its own razor-thin majority, and lawmakers there have already signaled they want to see at least some changes.

The White House, meanwhile, has stood by the bill.

‘The president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill. It doesn’t change the president’s opinion. This is one big, beautiful bill, and he’s sticking to it,’ Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday.

Elon Musk’s tirade against President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ has forced House Republicans to scramble to respond on Wednesday.

GOP lawmakers who had spent months praising Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) efforts are now working to avoid a war of words with the tech billionaire as he calls on them to scrap months of work in favor of a new budget reconciliation bill.

‘He didn’t make it any easier for the bill,’ Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Wis., told Fox News Digital. 

He noted that the bill also had its opponents in the Senate, where at least three fiscal hawks are calling for deeper cuts than the recent version passed by the House, which rolls back roughly $1.5 trillion in federal spending over 10 years. Fitzgerald questioned, however, what Musk’s endgame was.

‘If it was to truly kill the bill, then – I get it, he’s not an elected official – but you never really make such a bold statement without having a Plan B, and clearly, there’s no Plan B,’ he said.

House GOP lawmakers have for the most part, however, appeared in agreement on Musk ultimately having little impact on their actions. 

‘I don’t think he carries the same kind of gravitas that he did,’ Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., said.

Another House Republican told Fox News Digital, ‘When he’s not standing by the president’s side, he doesn’t have the same weight.’

Congressional Republicans are working to pass a mammoth bill advancing Trump’s priorities on taxes, immigration, energy, defense and the national debt via the budget reconciliation process.

Reconciliation allows the party in power to totally sideline opposition – in this case, Democrats – to pass a sweeping piece of fiscal legislation by lowering the Senate’s threshold for passage from 60 votes to 51.

But there are rules and limitations for what can be included in the budget reconciliation process. House GOP leaders say they will seek to codify spending cuts identified by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) via the annual congressional appropriations process.

That has not stopped Musk from unleashing his fury against the bill over the money it could add to the already $36 trillion-and-counting federal debt.

‘Call your Senator, Call your Congressman, Bankrupting America is NOT ok! KILL the BILL,’ Musk wrote on X, among other posts.

The Tesla founder made a veiled threat against lawmakers’ seats as well, ‘In November next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people.’

House GOP leaders and the White House, meanwhile, have closed ranks around the bill.

‘I want Elon and all my friends to recognize the complexity of what we’ve accomplished here. This extraordinary piece of legislation – record number of savings, record tax cuts for the American people and all the other benefits in it,’ Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters in response to Musk.

‘We worked on the bill for almost 14 months. You can’t go back to the drawing board, and we shouldn’t. We have a great product to deliver here.’

But Musk’s comments appear to have created a difficult political situation for some fiscal hawks who aired concerns about the bill before ultimately voting for it after GOP leaders made some last-minute changes tightening Medicaid work requirements and green energy subsidy cutbacks.

‘I wish [Musk] had been cheering from the stands before we had the vote, that would have helped us, but we are where we are,’ House Freedom Caucus member Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., who fought for more conservative changes, told reporters.

He side-stepped a question on whether he was worried about election threats from Musk.

‘I’m going to be – I hope that Elon continues to stay in this fight because I’m philosophically aligned with him, with his effort to try to balance this budget,’ Burlison said.

House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, meanwhile, said he believes Musk is wrong but conceded his opinion mattered to at least part of the GOP base.

‘The challenge is, he’s a he’s a credible guy, and he’s done, a patriotic service,’ Arrington said, referring to DOGE. I just think he’s just wrong about his comments that mischaracterize the one big, beautiful bill.’

‘So to say that it’s a problem or that it has created a bigger challenge for us, is true. Because he’s got a big voice, he’s got a big audience. And more importantly, it’s a credible voice. But he’s wrong on this issue.’

Conservative Rep. Mark Harris, R-N.C., said, ‘I would have preferred that he not go the direction that he went…maybe it was to encourage Congress to get on the ball with these rescissions packages that are coming.’

The White House, meanwhile, has stood by the bill.

‘The president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill. It doesn’t change the president’s opinion. This is one big, beautiful bill, and he’s sticking to it,’ White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., used his opening remarks during the Senate’s first judicial nominee hearing of the year on Wednesday to remind his colleagues that he was holding up at least one of President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice nominees.

‘I’ve got a hold on one nominee from Florida,’ Durbin said. ‘I’ve spoken to both Florida senators about it. It isn’t personal. We’ve got to find a way out of this that is fair and bipartisan that we’re going to stick with for both political parties.’

Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is blocking the nomination of Jason Reding Quinones, Trump’s choice to lead the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of Florida. Durbin also recently threatened to obstruct more of Trump’s picks to lead the DOJ’s 93 U.S. attorney’s offices.

Durbin’s threat loomed over the committee hearing, which featured five of Trump’s nominees to fill federal judge positions. The Illinois Democrat attributed his blockade to Vice President JD Vance announcing a hold on DOJ nominees in 2023. Vance, then a senator, said he would not lift his hold on nominees until then-Attorney General Merrick Garland stopped ‘going after his political opponents,’ a reference to the two federal prosecutions of Trump.

Any senator has the power to use holds to object to nominations. The practice significantly slows down the confirmation process because it prevents senators from voting for nominees through the typical, expedited unanimous consent process.

Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, argued Wednesday that, like Durbin, he too disagreed with Vance’s decision, but Grassley said it was notably different than Durbin’s.

‘This isn’t what you can legitimately call a precedent for blanket obstruction at the beginning of an administration before even a single one of these 93 U.S. attorneys have been filled,’ Grassley said.

Grassley, who himself has hindered nominees in past administrations, said holds should be used ‘selectively’ and quoted Durbin saying last Congress that ‘public safety will suffer across the United States’ if the obstruction of U.S. attorneys is carried out.

Durbin said Vance changed the rules ‘overnight.’

‘And guess what? The tables turn,’ Durbin said. ‘There comes a time when you want to move these by voice vote, and we’re going to have to say, as Democrats, we’re going to follow the Vance precedent.’

Durbin, who has an amicable relationship with Grassley, signaled he was willing to come to negotiate with Republicans over the Florida nominee, who has already been favorably reported out of the committee along party lines.

Asked by Fox News Digital what a resolution would look like, a Durbin spokeswoman pointed to the senator’s remarks during the hearing and declined to comment further. 

Durbin’s hold is not the only roadblock for Trump’s nominees. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Wednesday from the Senate floor that Republicans wanted to ‘quietly rubber-stamp’ Patrick Davis’ nomination and that he would not allow it.

Trump nominated Davis, a former Grassley aide, to serve as assistant attorney general for the Office of Legislative Affairs, who is responsible for handling DOJ’s correspondence with Congress. Schumer said he opposed Davis’ nomination in part because the DOJ has been unresponsive to his inquiries about the controversial luxury plane that Qatar gifted to the Trump administration.

‘They won’t even answer serious questions about this. This plane should be withdrawn,’ Schumer said.

He added that when ‘this Justice Department is as horrible as it is, as political as it is, as destructive of American values as it has been, no way.’

Grassley responded to Schumer on X: ‘Why would Democrats expect responsiveness to Congress from DOJ when they obstruct Pres Trump’s nominees who r responsible to ANSWER THEIR LTTRS????’

The last two Senate-confirmed heads of the Office of Legislative Affairs, during the Biden administration and first Trump administration, were confirmed through the speedy voice vote process.

Less than a week after leaving his position as head of the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk is calling on Americans to urge their senators and representatives to ‘kill’ the ‘big, beautiful’ budget bill backed by President Donald Trump.

Musk has grown increasingly critical of Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill,’ claiming that if passed, it would increase the U.S. budget deficit by $5 billion.

On Wednesday afternoon, Musk posted an image of the 2003 Uma Thurman movie ‘Kill Bill,’ appearing to reference his call to nix the Trump-backed bill.

‘We need a new bill that doesn’t grow the deficit,’ Musk said on X. 

In another post, Musk urged: ‘Call your Senator, Call your Congressman, Bankrupting America is NOT ok! KILL the BILL.’ 

Musk said Tuesday afternoon that he ‘just can’t stand it anymore.’

‘This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,’ he said. ‘Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.’

Musk previously criticized the bill during an interview with CBS, noting he was ‘disappointed’ in the spending bill because ‘it undermines’ all the work his DOGE team was doing.

The bill passed the House in late May, ahead of Memorial Day, largely along party lines. However, two Republicans did vote against the measure, citing insufficient spending cuts and a rising national debt. GOP Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has also signaled he likely will not vote in favor of the bill in its current form, citing a debt ceiling increase that is a red line for him. 

Trump has lashed out at Paul and others for opposing the bill, but so far he has taken a more measured approach to Musk’s criticism.

‘Look, the president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill,’ White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a Tuesday afternoon briefing when asked about Musk’s most recent criticism.

‘It doesn’t change the president’s opinion. This is one big, beautiful bill, and he’s sticking to it,’ she said. 

Fox News Digital’s Alec Schemmel contributed to this report.