Musk 'brilliant' but saying stupid things
"I have great admiration for Elon Musk – he's brilliant! But it doesn't mean that he knows everything. And he clearly does not understand the messy process in Washington, DC, to pass legislation in Congress, particularly with the margins that the Republicans have, which are razor thin in the House and in the Senate." "It would be a disaster, an absolute disaster [if Republican lawmakers took Musk's advice and voted the bill down]. The country would experience a huge tax increase – [and] that would send the country into a recession or worse. And it would mean that the people who hate Elon Musk and have tried to convince everyone that he's a Nazi would be back in control. So, the things that he said in the last week, for a brilliant man, can only be described as just being downright stupid." "And I'm not concerned at all about Musk's allegations … that would make Donald Trump look like he had done something inappropriate or had gone to [Jeffery] Epstein's island. Because if that was true, why in the world wouldn't the Democrats have released that in the past four years? That's ridiculous. They tried to kill him, for crying out loud; they tried to put him in jail! I don't know why in the world [Musk] would say that. That's just asinine." Gary Bauer, chairman |
The social media feud between President Donald Trump and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, a trusted advisor just weeks ago, made no noticeable new headlines over the weekend.
In fact, Musk reposted condemnations of the Los Angeles riots from both Trump and Vice President JD Vance to his own social media platform, X.
Before the riots, they were far from good teammates. But Ken Blackwell, Family Research Council's (FRC) senior fellow for human rights and constitutional governance and a member of both Trump transition teams, says it is too early to tell whether this is the beginning of the amicable shift that must occur.
Musk's harsh criticism of the Trump-endorsed "One Big Beautiful Bill," passed by the U.S. House and currently being considered in the Senate, turned ugly with Trump slamming Musk and eventually threatening to cut government contracts for his SpaceX company and Musk alleging that Trump appears in the explosive Jeffrey Epstein sex party files, which the administration has failed to release.
"@RealDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!" Musk wrote.
Later he added, "Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out."
The posts have since been deleted.
Blackwell says Trump and Musk need to go to their neutral corners for the good of the country.
"The two need to understand and need perhaps to adopt that strategy of détente, because they have a mutual capability of destroying the forward movement of this country in terms of our national security, in terms of dealing with the enormous debt that we have, and dealing with the challenge of getting us back on the path of growth and opportunity," Blackwell said on "Washington Watch" Friday.
Détente is a French term for the de-escalation of political tension.
"This back-and-forth between the president of the United States and a very smart, very affluent now adversary – but just a few weeks ago, an ally – has to be brought to an end," the FRC spokesman added.
Enacting the Trump agenda
Trump's backers have complained for months that Congress is not doing enough to implement his agenda – including cutting wasteful spending identified by the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The Big Beautiful Bill is the vehicle for enacting much of that, though House Speaker Mike Johnson noted last week that the Senate rules of governance prevent many of those cuts from appearing in the bill.
Rules aside, the absence of those cuts was irksome to Musk.
"There are two categories of federal spending," Johnson pointed out. "One is mandatory spending; one is discretionary. The reconciliation package [deals] with the first category, not the latter. So, it was not possible – literally, under the rules of the Senate – for us to put DOGE cuts in large measure in the reconciliation package. That has to be a separate instrument."
That "separate instrument" is the White House's already approved rescissions package to roll back discretionary spending. It was sent to the House last week.
The Impoundment Control Act of 1974 allows presidents to cancel funding to executive agencies if it is within a 45-day window and if a simple majority of Congress approves, and Trump has teed up the first "of many" rescission proposals, worth about $9.4 billion of waste, fraud, and abuse.
Johnson said Musk was using the wrong source to shape his opinions of the bill.
"I sent a long text message to [Musk] to explain to him and make sure that he understands that he was looking at [an] analysis of the bill that was not accurate," the House speaker said.
Johnson pointed to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis of the bill and emphasized, "CBO is historically inaccurate. It's run by Democrats. … They're not going to give us a fair score."
Blackwell says the Big Beautiful Bill, though imperfect, is the best legislation available at this critical time.
"It's probably the best thing we can do to make sure that we keep the trifecta that's necessary to keep us on the path of progress," he told show host Joseph Backholm.
The Trump-Musk theatrics, however, threaten that progress.
"It's gone sideways. It's personal and destructive," Blackwell said.
What the spat could do
Johnson told reporters last week that Republicans remain committed to passing the bill and that the Trump-Musk spat will not take away from that.
"This is not a problem for getting the bill done," he asserted. "The House and Senate Republicans here know that we have a job to do, and we're going to do our job. [The House] produced a very, very good product. It is not perfect, because there's no such thing as perfect legislation. But we're really proud of this."
But Blackwell says Trump has too much on his plate to be distracted from the business of governing, and he believes the public spat with Musk could jeopardize the progress of his agenda.
"He has to work within the framework of the Constitution, and that means that he has to be able to work with a House that has a slim majority and a Senate that has not always behaved and voted as a coherent force," the FRC spokesman noted.
