Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) cautioned that Republicans could go “running for the hills” if tech billionaire Elon Musk decides to tweet again about the spending bill.
Murphy jabbed Republicans over allowing Musk’s social media posts influence their legislation, telling CNN’s Dana Bash on Friday that it looks like Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy are leading the government. Bash pressed Murphy on whether he would support a new plan being mulled by the House GOP to avoid a government shutdown.
“I’m literally hearing about this in real time, so I can’t give you an answer until I actually see what’s in the legislation,” he responded. “And of course, this may not pass the House, because all it takes is one tweet from a billionaire 15 minutes from now, and House Republicans will go running for the hills.”
“Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy—they’re in charge of the of our government right now, it seems. And so we have to wait to see what the billionaires think before we know whether this or any other package can pass the House of Representatives,” Murphy said.
House Republicans are huddling together on Friday to put forward a third plan to avert a government shutdown after the second bill, which was backed by President-elect Donald Trump, failed to clear the lower chamber on Thursday. This came after Trump demanded that a debt ceiling increase should be included in any spending bill—a proposal opposed by many conservatives.
The first spending deal—backed by Republicans and Democrats—was effectively killed after Trump and Musk pushed against the agreement earlier this week. Musk, the richest man in the world, spent most of Wednesday railing against the deal in a flurry of social media posts criticizing the bill for excessive spending.
Murphy told Bash that Musk and Trump made their demands to make it “easier” to pass corporate tax cuts.
“Obviously, what happened in the last 48 hours is clear, Musk and Trump decided that they wanted to get some help passing their billionaire tax cut, and so they threatened to shut down the government unless we raise the debt ceiling, the amount of money that the government can borrow, so that it would be easier for them to pass a billionaire corporate tax cut next year,” Murphy said.
“That was their position yesterday. If it remains their position today, they will not be able to pass this bill through the House of Representatives,” he added.
Congress has until midnight on Friday to approve funding for the government and avoid a shutdown just days before Christmas.
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