Washington DC – President Donald Trump recently avoided responding to a question about his top advisor Elon Musk openly criticizing his controversial “big, beautiful bill.”
On Wednesday, the president was asked about Musk recently expressing disappointment over the bill, as the billionaire argued it “undermines” his work leading Trump’s cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
In response, Trump started by saying, “Well, our reaction’s a lot of things,” before diverting his answer entirely away from Musk’s criticism.
“Number one, we have to get a lot of votes, we can’t be cutting – we need to get a lot of support, and we have a lot of support,” Trump said.
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“We had to get it through the House… we had no Democrats. You know, if it was up to the Democrats, they’ll take the 65% increase,” he added.
Trump’s bill has faced criticisms from both sides of the political aisle, as it is expected to boost the incomes of the richest 10%, while making the bottom 10% poorer.
Democrats have noted the bill would also cut billions from programs like Medicaid, while some Republicans have argued it doesn’t go far enough with its cuts, leaving its needed Senate approval uncertain.
Musk’s criticisms of the bill come as his relationship with Trump and the administration has appeared to weaken, even though he donated a significant amount to Trump’s re-election effort and was seen as the president’s closest advisor following his election win.
Though Trump avoided speaking about him, other MAGA Republicans appeared prepared to play damage control following Musk’s comments.
In seperate X posts, Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller assured everyone that the president’s bill was not getting in the way of DOGE’s efforts, and Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene announced a DOGE bill would soon be presented on the House floor.
House Speaker Mike Johnson also praised Musk and DOGE for their “INCREDIBLE” work exposing government waste and fraud, such as supposedly “finding over 12 million people on Social Security who were over 120 years old.”
