Speaker Mike Johnson said in a brief interview Tuesday he’s not worried that a late-night post from Elon Musk signaling concerns with the GOP budget plan could tank support ahead of a vote this evening.
“No concerns,” Johnson said when asked about the post, adding that he felt “very positive” about the vote’s prospects today.
He is still, however, facing an array of opposition.
Indiana Republican Rep. Victoria Spartz, arriving for a House GOP Conference meeting, confirmed she’s a “no today” on the budget plan, “unless the instruction changes.” She, like other conservatives, wants the plan to guarantee deeper spending cuts across the federal government, while a contingent of other vulnerable incumbents think the blueprint would result in cutting spending too deeply — especially from safety net programs like Medicaid.
Johnson has said he’s not changing the resolution to accommodate holdouts, but his math is getting increasingly difficult. It didn’t help that Musk, on Monday night, appeared on X to be stoking anxieties that the resolution would add to the federal deficit. It was in response to a post on X from Rep. Thomas Massie, who has told fellow Republicans he’ll also be voting in opposition.
“I hope we’re not going to have this come to whatever is said on X to change months and months of substantive work to actually do this in a deficit-neutral way,” said Rep. Blake Moore of Utah, the vice chair of the House Republican Conference, in an interview. “I wish we were eliminating as much of the deficit is possible. What’s missing from that X exchange is what happens if it doesn’t pass, and we have the largest tax increase on lower and middle income Americans ever. We can’t be so singularly focused on one aspect of this.”
House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington of Texas said he was not concerned about losing votes after Musk’s post, adding that he welcome Musk’s scrutiny.
“I think he’s doing a great job,” said Arrington. “I think he wants the same things that I want, which is a more efficient government with less waste and fraud, more stewardship of tax dollars, right sizing very bloated bureaucracy.”
The budget resolution is necessary to pave the way for Republicans being able to draft and pass party-line legislation under the reconciliation process, necessary to enact the bulk of President Donald Trump’s domestic agenda.
The morning conference meeting was a chance for leadership to continue to sell the budget plan. Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) displayed a slide of all the Democratic attacks on the blueprint, according to three Republicans in the room, with GOP leaders reiterating to some wary Republicans that Medicaid cuts aren’t specifically listed in resolution — though they have not clarified how they would reach hundreds of billions of dollars in savings without slashing into the popular program that serves millions of low-income Americans.
Nicholas Wu and Ben Leonard contributed to this report.
