House Speaker Mike Johnson might be in the DOGE house.
Billionaire entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy on Wednesday turned against House GOP leadership, raging about a stopgap measure to avert a government shutdown and actively encouraging rank-and-file Republicans to kill it.
“This bill should not pass,” Musk bluntly posted on his X platform, later wondering, “Ever seen a bigger piece of pork?” in reference to a photo of the legislative text.
“It’s full of excessive spending, special interest giveaways & pork barrel politics. If Congress wants to get serious about government efficiency, they should VOTE NO,” Ramaswamy added on X.
“Congress has known about this deadline since they created it in late September. There’s no reason why this couldn’t have gone through the standard process, instead of being rushed to a vote right before Congressmen want to go home for the holidays. The urgency is 100% manufactured.”
Despite the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) co-chairs’ criticisms of the spending patch, which leadership unveiled Tuesday evening, Johnson (R-La.) insists the two moguls understand his predicament.
“I was communicating with Elon last night. Elon and Vivek and I are on a text chain together, and I was explaining to them the background of this,” Johnson recounted on “Fox & Friends” Wednesday of his talks with the co-chairs of DOGE, which is not a governmental entity.
“Vivek and I talked last night about almost midnight, and he said, ‘Look, I get it. We understand you’re in an impossible position. Everybody knows that.’”
Congressional leaders need to take action to prevent a lapse or else face a government shutdown on Friday night. On Tuesday, they rolled out a continuing resolution that would fund the government through March 14, 2025.
However, that 1,547-page continuing resolution, or CR, was chock-full of all sorts of add-ons such as $100 billion in disaster relief; a one-year extension of the farm bill; potentially up to $2 billion in funding to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Maryland, which collapsed earlier this year after a cargo ship rammed into it; and $10 billion in aid to farmers.
Johnson is facing an open revolt from Republicans, who, unlike Musk and Ramaswamy, have blamed the House speaker for trying to ram through the bill before the 118th Congress concludes and lawmakers head home for the holidays.
Many hardline Republicans have howled over the measure, complaining that they just wanted a clean CR and believe many of the other provisions should be taken up separately. There have also been complaints that lawmakers weren’t given sufficient time to get through the text.
Since the 2024 election, Johnson has courted Musk and Ramaswamy, welcoming them into the Capitol earlier this month for meetings with lawmakers and rubbing elbows with them at Mar-a-Lago and one of President-elect Donald Trump’s UFC outings.
“Remember, guys, we still have just a razor-thin margin of Republicans,” Johnson added on “Fox & Friends” of his discussions with the DOGE chiefs.
“So any bill has to have Democrat votes. They understand the situation. They said, ‘It’s not directed to you, Mr. Speaker, but we don’t like the spending.’”
Democrats currently control both the Senate and the White House. Given the slim GOP control of the House, Johnson is going to need to lean on Dems because he has multiple members who are likely to vote against any CR.
“We got to get this done because here’s the key: By doing this, we are clearing the decks, and we are setting up for Trump to come in roaring back with [the] America First agenda,” Johnson continued.
Congress is set to have a brisk itinerary at the start of next year, forced to juggle both Trump’s agenda and the outstanding government funding process for fiscal year 2025, before turning to fiscal year 2026 — which is due by Oct. 1, 2025.
As Johnson explained, the CR aims to clear the way on several key issues, most notably replenishing disaster aid relief, to take a load off the lower chamber in the next Congress.
“Right now, Democrats still control and that’s the problem. So, we have to get this thing done so we don’t have the shutdown, so we get the short-term funding measure, and we get to March where we can put our fingerprints on the spending,” Johnson went on.
“That’s when the big changes start. And we can’t wait to get there.”
