Adam Pack
A prominent ally of President-elect Donald Trump called on Americans Wednesday to vote out lawmakers in 2026 that support the massive spending bill currently under consideration by Congress.
Elon Musk, co-head of the president-elect’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is whipping votes against the spending package negotiated by House GOP leadership, calling it a “criminal bill” in a post on X Wednesday.
The spending package, known as a continuing resolution (CR), would temporarily extend current government funding levels through March 14, 2025, by approving hundreds of billions in spending to avert a government shutdown set to occur Friday night. Many conservative lawmakers have slammed House GOP leadership for allowing “reckless and unpaid spending” and an array of unrelated policy riders into the spending bill, and have committed to oppose the bill’s passage.
Musk has also issued veiled threats to lawmakers, implying that any member of Congress that votes to approve the hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending tucked inside the sprawling bill could face a primary challenge the next time they are up for reelection.
“Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years,” Musk wrote on X Wednesday afternoon.
Some conservative Republicans cheered Musk’s announcement pressuring lawmakers to tank the CR.
“In five years in Congress, I’ve been awaiting a fundamental change in the dynamic,” North Carolina Rep. Dan Bishop wrote in response to Musk’s tweet. “It has arrived.”
Musk then issued a follow-up statement, appearing to hint at his willingness to use his personal fortune to fund primary challenges against incumbent members that vote for the CR.
“By now, they should know that I mean what I say,” Musk, the world’s richest man, wrote on X in response to Bishop’s post.
Musk was the largest individual political donor of the 2024 cycle, doling out at least $277 million to help elect Trump and down-ballot Republicans in November.
Ramaswamy, Musk’s DOGE partner, is also advocating for lawmakers to tank the massive spending bill.
“Congress is about to pass a bill that blows away your taxpayer money, but they made it over 1,500 pages long, so you wouldn’t read it,” Ramaswamy said in a TikTok video published Wednesday. “If you read the bill carefully it contains pay raises for members of Congress — and I’m not making this up — an expansion of their federal health benefits. It contains all kinds of special interests and ‘pork’ funding, including opening up a new stadium in Washington D.C. It renews the Global Engagement Center, which is a key node of the censorship industrial complex, and the worst part is, they didn’t want you to know about any of it.”
“So feel free to call your congressman and let them know how you feel about it,” Ramaswamy added.
Conservative Republican lawmakers that have come out against the CR argue that the massive spending package is an affront to DOGE’s mission to cut wasteful spending and reduce the size of government.
“Lots of folks here in Congress are eager to celebrate DOGE’s mission—yet they’ll turn around and vote for the Swamp’s status quo of deficit spending,” Republican Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde wrote on X on Tuesday following the release of the bill’s text. “Congress can’t save our country if it can’t get serious about Washington’s spending problem.”
Musk has also argued that he would prefer shutting down the government than passing the CR as currently written.
“’Shutting down’ the government (which doesn’t actually shut down critical functions btw) is infinitely better than passing a horrible bill,” Musk wrote on X Wednesday.
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