Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is conserving his distance from Elon Musk even after the billionaire’s extraordinary public rebuke of President Trump and the GOP’s home agenda.
Requested Friday if Musk’s bitter break from Trump presents Democrats with a possibility to type a strange-bedfellows alliance with the tech titan, Jeffries shifted the dialog instantly to the Democrats’ efforts to kill Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”
“The opportunity that exists right now is to kill the GOP tax scam,” Jeffries instructed reporters within the Capitol. “It’s legislation that we have been strongly opposed to, and uniformly opposed to, from the very beginning. … It rips health care away from millions of people. It snatches food out of the mouths of hungry children. And it rewards billionaires and [GOP] donors in ways that are fiscally irresponsible.”
Pressed on whether or not Musk must be “welcomed back” to the Democratic Get together after the high-profile break up from Trump, Jeffries punted once more.
“Same answer,” he stated.
Jeffries’s cautious remarks display the bounds of the outdated adage that the enemy of 1’s enemy is one’s good friend. Additionally they spotlight the potential difficulties Democrats would face in the event that they embraced a polarizing and nationally unpopular determine in Musk — one they’ve spent a lot of the final 12 months bashing for heavy spending on Trump’s marketing campaign and, extra not too long ago, for his function in heading Trump’s efforts to intestine the federal authorities.
Nonetheless, some Democrats say Musk’s affect is critical sufficient that Democrats ought to make an effort to attempt to courtroom him to their aspect amid the Trump feud.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who represents elements of Silicon Valley, is main the cost.
“If Biden had a big supporter criticize him, Trump would have hugged him the next day,” Khanna posted Thursday on social platform X, which is owned by Musk. “When we refused to meet with @RobertKennedyJr, Trump embraced him & won. We can be the party of sanctimonious lectures, or the party of FDR that knows how to win & build a progressive majority,” referring to former President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Jeffries isn’t going almost to date. However he has welcomed Musk’s assaults on Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” and the Republicans who voted for it. And he aligned Democrats with Musk’s sentiments that the bundle piles an excessive amount of cash onto the federal debt, a determine the Congressional Funds Workplace estimated to be $2.4 trillion.
“To the extent that Elon Musk has made the same point that everyone who has voted for this bill up until this moment should be ashamed of themselves, we agree,” Jeffries stated. “And to the extent that Elon Musk has made the point that the bill is a ‘disgusting abomination,’ we agree. And to the extent that Elon Musk has made the observation about the GOP tax scam — that it is reckless and irresponsible to explode the deficit by more than $3 trillion, and that potentially could set our country on a path toward bankruptcy — we agree.”
“These are arguments that Democrats have been making now for months.”
