Friday on FNC’s “Jesse Watters Primetime,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) dismissed the possibility of the so-called “big, beautiful” spending bill stalling out on Capitol Hill because of Tesla CEO and former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Elon Musk’s critique.
“All right, Speaker,” host Jesse Watters said. “Is Elon going to derail the big, beautiful bill?”
“Absolutely not,” Johnson replied. “Look, we are feeling the same energy that the President is. He’s leading. He’s delivering on his promises, and we all are. The big, beautiful bill is basically all those campaign speeches reduced to legislation. That’s what it is, that’s how important it is. Think of what’s in this, a record level of tax cuts, a record level of spending cuts, secure border, American energy dominance, again, regulatory reform, all the things that we promised, and we’re shoring up these essential programs that people rely upon. The President is making good on his promises, and we are, too, and that thing is on a glide path to be passed before Independence Day being signed into law.”
Watters said, “So he says that it doesn’t cut spending and it drives up the debt or the deficit. What do you say to that?”
“Elon is relying on the liberal CBO analysis, OK?” Johnson responded. “What they’re arguing is that if we extend existing tax cuts, it somehow adds to the deficit. That is not new spending. What we’re doing is providing tax relief for the American people, because if we didn’t do this, Jesse, everybody now knows, we’d have the largest tax increase in U.S. history at the end of the year. So what we’re doing here is having a historic level of spending cuts. We’re talking about $1.6 trillion in spending. Jesse, there has never been any legislative body in the history of mankind that has cut that much spending. Now, is it enough? Look, I agree with our friend, Elon. We need to cut more spending, but you can’t do it all overnight. So this is the first in a series of things that we are going to do to get the country back on fiscal trajectory, a sound fiscal standing.”
He added, “And the President promised that, he believes in it. We believe in it, and we’re doing that, and it starts with the Big, Beautiful Bill.”
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