Trump Staff Makes Clear Elon Musk Is not the Chief of the GOP

• Republicans tanked a authorities funding invoice after Elon Musk led a marketing campaign towards it.
• Democrats have been insinuating that Musk is now the true chief of the GOP.
• In an announcement to BI, a Trump spokeswoman forcefully pushed again.

President-elect Donald Trump’s crew is making clear that he is the one in command of the Republican Get together — not Elon Musk.

In an announcement to Enterprise Insider for a narrative about how Musk helped tank a authorities funding invoice (in any other case generally known as a seamless decision, or “CR”) this week, Trump-Vance Transition Spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt pushed again on statements made by Democrats that Musk is definitely calling the photographs, slightly than the president-elect himself.

“As quickly as President Trump launched his official stance on the CR, Republicans on Capitol Hill echoed his standpoint,” Leavitt mentioned. “President Trump is the chief of the Republican Get together. Full cease.”

Musk has additionally pushed again on these statements, writing on X: “All I can do is deliver issues to the eye of the folks, so they could voice their help in the event that they so select.”

It got here after scores of Democrats baited Trump with social media posts accusing Musk of being the precise president-elect, the “shadow president,” or the “co-president.”

Whereas an announcement from Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance late within the day on Wednesday marked the ultimate straw for the ill-fated authorities funding invoice, Republican opposition had reached a fever pitch on Capitol Hill lengthy earlier than both of them weighed in.

A number of Republicans even cited arguments put ahead by Musk, or his DOGE co-lead, Vivek Ramaswamy, in explaining why they might oppose what they characterised as wasteful spending within the invoice.

In the meantime, some Republicans questioned why Trump hadn’t weighed in sooner.

Trump and Vance additionally took a distinct stance on the invoice than Musk, who endorsed the thought of merely permitting the federal government to close down till January 20, when Trump is ready to take workplace once more.

As a substitute, Trump and Vance referred to as on lawmakers to go a extra narrowly tailor-made invoice whereas concurrently elevating the debt ceiling — a request that seemingly will not go over effectively with most of the identical hardline Republicans who cheered Musk’s opposition to the invoice.

As of Thursday afternoon, it stays unclear how lawmakers will proceed, and whether or not they’ll be capable to go any invoice via the Home and Senate earlier than authorities funding runs out at midnight on Friday.

If Congress doesn’t go a invoice by then, the federal authorities will shut down, resulting in flight delays, the closure of Nationwide Parks, and each federal employees and members of the navy not receiving paychecks.