Evening Edition: Elon Musk Says Spending Bill 'Undermines' DOGE
19:04 Share

You may get a little excited when you shop at Burlington. Burlington saves you up to 60% off other retailers' prices every day. Will it be the low prices or the great brands? Burlington. Deals. Brands. Wow. I told you so. Styles and selections vary by store. She's made up her mind.

She's got to get right out of her life.

Boring money moves make kind of lame songs, but they sound pretty sweet to your wallet. BNC Bank, brilliantly boring since 1865. I'm Ainsley Earhart. I'm Brett Baer. I'm Katie Pavlich, and this is the Fox News Rundown.

Wednesday, May 28th, 2025. I'm Ryan Schmelz. The one big beautiful bill facing some criticism from Elon Musk. But House Speaker Mike Johnson says more spending cuts are on the way. They're looking to pass this.

and they don't really need Democrats to get on board with it. When you talk about the budget, you have that 60-vote threshold in the Senate. They are going to have to get some Democrats on board with that, and that raises a whole other set of challenges. This is the Fox News Rundown Evening Edition. ♪

Feeling a little stalled in the bedroom? Through HIMS, you can get some gas back in the tank with personalized ED treatment options that are accessible without ever stepping foot into a doctor's office. With hundreds of thousands of trusted subscribers, HIMS can help you find the ED option that works for you.

Hymns provides access to a range of doctor-trusted ED treatments like chewable tablets, Viagra and Cialis, and their generics for up to 95% less. No insurance is needed, and one low price covers everything from treatments to ongoing care. Just fill out an intake form on their site, and a medical provider will determine the right treatment option. If prescribed, your medication ships directly to you for free. Start with your free online prescription.

visit today at HIMSS.com slash rundown. That's H-I-M-S dot com slash rundown for your personalized ED treatment options. HIMSS.com slash rundown. The featured products include compounded products which are not approved nor verified for safety, effectiveness, or quality by the FDA. Prescription required. See website for details, restrictions, and important safety information. Price varies based on product and subscription plan.

Elon Musk says he's disappointed the one big beautiful bill passed by the House is estimated to add trillions to the deficit over 10 years. The former Doge head echoing statements from a few Senate Republicans who say significant changes will need to be made for them to get on board.

But House Speaker Mike Johnson in a post on X says Republicans have a few tools for codifying the Doge cuts they plan on pursuing in the near future. That includes rescissions, a package of requested spending cuts the White House can send to Congress for approval on a simple majority.

A source familiar says the first rescissions package will come next week, and there's the actual process of funding the government for the next fiscal year, which poses its own set of challenges with a late September deadline approaching. I think what we're seeing is sort of the work of Doge seemingly at odds with the work of the House as they work

to pass and Congress at large as they try to pass the big, beautiful bill. We are speaking to Fox Business Network Washington correspondent Grady Trimble about Republicans' efforts to cut spending and the former Doge head's criticism. Doge, of course, is strictly focused on cutting. And I think that the House and now the Senate, as it works through the bill, is faced with the political reality that it has to make

maintain certain programs like Medicare and Medicaid, for example, Social Security, those types of programs, while also trying to deliver on President Trump's agenda. And I also think Doge

thought that maybe they could come in and sort of unilaterally start chopping and making these massive cuts to the tune of $2 trillion at first, $1 trillion after that. And I think maybe they're also running into the difficulty of figuring out how DC operates. And it's not always that easy. You can't just as one entity come in and make those drastic changes. And so I think the

Those two goals are a little bit in conflict here. That being said, Speaker Johnson is defending both Doge and the work that he and his House colleagues have done to get this bill passed.

passed in the House and now as it works its way through the Senate, obviously they're gonna have to take it up again once the Senate makes its changes. But I think Johnson is more used to how Congress operates. And so he's working with these political realities while also trying to deliver on President Trump's agenda.

And I think one thing that was interesting about this is you have Russ Vogt saying that, and I believe it was also Stephen Miller pointed this out too, that it's mandatory spending that the reconciliation slash the one big beautiful bill process can actually address. When you're talking about other things like discretionary spending, which is where a lot of Doge has been focused on so far,

you can't address that in reconciliation based off of how the rules are. So now there's been this talk of potentially going in and codifying some of these doge cuts. But the reality is that Republicans have had a lot of their time focused on this one big, beautiful bill and recisions or codifying these doge cuts has kind of taken a step back up

up until now. Yeah, and in fairness, I think that was because President Trump is the one who signaled to Congress that this is the list of his priorities and this is the order of his priorities. And he indicated that the big, beautiful bill was the thing that he wanted done first, which

includes border changes, enhancements, and a whole host of other things, along with what we were talking about before. It lifts the debt ceiling, for example, which President Trump advocated for. So there's all sorts of things wrapped into this bill. And then I think secondarily, this is where the doge cuts come in and potentially codifying them. You've got to go through what

they call the rescissions process for that. And that essentially, in layman's terms, is a way of kind of clawing back or canceling some unobligated discretionary funding that Congress has already allocated. And then secondarily, what Speaker Johnson is talking about today, posting on X in response

kind of in response to what Elon Musk said about Doge and the so-called big, beautiful bill is passing President Trump's 2026 budget. Because, you know, what the president does via OMB is they put out here is exactly what we'd like to see. They send it to Congress. Congress works through it. And of course, then, you know, they have to deal with the different factions of the party and

in getting it passed. But I think what Congress is now doing is

simultaneously working through the big beautiful bill in the Senate, which has already passed the House, and also now taking on these Doge cuts and working to make them permanent. The White House is going to be sending these rescissions packages to Congress, and they're kind of doing a test one at first. It's going to be a little over $9 billion. You've got cuts to USAID. That's the majority of the cuts in there. Then you've got about, I think it's

a little over $1 billion in there in cuts to NPR and PBS. So this is what it seems like to me, Grady, is kind of a test run for future what they call rescissions packages. And the big thing about them is that you can pass them with a simple majority, but they have to come from the White House and they have to be done within 45 days.

Yeah. And I think that you're right. It is a test. And I think it's also probably some programs that the White House believes almost all Republicans, if not all, are going to be on board with, at least in principle. Obviously, they've been extremely critical of NPR and PBS. The USAID funding that came to light very early on, once Doge started getting to work, immediately drew attention.

You know, the ire of Republicans who were shocked about a lot of the programs within it, within USAID. So, yeah, I think it is a test and it's also sort of the low hanging fruit, if you will, something that is feasible to get past.

And then maybe after this, because let's be honest, the amount that you listed is a drop in the bucket when it comes to overall government spending and even just the portion of government spending that Doge is looking to eliminate to try to get government spending in check. And so I think, yeah, it's a test and it's also a way to signal sort of political views toward these organizations. Yeah.

And you brought up something that was interesting earlier is that, you know, you've got the budget process still. So I think there's this narrative that the big, beautiful bill is the Republicans last chance to cut spending when it's not even close, because like you said, we've got the rescissions process that can really start to kick up as soon as this is over with. And then also you've still got the appropriations process.

slash funding the government through the next fiscal year, which is government funding is up at the end of September. So that's going to be here before we know it. Difference there, though, Grady, I think that stands out to me is when you pass a government funding package, whether it's through an appropriations bill or an omnibus, you need 60 votes in the Senate. So that's going to set up a really interesting dynamic down the road.

Right. So I think it's hard to even envision how that process is going to go when right now the Senate is still dealing with the big, beautiful bill, you know, that you already have before we even talk about the president's budget. We have Republicans threatening to hold up the big, beautiful bill because they say it doesn't do enough to tackle the national debt and deficit. They don't like how it raises the debt ceiling by something like four trillion dollars.

And so they're threatening to either make major changes that would then complicate the path to the president's desk because it would have to go back to the House,

And then when you talk about President Trump's 2026 budget, it's sort of putting the cart before the horse here because like I mentioned earlier about this list of priorities that the president has outlined, obviously his budget is a big part of that. Every president uses their budget to signal what's important to them and their presidency and their administration. And the problem in this case is they're gonna have

to be doing that soon while the Senate is still, especially Republicans in the Senate, are still at odds about what to do with this big, beautiful bill. But I think what we've seen with President Trump historically, with the 2017 tax cuts as an example, and just other dealings with Congress, and this probably goes for just about any president,

But it looks messy and then it does all come together in the end. So maybe there are gonna be some changes, but maybe the president is gonna do what he did last week or the week before, which is come to the Hill, speak with Republicans in the Senate, get them all on board to make some changes to the House passed bill that would still have a chance at surviving in the House

and then go back to the House and get those Freedom Caucus members and the other factions on board with it as well. So all of that is to say, they're working on this right now, so it's a little bit difficult to look ahead to the budget process when clearly President Trump wants to get this done first and foremost.

But to your point, it highlights the challenges that they're going to face because this is, you know, they're looking to pass this and they don't really need Democrats to get on board with it. When you talk about the budget, you have that 60 vote threshold in the Senate. They are going to have to get some Democrats on board with that. And that raises a whole other set of challenges. We're speaking to Fox Business Network, Washington correspondent Grady Trimble. More after this.

Starting a business can seem like a daunting task, unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website, to marketing, to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz, and Allbirds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into... Sign up for your $1 per month trial at shopify.com slash special offer.

And kind of like some of the rumblings we hear on Capitol Hill is, was the Doge damage? Is there damage control there that has led to a lack of trust from Democrats that will make this hard for Republicans to get them on board? And next thing you know, you've got to negotiate everything at once instead of negotiating 12 separate bills to fund the government at different times. And while we're on Elon Musk...

You know, what do you make of kind of the just the fact that he's vocally is attacking the bill itself? And do you think this is a sign of some type of, you know, tension between Musk and the White House now? Or do you think this is just him giving an honest answer about Trump?

how he feels about the reconciliation package. I think it could be a little bit of both. I don't know. Every time President Trump is asked about his relationship with Elon Musk, he says everything's good. I think maybe what's happening is Musk is is

to feel a little more comfortable speaking out against some of what the House does, for example. And we even heard President Trump sort of echo what Musk said, which is that he doesn't love everything that's in the bill, but he feels that there's one thing

proper way to do this, which is put everything in one bill, as opposed to, like you said, breaking, breaking his agenda up into all sorts of different parts, like the tax cuts and the border and the list goes on. And so I think actually, particularly Musk and Trump are in a little bit more lockstep than it may sound like at first glance, because

Trump essentially echoed what Musk was saying. And then Speaker Johnson is also on board with the premise of what Musk wants to do. It's just, to your point, the mechanisms that Congress has to use in order to achieve those goals of spending cuts are a little bit more nuanced and complicated than

perhaps Musk or even the members of Congress and the House GOP leadership themselves would wish that it would. I'm sure a lot of them wish they could wave a magic wand and undo the past 20 plus years of government spending under multiple administrations on the left and right, but they can't do that. So now they're sort of reckoning with the steps that they have to take in order to

deliver on President Trump's agenda. You know, this isn't the first time Musk has been critical of somebody within the Trump administration. I believe he's had some disagreements in the past with some of his economic advisors, whether it's on tariffs or different mechanisms of trade. So this isn't exactly completely

new, but it is the first time we've seen it since he drew back his position within the administration, right? Yeah, exactly. And there were times when he was sort of, well, for example, you mentioned the tariff criticism. I think that's because he was feeling pressure on his companies like Tesla, for example, and

And he was getting heat from investors for being too involved in government and not involved enough in his companies. And he spoke out against the tariffs because he realized that it could have potentially negative consequences on his companies. And I think by doing that, he sort of realized that it was okay to express some disagreement with like their relationship did not devolve because he spoke out against it. So maybe he's starting to realize that he can speak out against some of what

the GOP is doing and some of what President Trump is doing and still remain in good standing with them. And like, you know, I agree with your point that maybe since he's removing himself from Doge because his time as a

quote unquote, special government employees coming to an end. Maybe there's a certain level of freedom that he's feeling to express his thoughts a little more openly than perhaps he would have if the plan was to stick around for a lot longer. Fox Business Network, Washington correspondent Grady Trimble. Thank you for joining us on the Fox News Rundown Evening Edition. Thank you, Ryan.

You've been listening to the Fox News Rundown. And now, stay up to date by subscribing to this podcast at foxnewspodcasts.com. Listen ad-free on Fox News Podcasts Plus on Apple Podcasts. And Prime members can listen to the show ad-free on Amazon Music. And for up-to-the-minute news, go to foxnews.com.

It is time to take the quiz. It's five questions in less than five minutes. We ask people on the streets of New York City to play along. Let's see how you do. Take the quiz every day at the quiz. Fox. Then come back here to see how you did. Thank you for taking the quiz.