“Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate.”
That was former White House Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head, Tesla and SpaceX CEO and X owner Elon Musk’s take on June 5 on the outcome of the 2024 election, single-handedly taking credit for President Donald Trump and Republicans’ upset wins for the White House, House and Senate. It’s not true.
Yes, Musk did spend about $291 million on the 2024 election, but Republicans all told spent $7.6 billion on the presidential and Congressional elections, according to Open Secrets. So, Musk, although the single largest single GOP donor in the 2024 cycle, accounted for about 3.8 percent of Republicans’ overall spending on the election.
Musk also appeared in several rallies and town halls throughout the campaign, and lent his voice on X to his 200 million followers, pushing the election. Musk endorsed Trump after an assassin almost took the President’s head off on July 13 at the Butler, Pa. rally.
But so did Robert Kennedy, Jr., who left the campaign trail and threw his weight behind Trump, at a time when he was polling 9 percent in national polls. In November, Kennedy only received 0.5 percent of the vote, at about 750,000. But if he had remained in the race, he might have been on pace to receive more like 13 million votes, which could have certainly made a difference in the election. Now, maybe Musk urged Kennedy to leave the race, but he wasn’t the only one doing so, and ultimately, it was Kennedy who made that final, fateful decision and Trump who had to make it worth his while.
So did Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic Congresswoman from Hawaii and many other independents and former Democrats, who all signaled nationally that it was time for a change of leadership.
Both men’s faith was rewarded, with Kennedy being made Secretary of Health and Human Services and Musk being put in charge of DOGE. Gabbard similarly was made the National Director of Intelligence.
As one of the world’s wealthiest men and certainly the top donor of the victorious party, Musk’s self-centered view on the election’s outcome is understandable but to be honest, money isn’t everything. Democrats spent about $7 billion on the elections, too, first attempting to prop up the enfeebled former President Joe Biden and then former Vice President Kamala Harris — and they lost!
But what a thing to say, that somehow money is everything in politics. That one man, Musk, could “buy” the election. Is he affirming the view of former President Biden, who warned in his farewell address of “an oligarchy… taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead”?
Maybe Biden was right. Now, Musk is threatening to take down Republicans’ signature legislation to extend and expand the 2017 Trump tax cuts, including no taxes on tips and overtime, and tax relief for seniors, expensing for factories to make products in America and finally gets Congress in on the act of securing the border, providing $46 billion to finish the border wall that Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell failed to provide in 2017 and billions more to see to the deportation of millions of illegal aliens Musk had rightly warned in 2024 were being used to create a Democratic-one-party-rule state.
Why, those were all the things Trump consistently promised at his rallies, appealing to the American people. Now, Musk wants the Republican Congress to break the promises that were made on the campaign trail in his push to “kill the bill”.
Of course, the only reason Trump truly won was because 77.3 million Americans voted for Trump, the first Republican to win the popular vote since 2004, and he won a majority in the Electoral College, and they voted for Republican majorities in the House and Senate.
These are the very 77.3 million voters Musk unbelievably now seeks to disenfranchise by defeating the legislation Trump and Republicans promised to deliver with their majorities — which are fleeting — over disagreements about the tax legislation, who should head NASA and how DOGE’s proposed $180 billion of spending cuts were received by Trump cabinet members and Congress. But we have a government elected by the people, not chosen or anointed by the wealthy.
For somebody who appeared genuinely concerned about the fate of democracy in the election, Musk at the moment appears frightfully unconcerned about disenfranchising the American people who voted in 2024 to extend and expand the tax cuts and secure the border. Yes, Congress can do more to cut spending. That’s always true.
So, lobby Congress to cut spending, but don’t expect to get 100 percent of what you want with three-seat majorities in the House and Senate. That’s not how legislatures work.
President Trump promised in the campaign to cut taxes and regulations, to put America first on trade with tariffs, to secure the border and deport the millions of illegal aliens here and not to cut Social Security and Medicare.
Trump also promised to use DOGE to cut spending, and Trump has done some of that, spending lots of political capital in the process. Congress should enact the DOGE savings by lowering baseline spending to departments and agencies. Get as much in there as possible, within the constraints of achieving the majority threshold for passage. Congress has the power of the purse. And some of the promises made may appear to be at odds with one another. To get more done, Republicans might need larger majorities.
2024 was not a landslide in Congress, so Republicans do not necessarily get landslide-like policies. Sorry.
Pass the tax bill, and then after that, do more! Work with Democrats if you have to. If the debt ceiling is removed from the tax bill, that could be an opportunity to address the fiscal trajectory of the nation. Or not, it could just be a chance for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to extract concessions.
There’s always the appropriations process, which ultimately will be done with appropriations bills, an omnibus spending bill or a continuing resolution. Choose your poison. But don’t expect to get everything you want. Because that’s not the way republics work.
Or “kill the bill,” as Musk suggests Republicans join a political suicide pact. Pass no significant legislation. Let taxes increase. Don’t build the wall like Trump promised. Do nothing to incentivize production in the U.S. And go start a third party that won’t get elected dogcatcher.
Musk has made great sacrifices to participate in politics, including perhaps the good will of some of the public in his companies Tesla, SpaceX and X. This might not be helping the bottom line. As Trump reminds everyone, Musk didn’t need this. But you know what? Neither did Americans who were getting beat up or removed from restaurants the past decade for wearing Make America Great Again hats and being threatened with political violence that almost claimed the lives of President Trump and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.).
Does Musk think he’s the only person who has made sacrifices to get to this point? He still just one man.
Republicans now have a choice, to uphold the will of the 77.3 million people who voted for them and pass the legislation they promised over and over again to enact — or to cater to the temper tantrum of one man who is now proposing to destroy their party because the bill is not perfect. This is madness.
With Republican majorities, voters are expecting Trump’s legislative agenda to be enacted. The concerns over the unsustainable $36 trillion national debt are very legitimate and could hurt Republicans in upcoming elections, too. So, put more spending cuts in there. Republicans promised to do that, too. Is it that hard?
But at the end of the day, get the job done you were elected to do.
Under the Constitution, the legitimacy of the federal government does not come from the whims of a single man, it is derived from the consent of the governed, which means elections have consequences. Make a promise, keep a promise — or else.
Robert Romano is the Executive Director of Americans for Limited Government.
Reproduced with permission. Original here: 77 Million Americans Reelected President Donald Trump, Not Elon Musk Or Any Single Man
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