White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded Tuesday to former DOGE chief Elon Musk coming out strongly against the Big, Beautiful Bill, saying President Donald Trump continues to support it.
Musk posted on X, “I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”
I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore.
This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination.
Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 3, 2025
Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy asked Leavitt, “How mad do you think President Trump is going to be?” and then quoted Musk’s post on X to her.
“It doesn’t change the president’s opinion. This is one big, beautiful bill, and he’s sticking to it,” she answered.
.@PressSec on @elonmusk calling reconciliation bill “a disgusting abomination”:
“It doesn’t change the president’s opinion. This is one big, beautiful bill and he’s sticking to it.” pic.twitter.com/W07m2vXdHK
— CSPAN (@cspan) June 3, 2025
The Big, Beautiful Bill makes the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent, according to the Tax Foundation.
Do you support the House reconciliation bill?
Additionally, it includes no taxes on tips and no taxes on overtime income, as well as increases the standard deduction for seniors by $4,000. It also hikes the child tax credit from $2,000 to $2,500 per child.
One of the more controversial provisions is that the bill increases the federal tax deduction for state and local taxes from $10,000 to $40,000, which benefits those residing in high-tax blue states like New York, New Jersey, and California.
It was a concession the Republican leadership made, and Trump supported, to gain backing for the bill from House Republicans representing those states.
Republicans like Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Rand Paul of Kentucky have come out against the Big, Beautiful Bill in its current form, saying it adds too much to the national debt.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget forecasted that it will add $3.1 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years, on top of the current annual deficits forecasted.
However, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent took exception with that calculation, arguing it does not factor in the economic growth that the policies in the bill will promote.
Last month, Bessent told Fox News host Bill Hemmer when asked about the impact of the bill on yearly deficits that he was relying on estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.
“You’re referring to the CBO scoring, I believe, which is 10-year scoring, and it’s D.C.-style scoring,” Bessent said.
“We think we can grow the economy and control the debt. And what’s important, Bill, is that our economy grows faster than our debt,” he added.
Leavitt also addressed the CBO’s scoring of the legislation on Tuesday, saying, “The Congressional Budget Office has been historically wrong.”
.@karolineleavitt slams the Congressional Budget Office for its left wing partisanship 🔥
“There hasn’t been a single staffer in the entire Congressional Budget Office that has contributed to a Republican since the year 2000. But guess what — there have been many staffers within… pic.twitter.com/QLpPQapjWE
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) June 3, 2025
Pointing to the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, she said the CBO prediction was off by half a trillion dollars in terms of revenue to the federal treasury.
Supporters of the Big, Beautiful Bill argue that the CBO miscalculated the impact of the TCJA because it did not adequately factor in the impact of economic growth on total revenue.
In 2017, before the bill’s passage, total revenue was $3.3 trillion. Last year, with the tax cuts largely in place, revenue was $4.9 trillion.
The House Ways and Means Committee noted that in the five years after the TCJA’s passage “tax revenues averaged $170 billion per year above CBO’s post-2017 projections.”
Further, by fiscal year 2022, that figure was $884 billion higher.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said in a post on X last week that the Big, Beautiful Bill “saves more than 1.6 TRILLION in mandatory spending, including the largest-ever welfare reform. A remarkable achievement. I’ve also seen claims the bill increases the deficit. This lie is based on a CBO accounting gimmick.”
I’ve seen a few claims making the rounds on the Big Beautiful Bill that require correction.
The first is that it doesn’t “codify the DOGE cuts.” A reconciliation bill, which is a budget bill that passes with 50 votes, is limited by senate rules to “mandatory” spending only — eg…
— Stephen Miller (@StephenM) May 25, 2025
He concluded, “The bill has two fiscal components: a massive tax cut and a massive spending cut.”
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