President Donald Trump met with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Thursday. During their discussion in the Oval Office, Trump fielded questions from reporters. The apparent rift that has developed between Trump and Elon Musk over the "Big, Beautiful Bill" was broached.
Up until now, Trump has been fairly muted in his response to Musk's criticism of the measure currently in the hands of the Senate after narrowly passing the House just before Memorial Day. Trump, of course, fully supports the measure. He's been very clear on that. Musk, however, has grown increasingly critical of it.
Trump's response to the disagreement on Thursday was fairly sharp. He's not happy with Musk's commentary — understandably so, given that it may make the challenging task of securing its passage through a closely divided Congress (and frequently factionalized GOP) that much tougher.
Watch:
[Regarding the BBB] "Nobody's ever seen anything like it. And, you know, Elon's upset because we took the EV mandate and — you know, which was a lot of money for electric vehicles, and...they're having a hard time, the electric vehicles — and they want us to pay billions of dollars in subsidy. And...Elon knew this from the beginning; he knew it from a long time ago — that's been in there — that's been, I would say, JD, that hasn't changed; that's been right from the beginning...Mr. Secretary, that hasn’t changed at all — right from the beginning.
"But I know that it disturbed him. He wanted — and rightfully — he recommended somebody... that he, I guess, knew very well — I’m sure he respected him — but to run NASA, and I didn’t think it was appropriate. And he happened to be a Democrat, like totally Democrat. And I said, you know, look, we won; we get certain privileges, and one of the privileges — we don't have to appoint a Democrat. NASA is very important. We have great people — General Caine is gonna be picking somebody...we'll be checking them out. But he wanted that person, a certain person, and we said no.
"And, you know, I can understand why he’s upset. Remember, he was here for a long time. You saw a man who was very happy when he stood behind the oval desk...Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will anymore. I was surprised because — you were here; everybody in this room practically was here — as we had a wonderful send-off. He said wonderful things about me. You couldn’t have nicer...He's worn the hat, "Trump was right about everything." And I am right about the great big beautiful bill. We call it a great big beautiful bill because that’s what it is. And again, biggest tax cuts in history, biggest economic development moves anywhere — we've never done anything like it."
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Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent then went into more detail about the BBB and its scoring and revenue, along with key economic indicators, and success with those, as well as the border, before returning to the issue of Musk's criticism.
"Elon knew that. Elon endorsed me very strongly...but I’m very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here — better than you people. He knew everything about it; he had no problem with it. All of a sudden, he had a problem, and he only developed the problem when he found out that we’re gonna have to cut the EV mandate, because that’s billions and billions of dollars — and it really is unfair. We want to have cars of all types: electric — we want to have electric — but we want to have gasoline, combustion...we want to have hybrids. We want to have all — we want to be able to sell everything. And when that was cut — and Congress wanted to cut it — he became a little bit different, and I can understand that.
"But he knew every aspect of this bill; he knew it better than almost anybody. And he never had a problem until right after he left. And if you saw the statements he made about me — which I’m sure you can get very easily; it's very fresh on tape — he said the most beautiful things about me. And he hasn’t said bad about me personally, but I'm sure that'll be next. But I’m very disappointed in Elon; I’ve helped Elon a lot."
For his part, Trump appears to understand Musk's frustration, at least to a degree, but he's not wavering. Trump and his administration remain focused on getting this bill passed and to his desk.
Editor's Note: President Trump is leading America into the "Golden Age" as Democrats try desperately to stop it.
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