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President-elect Donald Trump used a speech to MAGA supporters to strongly push back on claims that billionaire Elon Musk had effectively taken over his presidency.

While speaking to Turning Point USA's AmFest conference attendees on Sunday, Trump argued that "big companies" wanted him to cut regulations more than slashing taxes.

President-elect Donald Trump paused a speech to MAGA followers after claiming to hear a "strange sound" on stage.

At Sunday's AmFest in Arizona, Trump was complaining about undocumented migrants when he was interrupted by an apparent noise.

One of the 38 Republican House members who voted no on the budget bill passed in the wee hours of Saturday with the help of Democrats expressed his displeasure with his own party on CNN Sunday morning.

Appearing on "State of the Union" with host Dana Bash, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), a frequent guest on cable networks lately, claimed he came to Congress six years ago with a mandate from voters in his district to rein in government spending, which has not happened as far as he is concerned.

He then admitted he voluntarily left the House Budget Committee because he saw it as ineffective and a waste of time.

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After saying GOP lawmakers are "abdicating our duties," he told Bash, "We have one duty that I see, we're supposed to follow the Constitution, and the Constitution says that Congress will pass a budget."

"I've been there six years, and I think it's been 30 years since they passed a budget," he elaborated. "I used to be on the Budget Committee, and I asked to be taken off of it because we we're not serious about passing a budget. All we want to do is continue bad spending, policies."

"We are $36 trillion in debt," he complained. "As you know, every hundred days we add another deal and then they push us up against the holidays. and look, that's not by accident."

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President-elect Donald Trump complained about possibly having to walk down steps to reach the stage at a conservative conference on Sunday.

As he walked out to the podium at AmFest in Arizona, Trump began by wishing the audience a Merry Christmas.

Fox News host Howard Kurtz suggested there were "no actual inaccuracies" in reporting by The New York Times and The Washington Post after President-elect Donald Trump sued the Pulitzer Prize Board for awarding the news organizations for work done to expose Russia's interference in the 2016 election.

"Trump has openly said, he doesn't make any secret of it, that if he loses these lawsuits, he's still satisfied because it puts the journalists or media organization through an ordeal and forces them to hire expensive lawyers," Kurtz explained to Fox News contributor Jason Chaffetz on Sunday.

Fox News host Maria Bartiromo pressed incoming White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt after 38 Republicans voted against President-elect Donald Trump's last-minute demand to raise the debt ceiling as part of a bill to prevent a government shutdown.

During an interview on Sunday Morning Futures, Bartiromo told Leavitt that "drama" broke out on Capitol Hill due to Trump's demands derailing a government spending bill.

Should Donald Trump make good on his threats to sue media organizations and critics whom he believes have disparaged him, he will end up "looking like the fool that he is."

That is the opinion of conservative lawyer and Trump critic George Conway during an appearance on MSNBC on Sunday morning.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) attacked Hunter Biden when asked about billionaire Elon Musk's outsized role in influencing President-elect Donald Trump and the Republican Party.

During an interview on Fox News Sunday, Mullin touted Musk as the solution to government spending after the billionaire temporarily derailed a bill to prevent a government shutdown.

A decision by Lara Trump to withdraw her name from consideration to fill Sen. Marco Rubio's seat representing Florida was greeted with skepticism and no small amount of mirth on MSNBC on Sunday morning.

Late Saturday night, just days after she reaffirmed she was very interested in taking Rubio's place after he was nominated by her father-in-law to be his next secretary of state, the wife of Eric Trump issued a statement explaining, "I could not have been more honored to serve as RNC co-chair during the most high-stakes election of our lifetime and I’m truly humbled by the unbelievable support shown to me by the people of our country, and here in the great state of Florida," before announcing a "big announcement" to come in January.

Reacting to a fire-breathing speech given by Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) in Phoenix on Saturday, both former RNC head Michael Steele and ex-Rep. Dave Jolly (R-FL) both laughed off the MAGA lawmaker's threats aimed at his colleagues.

On Saturday, Donalds told a crowd at a Turning Point USA gathering, "In Washington we have one simple job that we got to do and we've got to deliver the agenda that you worked hard for, that you gave up your time for. And I'm going to tell you this, we're going to accomplish that agenda in Washington, D.C., and if any of my colleagues decide to get in the way, you will hear it directly from me and they will be held accountable."

After viewing the video clip Steele, the co-host of MSNBC's "The Weekend," smirked and asked, "What the hell are you gonna do?"

ALSO READ: We're watching the largest and most dangerous 'cult' in American history

He repeated, "What the hell you going to do? You don't represent the 720,000 people who live in the Maryland Fifth Congressional District. I mean, what -- what are you going to do? I mean this sort of, you know, banal kind of threats and crazy talk –– the reality of it is, you negotiated a bill to put the nation's fiscal house in order, budget, right? And along comes Elon Musk who says, 'Oh, no, we're not doing that.' I guess Byron gets all on board with it, then what do they do? They wind up with the exact same bill."

Jolly chimed in by explaining, "Byron Donalds is a member looking for his place in the world and hasn't found it. He's run for speaker a couple times, he maybe runs for governor –– he doesn't know. He hasn't landed anything in the [Donald] Trump orbit so when you can't find your place in politics you get angry. He's not going to do anything about it."

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Republican lawmakers have set themselves up for failure in the next year, according to a former Republican staffer.

Brendan Buck, a former key adviser to ex-House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), appeared on MSNBC Saturday. Buck, who was counselor to Ryan and press secretary to former speaker John A. Boehner, has previously defended the president elect against allegations of parallels to Nazi leaders.

There is a "break" from Donald Trump happening among Republican lawmakers, according to a congressional insider who broke down the recent votes for a bill to fund the federal government.

United States Representative Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA), who previously called out President-elect Donald Trump's "incoherent" plans for immigration on CNN, appeared on MSNBC on Saturday.