A New York Times reporter capped off a discussion about the House budget bill by wondering how long Donald Trump would be saddled with Elon Musk.
House Speaker Mike Johnson notched a legislative win late Tuesday with a framework for the "big, beautiful bill" on the budget that Trump has called for. The president personally pressured Republican holdouts, and Times journalist Lulu Garcia-Navarro gave Trump credit for it passing the House during a discussion on "CNN This Morning."
"I actually think what you saw was very impressive," she said. "I mean, you saw Trump really actually being incredibly engaged, calling up lawmakers, getting them to the table. This is actually where a president matters. This is actually something that was a big question whether Trump was going to engage in at this granular level, and we've seen him do it."
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) decided to back the bill after Trump called him, but the congressman insisted that he wasn't threatened or promised anything.
"That to me when there's no quid pro quo means 'I am not going to fund a challenger against you moving forward,'" said panelist Meghan Hayes, a former communications aide to Joe Biden. "So I think that's a little bit, you know, they're getting to the table for different reasons, and it will be interesting to see how this all plays out."
She then veered to Elon Musk and his federal government cuts.
"But back to your question about [are Musk's budget cuts] being done respectfully and firing [federal workers]? It is not being done respectfully. But I do agree with you that Donald Trump's term is going to be defined in what happens in this bill."
History tends to focus on a president's first 100 days, but Trump's term may be defined by the 130-day term that Musk has pledged to serve in an undefined but overarching role, she said.
"Well, we don't know how long he's going to be serving as a special government employee," Garcia-Navarro said. "Let's be clear, but yes, Eon Musk has become a focus, and this is where I'd push back a little because this is so unusual, when have we ever seen someone like this, the richest man in the world, coming in and having such sway over the government, over the president, and over the first term of a new administration? We've never seen it before, and so, therefore, it is legitimately fascinating, important and worthy of scrutiny."
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