Elon Musk inveighed against the so-called "big beautiful bill" president Donald Trump is pushing Republicans to approve, and CNN's Harry Enten handicapped the four-way power struggle between the key players.
The tech billionaire called the spending bill a "disgusting abomination" just days after formally exiting his White House role, saying the measure would explode the national debt and undo all of his accomplishments with the Department of Government Efficiency, and Enten broke down polling data to project what might come next.
"Please just never call me a disgusting abomination, John, please," Enten told "CNN News Central" host John Berman.
"Never to your face," Berman replied.
"Thank you, thank you," Enten said. "Behind me is perfectly fine."
The data analyst then turned to his touch screen and showed that the bill would add a projected $2 trillion to the national debt, while Trump was asking for just over $9 billion in spending cuts.
"President Trump wants to send these DOGE cuts to Congress [through] the rescission process, and that, get this, would only bring down the national debt by about $9 billion," Enten said. "The big, beautiful bill over 10 years, get this, through the roof in terms of the federal deficits, and the debt up $2 trillion. You don't have to be a mathematical genius to know that $9 [billion] doesn't come anywhere close to $2 trillion. So all of DOGE's work, that they would send at least a part of it to Congress, gets completely wiped out, wiped off the map by the big, beautiful bill."
"No wonder Elon Musk is so upset," he added. "So as I said, he's taking on this bill. He's mostly critical of Congress here."
Berman asked who would win a battle between Musk and Congress, and Enten said the Tesla CEO was far more popular among Republicans than the party's congressional leaders.
"Who wins between Elon Musk and Congress?" Enten said. "Well, look, Elon Musk is a very popular guy amongst Republicans [with] a plus-63 net favorability rating. Beats Mike Johnson at plus-46, who, of course, is the [House] speaker. How about John Thune, the Republican leader in the Senate? Only a plus-30, so if Musk is taking on these two gentlemen, it's not a fair fight. Elon Musk is a very popular dude, but he is nowhere close to where Donald Trump is within the Republican ranks. Look at that, a plus-79 net favorability rating."
"So if Donald Trump decides to turn his fire on Elon Musk, that is a fight that Elon Musk simply cannot win," Enten said. "If Donald Trump stays out of it, he stands a pretty good chance, Elon Musk does, against Johnson and Thune."