‘It’s Like Mommy and Daddy Are Fighting’

Today’s notice: Et tu, Elon? The CBO conspiracy theorists. A remarkable FOIA from the days after the election. The future of the Democratic Party? And: Possibly the best lobbying job in D.C.

Flame War: Elon Musk’s X post calling the One Big, Beautiful Bill a “disgusting abomination” Tuesday “spread around pretty fast” among Senate Republicans, Sen. Ron Johnson, one of the bill’s harshest critics, told reporters.

• Deficit hawks in the Senate like Mike Lee and Rand Paul gleefully reposted Musk, hoping to build momentum for their efforts to rebuild the Senate version of the bill around their principles. As did Rep. Scott Perry (who voted for the bill).

• Quite the moment: “It’s like mommy and daddy are fighting,” Rep. Eric Burlison told reporters.
  

The only real question here is who has more pull: Musk or Donald Trump? Speaker Mike Johnson gave Musk’s post the oh, bless your heart treatment. Asked about Musk’s tweet, he highlighted the fact that the House version of the bill, which cuts subsidies for EVs, could have an impact on Tesla.

One Republican lobbyist thinks Musk has no chance, saying, “If Trump is for the bill, I don’t think it changes the dynamics a ton.” Though they told NOTUS’ Taylor Giorno it would be “literal suicide” to comment on the rift on the record.

• “Getting in the middle of two fucking Goliath sounds like fucking hell. Elon controls X, which absolutely influences the daily understanding of American politics. Trump is the president, he daily changes the direction of how Americans understand politics,” they said.
  

What’s next? The Senate meets again behind closed doors today (and tomorrow) to comb through the bill.

• When NOTUS asked Sen. Thom Tillis what he expects from the meeting Wednesday, he said, “a miracle.”

Killing the Messenger: Musk received friendly treatment Tuesday compared to the Congressional Budget Office. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the CBO as being full of liberal hacks when a reporter pointed out that it, too, has said the reconciliation bill would balloon the deficit.

• This idea has taken hold on the right: Rep. Ralph Norman told NOTUS’ Oriana González he didn’t believe CBO’s numbers showing how defunding Planned Parenthood would increase the deficit, claiming without evidence that the CBO “give[s] money to Planned Parenthood.”

• The CBO declined to comment directly on the attacks. The group has a lengthy section on its website detailing the steps it takes to avoid employee conflicts of interest in its findings.

We found Republican Senators were more cautious when talking about the CBO, however.

• “I think we’ve all complained about them at some point, even Republicans and Democrats,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin said. “It depends on if they’re in your favor or not.”

Panic! At the Office of Special Counsel: In the hours and days after Trump won in November, officials at the Office of Special Counsel were sending and receiving distress calls, according to 33 pages of partially redacted documents that NOTUS obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

• “Federal employees will be made to make an oath of fealty to Donny the Felon,” someone with a VA.gov email warned the office. “We will be forced to undergo ‘Leadership Training’ designed to indoctrinate into the new administration’s litmus test of loyalty. IF and WHEN this occurs, when I am forced to pledge or lose my (OUR) job(s) — what do I do?”

• One prescient concern: What would happen to political leadership in Washington? “Yeah the appointment is 5 years, but the Project 2025 folks want to replace a lot of political people with loyalists,” one OSC official sent another.

The Year of the Dem Lt. Gov?: The Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association plans to spend big in 2026 to help its members running for new offices, NOTUS reports.

• Who’s getting help: Senate candidates Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota and Juliana Stratton in Illinois. Also gubernatorial hopefuls Garlin Gilchrist in Michigan and Eleni Kounalakis in California.
  
• Who’s definitely not getting help: “We will offer our support only to Lt. Governors seeking higher office in open primaries,” the DLGA said in response to New York Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado’s primary against Gov. Kathy Hochul.

New Reconciliation Polling: A coalition of progressive groups actively trying to defeat the Republicans’ reconciliation bill exclusively shared a new national poll being released today. The Hart Research poll was conducted among 1,032 registered voters from May 27–28 for Families Over Billionaires, CAP Action and Protect Our Care.

• It shows an electorate wide open to messaging on the bill. Only 30% of voters have heard a lot about it, 40% say they have heard some and 30% nothing at all.
• What the groups want you to know: After hearing “a basic description” of the bill, swing-voter opposition jumps to 65%.

Nice Work, if You Can Get It: Being an ethanol lobbyist seems like a nice gig. The only Biden-era clean energy tax credit extended in the House-passed reconciliation bill is the one subsidizing bio-based fuel production, which happens to be wildly popular in farm country. It’s also one conservative economists and clean energy advocates alike think is a waste of money, NOTUS’ Anna Kramer reports.

• “This is just influential coalitions, to whose knee many members of the House, particularly the House but also the Senate Agriculture Committee, are willing to bow,” said Vincent Smith, the director of agricultural policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. “There’s no good public policy rationale for continuing the subsidy.”

Not as Great Work: The largest biotechnology lobbying association, the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, is culling its Agriculture and Environment team. BIO said it’s cutting fewer than 10 staff and “are actively working to transition those workstreams to other third party organizations,” NOTUS’ Taylor Giorno learned.

• They have curtailed federal spending from nearly $1.8 million during the first quarter of 2024 to $890,000 during the first three months of 2025.

New on NOTUS

• Trump Admin’s New ‘Loyalty Test’ Hiring Plan Nixes Demographic Data Collection: The plan asks new federal applicants to describe their favorite of the president’s executive orders.
• Marjorie Taylor Greene Regrets Voting for the Reconciliation Bill Without Reading Its AI Provision: The provision would block states from regulating artificial intelligence for the next decade. But there’s a growing chorus of opponents.
• House Judiciary Democrats Push for Investigation Into Nadler Staffer’s DHS Detention: The ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee is calling on Rep. Jim Jordan, who chairs the committee, to investigate DHS’s brief detainment of one of Nadler’s aides.

Not Us

• Native Americans Hurt by Federal Health Cuts, Despite RFK Jr.’s Promises of Protection, by Katheryn Houghton, Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez and Arielle Zionts for KFF Health News
• Black Democrats fume over 2024 while ‘searching for a leader’ in 2028, by Sabrina Rodriguez for The Washington Post
• How the Farm Industry Spied on Animal Rights Activists and Pushed the FBI to Treat Them as Bioterrorists, by Dell Cameron for Wired
• A Stephen Miller Staffer and Tough Talk: Inside Trump’s Latest Attack on Harvard, by Michael S. Schmidt and Michael C. Bender for The New York Times

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