Since the House passed President Donald Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” over a week ago, there’s been a drip-drip of fallout from different factions of the Republican conference who are coming to terms with a bill they don’t really like, but voted for anyway.
Elon Musk’s relentless criticism of the bill and a new Congressional Budget Office report showing it would balloon the deficit fueled conservative hopes that the Senate version will produce substantive changes to help quell their buyers’ remorse.
“I love the air cover,” conservative Rep. Eric Burlison — who voted for the bill — told NOTUS. “Thank God we have somebody like [Musk] that’s coming in with a wrecking ball and trying to help us here.”
He added: “Every step of the way, we tried to get more and more concessions. And if I were a senator, I would be using this moment in this vote to get even more concessions.”
Burlison is one of more than a dozen staunch conservatives who are welcoming Musk’s nonstop posts on X slamming the bill with open arms. Several members have also claimed they are only now discovering provisions they oppose.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene posted on X that she would have voted against the bill if she had known about a provision that prevents states from regulating the use of artificial intelligence.
“I think they’re going to strip that part out. I’m very glad about that,” she told NOTUS on Wednesday. “I didn’t love the bill. So I can’t say whether I love it or hate it … but I voted for the good things that I voted for President Trump’s campaign promises.”
Likewise, Rep. Mike Flood told his constituents at a town hall last week he didn’t know that the bill would limit judges’ power to hold people in contempt for violating court orders, saying he wouldn’t have supported it if he knew. When approached by NOTUS about his comments Wednesday, he said to contact his office.
“Congressman Flood 100% supports renewing the Trump tax cuts this year. He’s closely monitoring the Senate’s work and looks forward to continuing to support ‘The One, Big, Beautiful Bill’ as it works its way through the legislative process,” his spokesperson told NOTUS in a statement.
Rep. Chip Roy, a fiscal hawk who was against the bill until the last moment when he voted for its passage, expressed disappointment that Musk hadn’t fired off against the bill sooner.
“I don’t think the bill fully meets the moment,” he said Tuesday. “I clearly would have liked it to go further and was pushing as hard as I can.”
Rank-and-file Republicans on all sides complained about the rushed process to pass the bill — driven by Speaker Mike Johnson’s self-imposed deadline of Memorial Day.
On Wednesday morning, as Republicans hounded leadership with their concerns behind closed doors in their weekly conference, Johnson argued that Musk’s portrayal of the bill was simply incorrect.
“I think [Musk] is flat wrong, and I’ve told him as much,” Johnson told reporters at a news conference.
He later said: “We don’t have time for a brand new bill. And I want Elon and all my friends to recognize the complexity of what we’ve accomplished here.”
Rep. Blake Moore, a member of Republican leadership, defended the speed at which the bill passed the House, arguing it was just part of the deal. But he too said the Senate could make necessary changes.
“I don’t think it’s a problem with the process. I think it’s actually quite normal. And you know, the final vote is really what matters,” Moore said. “I voted on defense bills that I didn’t love every provision or things that I knew were being taken out by the Senate, but you’ve got to move it along the process.”
“It’s not a perfect bill. You’re not going to ever get a perfect bill. You’re never going to get one, period, especially when you have such a narrow majority like we did,” Rep. Kevin Hern told NOTUS. “It’s very difficult because anybody can hold up a bill ... so to get it done is remarkable.”
If too many big changes are made, more moderate members of the conference could also peel off. Many already had to be pushed to support the funding cuts in the current bill to key social programs like Medicaid. Instituting work requirements for the program could kick millions of users off of it, and could have an outsized impact on low-income people in rural areas. A Congressional Budget Office report released Wednesday found that there could be up to 10.9 million uninsured people as a result of the changes and cuts to Medicaid in the bill.
Rep. Don Bacon, who could be facing a tough reelection and is considering retirement, however, defended his vote and dismissed the numbers in the report, arguing that Republicans made changes to the program that were broadly popular.
“Most Americans support work requirements, and they don’t want ineligible or illegal people on it,” he told NOTUS. “It’s a red herring on the Democrat side.”
He pointed to the extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for supporting the bill.
“We would tank our economy if we don’t get these tax cuts extended or made permanent. That’s the bottom line,” Bacon said.
Johnson — working with an extremely small majority — has repeatedly urged the Senate to not change too much in the bill or risk it failing in the House when it returns.
House Republican leadership is “full-steam ahead,” a senior GOP aide told NOTUS. Despite Wednesday’s flurry of hiccups, first from Musk and then from the CBO report, the aide said leadership isn’t worried. They noted, however, had it been Trump instead of Musk who railed against the bill in the last 24 hours, they’d be in a completely different spot.
Trump and his administration are standing by the House bill for now and have tried to downplay the impact of Musk’s tweets and the reaction it’s caused in the Oval Office.
“I don’t think the extent to which there are opposing views on the outside are hurting our ability to pass this bill. I really don’t,” said Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, on a call with reporters. He added that he hadn’t been “up on everything that’s been on Twitter.”
Privately, aides have pointed out that Musk’s business interests would be hurt by multiple provisions in the bill, which could be a reason for his outbursts. As of Wednesday evening, Trump has not responded on social media to Musk, as the White House is seeking to contain any damage the X posts might have caused. Any on-the-record pushbacks from the press office that the bill would spike the deficit leave out Musk’s name, though there is a question on how long that will last.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune is openly saying the bill will be amended and sent back to the House, and while Republicans in the upper chamber are sensitive to the fact the bill needs to pass the House again, they’re still ready to make their mark.
And that’s just fine with rank-and-file House Republicans who say that’s the only reason they sent the legislation to the Senate in the first place.
“I wanted to move the bill over to the Senate. I didn’t know who was not voting. I was the last vote on the board, and I wondered if I voted ‘no,’ it couldn’t move to the Senate,” Rep. Andy Harris, chair of the House Freedom Caucus, told reporters about his lone “present” vote.
Harris added about Musk’s X posts: “When they throw up red flags about the deficit, we ought to pay attention.
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Daniella Diaz is a reporter at NOTUS.
NOTUS reporters Jasmine Wright and Ursula Perano contributed to this story.