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Speaker Johnson launches sales mission as ‘big, beautiful bill’ hits the Senate

13 10
03.06.2025

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is on a sales mission for the “big, beautiful bill” full of President Trump’s legislative priorities, defending its contents amid a wave of criticism from his party about the depth of spending cuts, significance of Medicaid changes and the rollback of green-energy tax credits.

Johnson said in multiple interviews that he sent a “long text message” to Elon Musk vouching for the bill after the billionaire tech mogul said he was disappointed with the legislation, complaining that it undermines the cost-cutting work of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), his brainchild.

The Speaker has also gone on a cable news blitz, pushing back on concerns Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) are voicing about the deficit impact of the bill, tearing into the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office’s math, and arguing that the benefits of the package outweigh its shortcomings.

And now, Speaker Johnson is looking to ease concerns of conservatives by promising to quickly stage a vote on a bill that would claw back billions of dollars in federal funding — reflecting some of the cuts DOGE has made — and signaling there may be more to come after the “one big, beautiful bill” gets to the president’s desk.

“This is not the only reconciliation bill,” Johnson said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press." “We're going to have a second budget reconciliation bill that follows after this, and we're beginning next week the appropriations process, which is the spending bills for government.”

The full-court press comes as the bill is making its debut in the........

© The Hill