‘President Elon Musk!’ MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell And Dem Dan Goldman Taunt Trump Over Musk Taking Lead

MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell and Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) taunted President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday night over the way “President Elon Musk” took the lead in sinking a bipartisan deal to fund the government.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) thought he had secured a deal to keep the government open with a 1500-plus-page continuing resolution, but after Elon Musk led a charge against the bill, Trump came out against it as well. After a scathing Trump rant Wednesday night, that deal is now in ruins.

On Wednesday night’s edition of MSNBC’s The Last Word, O’Donnell joked that Trump is asking Democrats “to do him a big favor,” while Goldman replied it’s not Trump but “President Elon Musk asking for this”:

LAWRENCE O’DONNELL, MSNBC ANCHOR: Leading off our discussion tonight is Democratic Congressman Daniel Goldman of New York. He’s a member of the House Oversight Committee.

Congressman Goldman, Donald Trump is asking you to do him a big favor. Would you please raise the debt ceiling for him right now so that he can give those tax cuts to Elon Musk and other billionaires next year?

REP. DAN GOLDMAN (D-NY): Well, Lawrence, I think you have it just half a click off. It’s not Donald Trump asking for this. It’s very clear, President Elon Musk asking for this. The fact that Donald Trump has been completely AWOL during these negotiations to the point where only after Elon Musk publicly tweets about his displeasure and about this budget deal, all of a sudden, Donald Trump, chief of staff to Elon Musk, comes trotting in and blows up the deal.

And let’s be very clear, this means that what Elon Musk and Donald Trump are doing is like likely at this point to shut the government down over Christmas and when you hear as you pointed out Elon Musk say no bills in Congress should be passed until January 20th, it’s unclear whether he understands that we need a legislative act in order to fund the government and provide children and seniors and veterans and service members so many of the benefits that the government provides.

I’m not — it’s not clear to me that has any clue but what is clear is that he’s calling the shots. The — the bill that was negotiated does include some provisions that are new, that are different from the way the governments are running up to now, including a cost of living increase for you for members of the House of Representatives, a pay raise, I haven’t had one in several years up there.

This used to be relatively routine back in the 20th century. It fell behind the general cost of living for most people out there, but Congress usually was able to do this. How did that enter this negotiation?

Well, my understanding is that that was added by House Republicans. And this, of course, is their bill. They are in the majority and the reason why they have to negotiate with the Democrats is in part because the Democrats still control the Senate but also because Republicans have shown over and over and over again that even though they’re in the majority, they cannot govern without Democrats’ assistance.

And so the way our government works is that if you need votes from the other party, you have to negotiate a bipartisan compromise. That’s what Mike Johnson did. That’s what Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer agreed to, and that bipartisan compromise is exactly what Elon Musk submarined because he did not want his own conflicts of interest to be affected, his own interests in the government with his own government contracts.

And I got to tell you, Lawrence, it’s scary that you have the world’s wealthiest man who supported Donald Trump with nearly $300 million is rumored to be ready to give Donald Trump a financial windfall by using his X company to purchase Truth Social, having so much influence. This is an unelected oligarch who appears to be running our government.

Watch above via MSNBC’s The Last Word.