GOP Senator Laughs When CNN’s Pamela Brown Asks Him About Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Call to Make Elon Musk Speaker

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) laughed when CNN Newsroom anchor Pamela Brown asked him about a tweet from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) that expressed support for tapping Elon Musk as Speaker of the House.

Congress is currently mired in yet another debate about a continuing resolution bill to avert a government shutdown. Thursday morning, Greene quoted a tweet from Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) that pointed out the speaker did not need to be a member of Congress and advocated for picking Musk because “[n]othing would disrupt the swamp more.”

“I’d be open to supporting [Musk] for Speaker of the House,” tweeted Greene. “The establishment needs to be shattered just like it was yesterday. This could be the way.”

Thursday, Brown asked Rounds about the “influence” that Musk “appears to be having here” — the SpaceX CEO was tweeting threats to fund primaries against Republicans who voted for the CR and advocating for letting a shutdown happen — and then asked the senator what he thought about Greene’s tweet.

“I don’t tell the House what to do,” replied Rounds with a laugh. “I’m not sure anybody can. I’m sure with 435 members over there, you’re going to hear lots of different opinions. That’s the way the founding fathers wanted it. In the Senate, we take what they send us and we do the best to make it so it’s actually viable and put it into law. But with regard to everybody’s opinion, everybody over there is entitled to their own opinion, and I’m sure there will be 434 other opinions expressed as well.”

“So the reality is right now, Senator, though, is that the government will shut down Friday at midnight, if something isn’t passed. Is this 11th hour chaos a preview of what’s to come over the next four years?” asked Brown.

Rounds replied that once a “clean slate” bill was put together, he thought they could “get ahead of the game for the first time in years.” He added that senators from both parties wanted “to get back to regular order” and be able to go back home to their districts and say “look, we’re getting our work done, we’re getting it done on time.”

“It only works towards the leadership’s advantage when we run into a jam at the very end of the year, where they turn out a 1,500 page bill and we don’t get a chance to see it or comment until we get an up or down vote on it,” Rounds continued. “We can’t do that anymore.”

These CRs were “extremely frustrating for the vast majority of the members of the Senate,” he said. “I suspect for the House, it was very frustrating as well.”

“It’s better if we start out with a clean slate and we get our work done on time this next year,” he concluded. “That’s our goal. That’s what we want Senator Thune to be able to do. We want him to be able to go back in and to lay out the plans. We think that’s a great approach to bring the committees back in, get the committees working and get something to the floor of the Senate where it can be debated. I think that’s what the majority of the members really want to have happen.”

Watch the clip above via CNN.