Trump-Musk allyship defies predictions

Business & Economy

The Big Story

Trump-Musk allyship defies predictions

President Trump's partnership with billionaire Elon Musk has defied predictions from Republicans and Democrats alike who viewed the pair as doomed to have a falling out.

Skeptics argued that Trump would not be able to stand sharing the spotlight with Musk, the world’s richest person.

More than 50 days into the second Trump administration, the highly scrutinized relationship between the pair is showing no signs of a real strain.

Sources close to the White House still questioned what would happen once Musk’s special government employee status expires at the end of May. But the two men have built a strong bond on a mutually beneficial relationship.

“I think Trump genuinely agrees with the DOGE approach,” one source close to the White House said. “He loves being able to say, ‘These IQ geniuses who went to these great schools are doing this.’”

Even when Trump has pushed back on Musk, it has been relatively gentle.

Musk sparred with Cabinet officials about shrinking the size of the federal workforce during a meeting last week. It culminated in Trump reiterating Cabinet leaders, not Musk, were in charge of their departments, but the president offered the caveat that Musk would step in if agency heads did not take action.

The Hill's Brett Samuels has more here.

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Tax Watch

Senators say they and Trump agree on policy baseline

Welcome to Tax Watch, a new feature focused on the fight over tax reform and the push to extend the 2017 Trump tax cuts this year.

Republican senators on the Finance Committee say they’re in agreement with President Trump about using the so-called policy baseline for their reconciliation bill, an accounting assumption that would let them ignore trillions in deficit additions over the next decade.

“From my standpoint, we agree on that,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) told reporters last week. “Even the House, in terms of what we send back to them, I think they would accept that, as well.”

Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), who was also at the meeting with Trump last week, reportedly affirmed Trump’s support of the controversial policy assumption as well, saying the president was on board with it.

Some Republicans in Congress have pushed back against the policy baseline assumption in favor of the standard current law framework, with some going so far as to describe the policy baseline as fraudulent.

“Both Smith and Arrington have expressed skepticism that such a move would be allowed under the Senate’s rules,” Beacon Policy Advisors wrote in a Monday analysis, regarding Ways and Means chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) and Budget chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas).

“A handful of fiscal conservatives in the House have expressed reservations about the current policy baseline, calling it a gimmick that obscures the deficit impact of the reconciliation bill,” they wrote.

— Tobias Burns

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