Fox News host Lawrence Jones asserted on Friday that Donald Trump is “not bothered” by Democrats trolling him that “first buddy” Elon Musk is the “real president” and insisted that the president-elect authorized Musk’s recent tweets because “they’re in lockstep.”
With the federal government on the cusp of a shutdown after Trump and the world’s richest man – who is also the co-leader of a meme-based government efficiency advisory committee – tanked a bipartisan stopgap funding bill, the House of Representatives rejected a revised continuing resolution that Musk had thrown his support behind.
Even though the GOP holds the majority in the House and 38 Republicans voted against the new CR – which removed funding for cancer research, among other things – Trump and Musk blamed Democrats for the spending bill’s failure. “A super fair & simple bill was put to a vote and only 2 Democrats in Congress were in favor. Therefore, responsibility for the shutdown rests squarely on the shoulders of Hakeem Jeffries,” Musk groused on his social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
Democrats, meanwhile, have taken to taunting Trump over who is really in charge, especially considering that it was Musk’s misinformation-laden tweets on Wednesday about the original spending bill that quickly sparked a MAGA revolt against it.
Trump would eventually sound off as well, prompting Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to pull the original measure off the table and replace it with the hastily crafted Musk-approved bill.
“Democrats and Republicans spent months negotiating a bipartisan agreement to fund our government. The richest man on Earth, President Elon Musk, doesn’t like it,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) tweeted. “The leader of the GOP is Elon Musk,” Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania added. “He’s now calling the shots.”
During Friday morning’s broadcast of Trump’s favorite morning show Fox & Friends, Jones revealed he had spoken with the incoming president the night before about the shutdown.
“I asked him about Mike Johnson because he brought this to the floor, and no one expected this amount of Republicans to vote against it,” Jones noted, reading from his phone. “And he said, ‘I have full confidence in Mike Johnson. He said this is not Mike Johnson. The Freedom Caucus blew it up.’”
Trump’s backing of Johnson is notable because after the original spending plan crashed and burned, many far-right members of Congress supported Musk replacing Johnson as House speaker.
When ABC News asked Musk on Thursday if he wanted to be speaker, Musk laughed and said, “Should I be?”
Jones also said that Trump was open to coming to Washington this week to help negotiate a spending bill, adding that the incoming president is “prepared for a shutdown.” Trump has called for the debt ceiling limit to be extended through 2029 or abolished altogether because he doesn’t want this issue on his plate throughout his term, a proposal many Republicans oppose.
“The last thing I’ll say on this is because a lot of people are coming out there and saying that Elon Musk is the president-elect,” Jones grumbled. “The Democrats have to pick a talking point. Either Donald Trump is going to be a dictator on day one and run everything and ruin the infrastructure of the country. Or he says he’s ceded his power to Elon Musk. It can’t be both.”
Co-host Brian Kilmeade then wondered if this meant that “the Musk thing didn’t bother the president,” prompting Jones to claim that not only is the famously thin-skinned Trump unperturbed by the taunts but that he’s the one who told Musk to tweet about the spending bill in the first place.
“No, it did not bother the president,” Jones concluded. “As I said yesterday, the Musk tweet was a warning shot from the president. They are in lockstep on this. This is why the president appointed him for this commission — him and Vivek [Ramaswamy]. They are doing what the president wants them to do.”
Trump’s transition team has also pushed back the notion that the “DOGE” chair and Tesla CEO is the one running the show. “As soon as President Trump released his official stance on the CR (continuing resolution), Republicans on Capitol Hill echoed his point of view,” incoming White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday. “President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. Full stop.”
