Ron Johnson Says Elon Musk ‘Bolsters’ His Case Trump’s ‘One Big, Beautiful Bill’ Was ‘Not The Best Idea’

Republican Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson defended Elon Musk’s condemnation of President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” during a Wednesday segment on CNBC.

Musk called the large spending package a “disgusting abomination” in an X post on Tuesday, accusing House Republicans who voted in favor of it “ did wrong.” Johnson, who is a current holdout in getting the spending package passed, agreed with Musk and added that the legislation has an “unsustainable nature.”

“ certainly bolsters our case. He was the inside, he showed us, with President Trump, how to do this,” Johnson said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “You know, contract by contract, line by line, we have to do this forensic audit. We don’t have the time. Again, we exempt most programs, tweak them, do a CBO score. This really is out of context. The context is about $22 trillion in expected deficit. And by the way, that counts for about a $4 trillion tax increase which I don’t want to incur. If we don’t incur that, you got to make up for about $4 trillion in revenue.”

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The Wisconsin senator argued that, while Senate Republicans want to see Trump “succeed,” he is willing to tell him that the legislation is “not the best idea” at the moment. Johnson also called for spending to be reduced to “a reasonable pre-pandemic level.”

“Listen, we all support the president,” Johnson told CNBC’s Joe Kernen. “We want to see him succeed. But again, my loyalty is to our kids and grandkids. We’re mortgaging their future. So there’s enough of us that have that attitude, and that very respectfully, we just have to say, ‘Mr. President, I’m sorry. One big, beautiful bill was not the best idea.’ We should’ve done what John Thune always wanted to do, split this up into multiple parts … You need to keep enough on the table to force us to come back here and do the work, take the time to actually reduce spending to a reasonable level.”