{"id":28864,"date":"2024-12-20T23:20:54","date_gmt":"2024-12-20T23:20:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/20\/senate-dems-rail-against-shadow-speaker-billionaire-elon-musk-not-elected-to-anything\/"},"modified":"2024-12-20T23:20:54","modified_gmt":"2024-12-20T23:20:54","slug":"senate-dems-rail-against-shadow-speaker-billionaire-elon-musk-not-elected-to-anything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/20\/senate-dems-rail-against-shadow-speaker-billionaire-elon-musk-not-elected-to-anything\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate Dems rail against &#8216;shadow speaker&#8217; billionaire Elon Musk: &#8216;Not elected to anything&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/top-senate-dems-pour-cold-water-latest-gop-spending-bill-plans-ready-stay-through-christmas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Senate Democrats labeled billionaire<\/a> Elon Musk &#8220;co-president&#8221; and &#8220;shadow speaker&#8221; among other titles as they reacted to the original stopgap spending deal&#8217;s implosion on Wednesday after he and ultimately President-elect Trump came out against it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said Musk &#8220;seems to be the guy in charge of the country now,&#8221; reacting to his apparent ability to influence the bill&#8217;s prompt failure despite it having been agreed upon by bipartisan leaders in Congress.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>If a measure to provide funding for the government is not passed by Congress and signed by President Biden by midnight on Saturday morning, a partial government shutdown will go into effect.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As of Thursday, the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxbusiness.com\/economy\/us-national-debt-tracker\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><u>\u00a0U.S. national debt<\/u><\/a> was at $36,167,604,149,955.61 and continues to climb rapidly.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/senate-republicans-attempt-fast-track-emergency-military-pay-brace-shutdown\"><strong>SENATE REPUBLICANS TRY TO FAST-TRACK EMERGENCY MILITARY PAY AS THEY BRACE FOR SHUTDOWN<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>After a 1,547-page short-term spending bill was debuted this week. Musk quickly took to X to trash it, pointing out various seemingly irrelevant provisions as well as its cost and length.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He was soon joined by other critics, and Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance issued their own statement opposing the bill.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This led to significant criticism from Democrats unhappy with Musk&#8217;s apparent ability to influence Trump and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/senate-republicans-attempt-fast-track-emergency-military-pay-brace-shutdown\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Republicans in Congress<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/senate-republicans-attempt-fast-track-emergency-military-pay-brace-shutdown\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>TOP SENATE DEMS POUR COLD WATER ON LATEST GOP SPENDING BILL PLANS: &#8216;READY TO STAY&#8217; THROUGH CHRISTMAS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s the one who seems to be calling the shots,&#8221; Warren told reporters.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Elon Musk is the one evidently in charge of the Republican Party and has blown that deal up. So I don&#8217;t know how the Republicans are planning to recover from that,&#8221; she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., suggested that Musk is &#8220;already the shadow speaker of the House,&#8221; in a slight against House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/senate-republicans-attempt-fast-track-emergency-military-pay-brace-shutdown\"><strong>TIM SCOTT&#8217;S SENATE CAMPAIGN ARM STAFF REVEALED AHEAD OF CRUCIAL 2026 SWING STATE RACES<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think he&#8217;s unelected, and he&#8217;s created a whole lot of damage,&#8221; said Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga.<\/p>\n<p>He claimed Republicans in Congress were &#8220;busy listening to Co-President Musk and co-President Trump.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m listening to the people of Georgia, especially the farmers who are struggling to get disaster relief. And, we need to make sure that we get that over the finish line,&#8221; said Warnock.<\/p>\n<p>Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., reiterated that Musk is not an elected official. &#8220;He doesn&#8217;t have any official government job,&#8221; he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/make-america-healthy-again-caucus-launched-sen-marshall-after-rfk-jr-meeting\"><strong>&#8216;MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN&#8217; CAUCUS LAUNCHED BY SEN MARSHALL AFTER RFK JR MEETING<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We had a deal with Republicans in the House and now, because of him, the president-elect is on the verge of people losing their jobs and not getting paid over the holidays,&#8221; Kelly said of a potential partial shutdown if a bill is not passed by a deadline of midnight on Saturday morning.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Despite their Democratic colleagues&#8217; claims, Republicans pushed back on the idea that Trump was being influenced by Musk. Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., noted that there are &#8220;lots of people around President Trump,&#8221; adding that he doesn&#8217;t think Musk has control over what the president-elect does.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Musk was tapped by Trump, along with former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, to lead what is called the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/doge-caucus-leader-joni-ernst-eyes-relocation-out-dc-third-federal-workers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)<\/a>, a proposed advisory board tasked with eliminating government waste.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Senate Democrats labeled billionaire Elon Musk &#8220;co-president&#8221; and &#8220;shadow speaker&#8221; among other titles as they reacted to the original stopgap spending deal&#8217;s implosion on Wednesday after he and ultimately President-elect Trump came out against it.\u00a0 Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said Musk &#8220;seems to be the guy in charge of the country now,&#8221; reacting to his &#8230; <a title=\"Senate Dems rail against &#8216;shadow speaker&#8217; billionaire Elon Musk: &#8216;Not elected to anything&#8217;\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/20\/senate-dems-rail-against-shadow-speaker-billionaire-elon-musk-not-elected-to-anything\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Senate Dems rail against &#8216;shadow speaker&#8217; billionaire Elon Musk: &#8216;Not elected to anything&#8217;\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28864\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}