House Majority Whip Tom Emmer isn’t concerned about the GOP megabill’s fate in the Senate, despite a raft of current policy disputes in need of speedy resolution.
He’s also not worried about Elon Musk.
“I’m not watching what Elon is posting. I’ve heard about it, but sorry, he’s not on my phone,” said the Minnesota Republican in an exclusive interview Thursday, as the freshly-departed DOGE chief raged against the massive tax and spending package Republicans want to send to President Donald Trump’s desk by July 4.
“What I’m thinking about is this: I get the bill that’s … the largest reduction in spending, and preventing the largest tax increase, in history,” Emmer continued. “It seals the southern border. It pays for defense. I mean, it is every one of President Trump’s priorities. And, you know, I think there was some suggestion earlier this week that it was like pork-filled whatever. It’s not a spending bill.”
Asked what must be motivating Musk to urge lawmakers to “kill the bill” at this time, Emmer chalked it up to high emotions.
“Look, all I care about is the bill that we passed and making sure that when the Senate sends back whatever they’re going to send back that, we pass it … That’s all I care about. All this other stuff is just noise,” he said. “Everybody loves a great car accident. They just don’t want to be in it, right? So, okay, let them dust up. This is what we had in the house when we were going through the process. There’s a lot of emotion involved. There’s a lot of intense pressure.”
Emmer was bullish about the megabill’s prospects.
“The Senate will do their work. They’re going to send the bill back to us,” Emmer said. “We are going to pass it and send it to the president’s desk. The time for talking is over.”
There’s one area, however, that Emmer said he hopes the Senate won’t touch: the quadrupled state and local tax deduction cap carefully negotiated with blue-state Republicans in the House. Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo recently said there’s little appetite among his members for keeping the increase fully intact. But Emmer said he believes the Senate understands the House’s more difficult math.
“John Thune was quoted somewhere as saying, you know, ‘We understand it’s 51 over here and it’s 218 over there.’” Emmer said. “That should tell you everything you need to know.”
Emmer also said he believes the Republican senators who have raised concerns on the House’s Medicaid overhaul proposals — specifically Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Josh Hawley of Missouri— are “going to be pleasantly surprised when they go through” the House-passed package.
“A lot of their concerns that they thought they were going to have are just not there,” Emmer insisted, adding that “there might be” tweaks from across the chamber to the House’s product, but no one has flagged any “major problems” in the bill. Emmer said the only area he thinks there might be unease is about the provider tax.
A key group of senators could also hold up the bill over the House’s moves to repeal or scale back the clean-energy tax credits that were created by the Democrats’ 2022 climate law. Disrupting the long-term availability of those credits could disrupt projects already underway in red districts and states. Emmer said House members are sensitive to this dynamic as well.
“That’s one of the reasons why the sunsetting [of certain credits] is out at least three years, so that people can continue projects and repurpose them,” said Emmer. “That was the whole concept. Whatever the Senate does with it, that’s their business.”
Emmer weighed in, too, on Speaker Mike Johnson’s suggestion that Republicans could pursue a second megabill through the filibuster-skirting, party-line budget reconciliation process — or even a third. The majority whip didn’t wave off the idea but emphasized that Congress should “get the first one done.”
“All of it’s possible,” Emmer said. “Is it probable? We’ll see.”