CNN
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Republicans pushed Elon Musk on Wednesday to move efforts to cut federal spending and federal workforce through Congress to sit at the table amid a drastic effort to overhaul the government.
This is a sign that Republicans are trying to reaffirm the power of their wallets in the coming months.
In a meeting with Senate and House Republicans, the tech billionaires took lawmakers to walk around how government efficiency has come close to federal cuts.
The meeting is asserting behind the scenes leadership for weeks when multiple GOP lawmakers need to consult with Congress more about the programmes and scope of reductions Doge is working to eliminate. Up until this point, Congressional Republicans wanted to keep the lockstep in the way President Donald Trump and Musk were restructuring the federal government.
To address that, Musk handed her mobile number during a closure meeting with the GOP Senator, saying that anyone familiar with the matter would like to work more closely with them. House Speaker Mike Johnson said he and Musk are in touch with him “now almost every day.”
Musk tried to distance himself from widespread firing across the federal government in his meeting with House Republicans, according to GOP lawmakers.
Musk was a central figure in the Trump administration’s efforts to cut the federal government, although the White House says Musk is working as a special government employee and has not been officially tasked with leading dughes. Last month, the Human Resources Administration sent an email asking federal employees to justify their job, with Musk posting online that “failure to respond will be considered a resignation,” and several department heads instructed employees to instruct them to refrain from responding.
GOP MP Derrick Van Orden told the group that Musk had recently announced plans to cut more than 70,000 jobs in the Department of Veterans Affairs “not a Doge decision.”
A Wisconsin Republican told lawmakers that “individual divisions” are involved in plans to cut employees across the federal government, and Doge said he knows the department head is “unproductive” and is making the “assumption” that “rewards people who are productive.”
Musk also personally admitted to Republicans that Doge made some mistakes as decisions on a particular federal freeze had to be reversed.
“He said, as you know, there will be mistakes along the way. He’d said publicly before, and once they’re identified, they’ll be corrected,” South Carolina GOP MP Russell Fry told CNN.
In a more than an hour-long meeting with the Senator, Senator Rand Paul, who has a strong support of reducing the government, argued that Musk reductions should move through Congress in what is known as the rescue package to be protected from the courts.
The retirement package only requires a simple majority vote in the GOP-led Senate and a majority vote in the GOP-led House of Representatives.
But the challenge for Republicans is that voting to do so means they are on the record of votes for reductions that can make even some of their own members unpopular.
“To make it a reality, to make it beyond the moment of the day, it needs to come back in the form of a withdrawal package,” Paul said.
“As Republicans, what we had to do is capture the product of their work, put it on the bill and vote,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina and chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, explains how Congress could play a bigger role in implementing Dodge Cut. “We need to capture this in the legislative process to make it a reality.”
“Now is the time for the White House to attack, and we’re losing altitude here,” Graham added.
Sen. John Kennedy, a Republican from Louisiana, told conference reporters to discuss “some of that can be done on its own, some of it may have to be done through a withdrawal package.”
Some House Republicans in recent weeks have called for leadership on how to respond to recent pouring questions from their hometown districts about federal cuts. Instead of denounceing elements of the administration’s approach, Republicans are personally urging the humanitarian treatment of federal workers.
Washington GOP Rep. Dan Newhouse told CNN the meeting was “to talk about this kind of thing and be more thoughtful about some of the things he’s doing to get Congress into more.
“We support the fundamental efforts and goals here, but we want to impress him that we should be more strategic,” Newhouse said.
With federal grants continuing to flow and confusion about how layoffs of federal employees are being handled, Republicans continue to listen to their constituents and seek answers about the Doge process.
Sen. Mike Round said ahead of the Senate GOP meeting, Musk wanted to explain how Doge would fix the false cuts.
The South Dakota Republican said he wanted to hear “how to fix things that aren’t going to go as they do.”
Senate majority leader John Tone told CNN’s Dana Bash on Tuesday that Doge’s efforts should involve more compassion for how federal workers are being treated.
“You also have to pay attention to the aftermath of it and how it affects people. So these are real people. They need to be treated that way,” he said, speaking of the affected federal workers.
As the party is pressured to respond more publicly, NRCC Chairman Richard Hudson, leader of the House GOP Campaign Arm, urged GOP members on Tuesday to select three sources at the House Republic’s private meeting, paying tribute to the lawmakers who are overwhelming, overwhelmed by interested individuals and affiliated with them.
The round said White House Chief Susie Wills “suggested contact when she was in front of us.”
For now, GOP’s criticism of musk remains a private debate.
One GOP lawmaker who attended a meeting with Musk said, “Members of Republicans may remain silent to publicly criticize Elon because they understand that you praise him publicly. If you’re a good teammate, you criticized him behind closed doors.”
“Most of all Republicans who have all sorts of conscience about why they’re here are telling them that they can do better with the White House,” the GOP lawmaker added.
This story has been updated with additional details.
CNN’s Manu Raju, Ali Main, Veronica Stracqualursi, Danya Gainor and Morgan Rimmer contributed to this report.
