Muhamad Yehia
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles answered questions about a number of topics at a closed-door lunch meeting with GOP senators — including about Elon Musk and his role in the administration, an issue that has caused growing GOP angst on Capitol Hill.
According to Sen. Josh Hawley, Wiles laid out the “nuts and bolts” of Musk’s job and said that he reports directly to Trump — not Cabinet secretaries.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, said Wiles explained Musk’s “procedure, what they do and how they do it…how Elon runs it, how he’s hired people, put them together, where they go, what they’re doing next.”
On budget negotiations: Wiles did not get into the details on the budget blueprint and how to reconcile the House and Senate Republicans’ sharply divergent approaches. The two chambers must agree and pass one blueprint in order to move ahead with Trump’s larger agenda through the budget process, which allows them to pass it along party lines in the Senate.
At the end of the meeting, Senate Majority Leader John Thune told his colleagues there would be changes to the House bill, according to GOP senators.
“He doesn’t think the House resolution gets the job done in terms of permanency and other issues,” Hawley said, referring to making permanent the expiring 2017 tax law.
Thune said: “There need to be changes made” to the House plan.