Elon Musk exited the White House this week with little to show for his cost-cutting push and a list of frustrations from his time in the Trump administration.
The tech billionaire announced his departure Wednesday shortly after voicing concerns about the sweeping tax and spending bill backed by Trump and congressional Republicans, which is expected to add trillions of dollars to the national debt.
Musk criticized it in an interview with CBS News for not codifying the broad government funding cuts enacted by his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
“I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” he said.
Musk’s full interview will air on Sunday morning.
Additionally, the Trump administration has intensified its standoff with the courts over tariffs in recent days, with top advisors condemning two rulings that sought to block the tariffs from proceeding as planned.
Despite the ruling in favor of the administration, deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller blasted the orders as “judicial tyranny.” At the same time, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt accused magistrates of “inserting themselves” into the presidential decision-making process.
In recent months, Supreme Court justices have spoken out in defense of judges across the nation, urging them to stand tall amid attacks.
However, Trump’s officials have maintained that tariffs and other measures are permitted by federal law despite legal battles and schisms.
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett has blamed “activist judges” for blocks to Trump’s trade policy and will likely expand on his criticism of the judiciary during a Sunday appearance on ABC’s “This Week.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is likely to hit on the status of trade talks with China, Japan and other global partners on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Plus, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he doesn’t expect “too many surprises” from the Senate on the GOP budget bill as Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) have voiced concerns with the “big, beautiful” text.
Paul is set to appear on CBS’s “Face the Nation” and Johnson will be interviewed on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”
Read the full Sunday show line up here and follow below for today’s live updates.
Trump, Xi likely to discuss trade soon: Bessent
President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will likely talk about trade “soon” amid trade tensions between the two countries, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday.
Bessent said during a Sunday interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that he expects to see talks between the two leaders “soon,” which would include discussions on critical minerals.
“I am confident that when President Trump and party Chairman Xi have a call, that this will be ironed out,” he said. “But the fact that they are withholding some of the products that they agreed to release during our agreement — maybe it’s a glitch in the Chinese system, maybe it’s intentional.”
When host Margaret Brennan asked if there was a scheduled date for the discussion, Bessent replied, “I believe we’ll see something very soon, Margaret.”
Johnson says 4.8 million Americans won’t lose Medicaid access ‘unless they choose to do so’
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) doubled down on his claim that there won’t be Medicaid cuts in President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” despite projections that millions of low-income individuals would lose health insurance as a result of the bill.
Johnson, during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” pushed back on independent projections that the bill would lead to 4.8 million who would lose coverage because of work requirements, saying they won’t lose it “unless they choose to do so.”
“Those 4.8 million people will not lose their Medicaid unless they choose to do so,” he told host Kristen Welker.
“You’re telling me that you’re going to require the able-bodied — these young men, for example, okay — to only work or volunteer in their community for 20 hours a week, and that’s too cumbersome for them? I’m not buying it. The American people are not buying it.”
He added that the people who are complaining about losing their coverage are doing so “because they can’t fulfill the paperwork,” noting that the policy follows “common sense.”
Read the full story here.
Vought pushes back against idea that ‘big, beautiful bill’ will raise deficit
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought on Sunday pushed back against the idea that a sizable package of Republican priorities that recently made it through the House is going to raise the deficit.
“This bill doesn’t increase the deficit or hurt the debt,” Vought told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union,” responding to earlier comments from tech billionaire Elon Musk.
“In fact, it lowers it by $1.4 trillion,” he added.
Musk talks about Trump administration in CBS interview — despite asking to avoid the subject
Elon Musk offered his opinion on the Trump administration in an interview shortly after he departed from the White House, despite initially saying he only wanted to talk about “spaceships,” rather than “presidential policy.”
In an interview with “CBS Sunday Morning,” the former Trump adviser told CBS Correspondent David Pogue that he only wanted to talk about “spaceships” when asked about the recent crackdown on foreign student visas, with Pogue mentioning Musk was one of those students at one time.
Jeffries says Americans ‘aren’t interested in bending the knee to a wannabe king’
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Sunday that Americans “aren’t interested in bending the knee to a wannabe king,” referring to President Trump.
“Donald Trump has learned an important lesson, the American people aren’t interested in bending the knee to a wannabe king,” Jeffries said on CNN’s “State of the Union” to the outlet’s Dana Bash.
“It’s the reason why Donald Trump actually is the most unpopular president at this point of a presidency in American history,” he added.