Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) on Sunday praised Elon Musk, the incoming co-leader of the Department of Government Efficiency, for buying Twitter, rebranding it as X, and spearheading Republican opposition to the 1,547-page Continuing Resolution (CR) that was replaced with slimmed-down legislation.
Hagerty made the remarks to CNN’s “State of the Union,” praising the influence of citizens on X over public policy.
After Musk’s political action committee shared a portion of Hagerty’s interview, the senator wrote in a post to X that Musk, “saved free speech in the West by buying Twitter and breaking up the Big Tech-Big Government censorship cartel,” and said Trump’s leadership will result in “more transparency from its government than ever before.”
The senator told CNN host Dana Bash, “Thank God Elon Musk bought Twitter, because that’s the only way we would even know what’s in this bill. Otherwise, the conspiracy between the government and Twitter would have continued, and this all would have been covered up.”
He said that Musk’s posts about the 1,500-page spending bill, “meant that every one of our offices was inundated with calls from our constituents,” allowing President-elect Donald Trump to negotiate a better deal.
“Donald Trump is speaking on behalf of the American public, again, he’s just the president-elect – the current president is AWOL – but Donald Trump stepped up and said look, this is what needs to happen,” said Hagerty. “Elon Musk’s transparency helped make that happen.”
In response to a question from CNN host Dana Bash about Musk’s role in exposing the contents of the legislation, Hagerty confirmed Congress struggled to read the voluminous document ahead of the vote.
“We were all struggling to read and digest an over 1,500-page bill that we were literally given just hours to comb through,” said Hagerty.
Despite Trump and Musk crafting a second CR with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA-04), the House ultimately rejected the spending bill, with critics including Representatives Tim Burchett (R-TN-02) and Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) citing the short period of time given by House leadership to review the legislation.
A third, slimmed-down CR was ultimately passed by the House on Friday. It was supported universally by Democrats, while 34 Republicans voted against the legislation.
Watch Hagerty’s full appearance on CNN:
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
