Video News Clips: In Their Own Words

CNN Panel Gets Into Heated Exchange After Panelist Says Trump, Elon Musk Have ‘No Interest In Governing’

[Screenshot/CNN]

A CNN panel got into a heated exchange Wednesday as panelist Maria Cardona accused President-elect Donald Trump and tech mogul Elon Musk of “having no interest in governing” due to their opposition to the continuing resolution (CR).

The 1,574 page spending package would temporarily extend government funding levels through March 14, 2025, by approving hundreds of billions in spending to avoid a shutdown, which would provide pay raises for all congressional members and $100 billion in disaster relief. Cardona accused Trump and Musk of being incompetent and unable to govern after they came out against the legislation.

“The problem is Donald Trump has now put on the table, ‘don’t do anything with the bill unless you raise the debt limit.’ That’s insane! It takes months to negotiate a debt limit,” Cardona said. “So, I don’t think that the majority of the people voted willingly for this. The people voted for somebody, a group of people [and] a group of leaders to govern. And what Donald Trump and Elon Musk and [Vivek] Ramaswamy and Speaker [Mike] Johnson are now proving is that they have absolutely no ability to govern and perhaps, worse than that, not even an interest in governing.”

Gail Huff Brown, a former Republican congressional candidate in New Hampshire, argued no flawed bill should be passed and criticized the raise for congressmen and senators. Members of Congress, who currently earn a base salary of $174,000 annually, would receive a maximum salary increase of $6,600 if President Joe Biden signs the CR into law.

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Arthur Adala, a veteran New York trial attorney, argued Musk has an exceptional track record of running companies and has the credibility to advise Trump on important policy issues.

“[Musk] also has a pretty darn good track record of running companies. I mean, he took people to space,” Adala said. “That’s not just like running Fords Motor Company or Tesla, he took people to space. His stock is through the roof. He obviously has the credibility of many Americans, many Americans who own that Tesla stock in their portfolio and watching it go through the roof. So it’s not like Donald Trump is asking a guy who’s failed, after failure, after bankruptcy, he’s asking a pretty smart dude.”

Cardona then argued that Musk is attempting to harm the same government that provided him with billions of dollars to help start his businesses, leading Adala to once again come to Musk’s defense by saying he knows how the government works.

“You know what’s so ironic about what you said? How many billions of dollars did Elon get from the government in order to start those companies? And now he wants to blow it up?” Cardona said.

“Well now you’re contradicting yourself,” Adala replied. “Because you’re saying he knows how the government works. You just said he doesn’t know how the government works, but he knows how to get the money, so he knows how it works.”

Musk, the co-head of the president-elect’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), said Wednesday that any lawmaker who votes in favor of the CR should be voted out in the 2026 midterm elections. Vivek Ramaswamy, Musk’s DOGE partner, called on the bill to be voted down over its “special interests and ‘pork’ funding.”

Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance said Wednesday that the Democrats must eliminate or extend the debt ceiling under Biden’s watch and called on Congress to pass a “streamlined spending bill” in June 2025 that does not grant “Democrats everything they want.”