Trump Slams Rand Paul, Who Doubles Down

The political fighting over the "Big Beautiful Bill" is intensifying by the day. Tuesday featured not only a scathing condemnation from Elon Musk of the spending package favored by President Trump, but also some back and forth between Trump and GOP Sen. Rand Paul. Like Musk, Paul hates the bill and promises to vote against it in the Senate because he says it would dramatically raise the budget deficit. The fallout:

• Trump: "Rand votes NO on everything, but never has any practical or constructive ideas," the president posted on Truth Social. "His ideas are actually crazy (losers!). The people of Kentucky can't stand him. This is a BIG GROWTH BILL!" The view in the Trump camp is that the bill would supercharge growth, which would eventually take care of future deficits. In addition to critics such as Musk and Paul, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is also skeptical of this, per Fox Business.

• Paul: "The math doesn't add up," Paul countered on the X platform after Trump's criticism. "I'm not supporting a bill that increases the debt by $5T. I refuse to support maintaining Biden spending levels."
• Paul, II: In a Fox News interview on Tuesday, Paul amplified his criticism, saying "there is some alarm growing" in the Senate about the numbers in play, reports the Hill. The upcoming stats on second-quarter growth will be key, he added. "If second-quarter growth is weak, I think there's going to be a generalized freak-out about these tariffs and a generalized freak-out about not doing anything about spending or debt."

(Senate GOP leaders can afford only three defections to pass the bill, which they hope to do by July 4.)