Several Republican lawmakers are now admitting they voted for a massive federal spending bill without fully knowing what was in it.
At a town hall last week, Rep. Mike Flood (R-NE) told voters he had no idea the bill limited judges’ power to punish people for ignoring court orders. “He wouldn’t have supported it if he knew,” NOTUS reported. When pressed by the outlet afterward, Flood declined to explain, telling them to “contact his office.”
His office later tried to shift the focus. “Congressman Flood 100% supports renewing the Trump tax cuts this year,” his spokesperson said. “He’s closely monitoring the Senate’s work and looks forward to continuing to support ‘The One, Big, Beautiful Bill.’”
But Flood isn’t alone.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), one of Donald Trump’s loudest backers in Congress, admitted online she voted for the bill without reading all of it.
“Full transparency,” Greene wrote on X, “I did not know about this section on pages 278-279 of the OBBB [One Big Beautiful Bill] that strips states of the right to make laws or regulate AI for 10 years. I am adamantly OPPOSED to this and it is a violation of state rights, and I would have voted NO if I had known this was in there.”
She later added, “This needs to be stripped out in the Senate.”
As criticism mounts, tech billionaire Elon Musk unloaded on the bill—and the lawmakers who supported it.
“I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,” Musk posted on X. “This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”
Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO), who also voted for the bill, welcomed Musk’s outburst. “I love the air cover,” he told NOTUS. “Thank God we have somebody like [Musk] that’s coming in with a wrecking ball and trying to help us here.”
Still, Burlison stood by his vote, saying, “Every step of the way, we tried to get more and more concessions. And if I were a senator, I would be using this moment in this vote to get even more concessions.”
The backlash raises a simple but serious question: If lawmakers didn’t read the bill, why did they vote for it?
