Lara Trump said Americans “ought to be kissing the feet” of Elon Musk and President Donald Trump for their chainsaw approach to slashing federal spending that has wreaked havoc across government.
During an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Monday, the former Republican National Committee co-chair—who recently launched her own show on the network—said it was “laughable” that progressives claim that Musk’s work with her father-in-law is “enriching himself and his friends.”
Instead, she said, Americans should show gratitude to the president and his billionaire lieutenant for their mass purges of the federal workforce and nascent efforts to cut spending, which have already resulted in the mistaken firing of nuclear safety workers and experts working on a response to the avian flu outbreak.
“People ought to be kissing the feet of Elon Musk and Donald Trump for being the two people to actually do this,” Trump told Hannity.
She also insisted that Musk, who is not paid for his role as a senior White House adviser, is making a financial sacrifice.
“This guy is losing money because of what he’s doing, but he understands the importance of this moment,” she said. “We cannot continue in perpetuity spending the way we are. We cannot survive as a country.”
President Trump has promised to implement a number of measures that would benefit the wealthy like Musk and the corporations he leads.
Namely, he has promised to extend tax cuts passed during his first administration—which the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found benefited the wealthy—and to trim the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 15 percent, leaving more money in the coffers of private firms and which the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget found would cost the federal government $200 billion in annual revenue.
On the other hand, Musk’s companies have had a rough few weeks, raising questions about his attention being divided between politics and firms he’s supposed to be leading—as well as concerns about the reputational risks of his association with a figure as polarizing as the president.
On Monday, shares in Musk-led electric vehicle maker Tesla crashed 15 percent to their worst day in five years. Data in recent weeks has suggested Tesla sales are plummeting in Europe, Australia, and China as competitors are claiming a larger share of the EV market.
On Monday, his social media platform X was subject to widespread outages, which Musk claimed without offering evidence was the result of cyberattacks originating in Ukraine.
Last week, a rocket made by his aerospace firm SpaceX exploded during a launch in Florida, with the resulting debris disrupting hundreds of flights.
“Rockets are hard,” he later wrote on X.
Musk’s authority in the Trump administration was also humbled last week at a meeting of the president’s Cabinet, according to multiple reports.
Trump told his top officials that they are in charge of their departments and that his billionaire adviser could offer recommendations to them but not make unilateral staffing decisions.
