Elon Musk Says Biden Gaslighting Americans After President Blames Trump for Border Crisis

Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of X, attends a conference at the Porte de Versailles exhibition centre in Paris, France, on June 16, 2023. Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters

Billionaire businessman Elon Musk has claimed that Americans are being “gaslit” by President Joe Biden after the Democratic leader said former President Donald Trump and “MAGA Republicans” are to blame for a lack of security at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Mr. Musk shared a video of President Biden speaking to congressional leaders at the White House on Monday, on his social media platform X (formerly Twitter), on Feb. 6.

“You are being gaslit,” Mr. Musk wrote alongside the video.

During his address, President Biden urged Congress to come together and pass the Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, bipartisan legislation that would tie a significant amount of foreign aid—including international aid packages for Israel, Taiwan, and Ukraine—to an overhaul of the country’s immigration system.

“Every day between now and November, the American people are gonna [sic] know that the only reason the border is not secure is Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican friends,” President Biden said.

He went on to accuse Republicans of “caving” to President Trump’s alleged demands to block the border legislation from advancing, accusing the former U.S. leader of attempting to intimidate GOP lawmakers into opposing the bill.

Bipartisan Bill Is a ‘Win for America’

“Now, all indications are that this bill won’t even move forward to the Senate floor. Why? A simple reason: Donald Trump. Because Donald Trump thinks it’s bad for him politically,” President Biden said.

“He’d rather weaponize this issue than actually solve it. So, for the last 24 hours, he’s done nothing, I’m told, but reach out to Republicans in the House and the Senate and threaten them and try to intimidate them to vote against this proposal. And it looks like they’re caving.

“It’s time for Republicans in Congress to show a little courage, to show a little spine to make it clear to the American people that you work for them and not for anyone else,” he concluded.

President Biden later touted the bipartisan border security bill as a “win for America because it makes important fixes to our broken immigration system, and it’s the toughest, fairest law that’s ever been proposed relative to the border.”

The legislative package has top-line spending of $118 billion, which includes roughly $60 billion in aid to Ukraine, $14.1 billion for Israel, $10 billion in humanitarian assistance for the Gaza Strip, and around $5 billion for Indo-Pacific partners.

It also includes roughly $20 billion to implement new security measures along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Additionally, the measure would grant the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) power to close down the border if the daily average of illegal immigrant encounters reaches 4,000 in one week.

President Joe Biden speaks with U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers as he visits the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, on Jan. 8, 2023. Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

‘Death Wish for the Republican Party’

If that threshold is reached, then the DHS secretary could shut down the border by denying illegal immigrants the ability to apply for asylum. If, however, average encounters reach 5,000 a day over a given week, then the DHS secretary would be required to shut down the border to enable officials to process all of the illegal immigrants.

The measure would also grant the president the power to suspend a border closure “on an emergency basis” if it is in the national interest.

However, the legislation has faced increased opposition from Republican lawmakers amid concerns over multiple provisions featured in the bill, including the daily crossings limit and aid to Ukraine. Some GOP lawmakers have asked for more time to study the measure.

Others, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), have said they will reject the bipartisan bill and instead vote this week on the Republican-backed measure providing aid only to Israel. President Biden has already threatened to veto that GOP-backed proposal.

President Trump has also criticized the bipartisan bill, writing on social media on Jan. 29 that the measure is not necessary to stop the “millions of people, many from jails and mental institutions located all over the world, that are POURING INTO OUR COUNTRY.”

The GOP 2024 presidential frontrunner went on to accuse Democrats of “using this horrific Senate Bill as a way of being able to put the BORDER DISASTER onto the shoulders of the Republicans. The Democrats BROKE THE BORDER, they should fix it,” President Trump concluded.

Taking to social media following a campaign rally in Nevada on Monday, President Trump took aim at the bill again, writing that the bipartisan measure is a “great gift to the Democrats and a Death Wish for The Republican Party.”