Democrat asks who will get ‘Big Balls' in Musk, Trump ‘divorce'
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) sarcastically highlighted President Trump and billionaire Elon Musk's apparent rift over the 'big, beautiful' spending bill during a hearing Wednesday by posing the question: What will happen to the teen tech wunderkind infamously known as 'Big Balls'?
'Now that the national divorce is happening … who's gonna get 'Big Balls'?' Moskowitz asked during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing. 'I'm worried about him. The children always get caught in the middle.'
'If he's out there, I just want him to know we are rooting for him,' the Florida Democrat added, referring to himself as 'also a child of divorce.'
Edward Coristine, the 19-year-old known online as 'Big Balls,' was brought onto the White House's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with his mentor Musk earlier this year near the start of Trump's second presidency. He quickly drew attention for his age, the scope of his role in handling government information and his online moniker.
Coristine's account on the social platform X is now set to private. The White House and federal Office of Personnel Management didn't immediately respond to The Hill's queries about the status of his employment with the federal government.
Several DOGE employees departed the Trump administration along with Musk last week, including adviser Steve Davis, spokesperson Katie Miller and lawyer James Burnham.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO expressed gratitude to Trump at the end of his special government employee role but has since emerged as a voracious critic of the Trump-backed GOP megabill the House passed last month.
'I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,' Musk posted Tuesday on the social platform X, another business he owns.
The billionaire continued to blast the bill, urging his X followers Wednesday to 'Call your Senator, Call your Congressman, Bankrupting America is NOT ok! KILL the BILL.'
The sprawling 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act' is now up for consideration in the Senate, where lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have spoken out against it.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
24 minutes ago
- The Hill
New Jersey AG ‘confident' in battle against Trump birthright citizenship order
New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin, one of the plaintiffs in a 22-state lawsuit against President Trump's executive order curbing birthright citizenship, said Saturday he was 'confident' the order could still be blocked nationwide following a Friday Supreme Court ruling that broadly restricted the ability of the court system to halt the president's policies. 'There's a whole range of administrative challenges that would make this completely unworkable, which is why I'm confident we'll get the nationwide relief we've sought when we go back to the lower courts,' Platkin said in an MSNBC appearance. The nation's highest court ruled Friday that Trump's executive order could be partially enforced because lower-court judges had exceeded their authority in issuing nationwide injunctions that blocked the policy. The ruling did not address the underlying constitutionality of Trump's order, but still drastically limited a judicial tool that has been used for decades, including to block federal policies from multiple presidential administrations. New Jersey is one of 22 Democratic-led states, along with a group of expectant mothers and immigration organizations, that sued to block the executive order almost immediately after it was issued in January. The injunctions issued by three federal judges in Washington, Maryland and Massachusetts in the ensuing months granted relief not just to those plaintiffs, but everyone in the country. That move, the Supreme Court majority said Friday, was unconstitutional. Instead, injunctions should be narrowly tailored to provide 'complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue.' The lower courts will now get the first attempt at tailoring injunctions to comply with the ruling. On MSNBC, Platkin contended that 'complete relief' to the states harmed by the executive order would still involve blocking the executive order across the country. 'It would be impossible to administer a system of citizenship based on which state you live in,' he said. The suits of the non-state plaintiffs, meanwhile, were quickly refashioned into class-action lawsuits, a legal route that Justice Amy Coney Barrett noted could provide broader relief against the birthright citizenship order in her majority opinion. The executive order remains blocked for at least 30 days while the courts and parties sort out the next steps.
Fox News
29 minutes ago
- Fox News
US Golden Dome defense system could come sooner than expected, contractor says
All times eastern FOX News Radio Live Channel Coverage WATCH LIVE: Senate convenes over President Trump's 'Big, Beautiful Bill'
Yahoo
39 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Iran admits U.S. strikes caused 'significant damage' to nuclear sites
June 27 (UPI) -- Iran officially acknowledged its nuclear sites had sustained "serious and significant damage" from U.S. air and missile strikes last weekend. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that while the extent of the damage was still being assessed by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, it was undeniable that the losses were substantial and that the country's nuclear facilities "have been seriously damaged." The admission by Araghchi in an interview with Iranian state television on Thursday came amid conflicting reports on the efficacy of the unprecedented military action launched by the United States against three nuclear sites on June 21. Earlier Thursday, Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khanamei claimed the opposite of his foreign minister, saying damage to the sites had been minimal and instead hailing the "damage inflicted" by Tehran's "victorious" retaliatory strike on the United States' Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar on Monday. The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has said the strikes using 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs and long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles "completely and fully obliterated" Iran's nuclear program -- although public briefings have focused on the "primary site," a key underground uranium enrichment plant at Fordow, with few details forthcoming on the facilities at Natanz and Esfahan. U.S. officials have pushed back on a leaked preliminary report by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency that assessed the strikes had only set back Iran's nuclear development by a few months at most, with the White House calling its findings "flat-out wrong." Araghchi said inspectors from the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, might never be allowed back into Iran. Iranian lawmakers passed a bill Wednesday, effectively banning any future cooperation with the IAEA, which Tehran has accused of carrying out reconnaissance on behalf of Israel and the United States. The legislation has been waived through by the Guardian Council and will go forward to President Masoud Pezeshkian's desk for him to sign into law, or veto. "Without a doubt, we are obliged to enforce this law. Iran's relationship with the agency will take a different shape," Araghchi warned. The independent London-based Iran International said Tehran was considering quitting the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. However, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei on Thursday, reasserted Iran's right to pursue peaceful nuclear development afforded to it by the treaty, according to state-run Press TV. Citing Article IV of the 1968 agreement, he said Iran was determined to keep its nuclear program going "under any circumstances." The statement came a day after Trump, announcing fresh Iran-U.S. talks, said he wasn't interested in existing or new agreements because the only thing the U.S. would be asking for was "no nuclear." Araghchi took to social media to claim Iran had conducted itself honorably and abided by international diplomatic norms, contrasting its record against that of European countries and the United States in particular, accusing Washington of treachery for attacking when Iran-U.S. talks were still in play. "Our diplomatic legitimacy was undeniable. In every conversation I had with foreign ministers, they either approved Iran's rightful position or were forced into silence. We stood firm, and even adversaries acknowledged our position," he said in a post on X. "We have had a very difficult experience with the Americans. In the middle of negotiations, they betrayed the negotiation itself. This experience will certainly influence our future decisions." Araghchi confirmed no resumption of talks was planned despite Trump saying Wednesday that the two countries would meet "next week." White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at her regular briefing Thursday that nothing was "scheduled as of now," but that communication channels between the United States and Iran remained active.
