Abrego Garcia's streets defined man at center of immigration debate
This is the street where Kilmar Abrego Garcia spent his early years. And the street he fled to come to America.
He was a teenager when he left to build a new life in a new country. He's 29 now and back in El Salvador, this time in prison, a father of three caught in a standoff among President Donald Trump, the courts, some members of Congress and the Salvadoran government.
Abrego Garcia's deportation - and the Trump administration's refusal to return him to the United States, even though it admits he was sent back to El Salvador by mistake - has made him the most high-profile target of Trump's campaign to expel millions of migrants who entered the United States illegally.
The Justice Department insists Abrego Garcia is a member of a dangerous criminal gang. Abrego Garcia, who had lived in Maryland for years before he was deported, insists he is not.
Regardless of who is right, Abrego Garcia's story begins here, in Los Nogales, on Senda 3.
The small terrace house he lived in with his parents and two siblings is still standing. His mother, Cecilia, referred to affectionately as "Cece" by old friends, made pupusas there with the help of her three young children every Friday, Saturday and Sunday and sold them to neighbors.
A woman named Rocio, who is in her 30s and lives just two doors down, proudly showed off photos of Abrego Garcia, his sister and his older brother Cesar attending a birthday party in her home.
At the time, San Salvador was the domain of violent gangs. Two rival gangs, MS-13 and Barrio 18, or the 18th Street gang, fought over turf block by block, running the Central American country's murder rate in 2012 up among the highest in the world at 41 per 100,000 people, according to the United Nations.
Los Nogales was neutral ground.
"There was never trouble with gangs here," said a man who would only give his name as Jorge. "I've lived here for 20 years and never had a problem."
Jorge's sentiments were echoed by almost a dozen of Abrego Garcia's close neighbors, friends and neighborhood acquaintances interviewed by USA TODAY.
The paper is identifying Jorge and other locals only by their first names because they fear reprisals from El Salvador's increasingly authoritarian government.
Members of Abrego Garcia's family denied multiple USA TODAY interview requests to speak about his early years in El Salvador and his home life.
But when Abrego Garcia lived on Senda 3, a five-minute walk to the calle principal would land him in gang territory.
Los Nogales was surrounded on all sides by "troubled" neighborhoods where bandidos run rampant, a resident named Fredy said.
The burgeoning pupuseria business run by Cece, Abrego Garcia's mother, attracted the greed of Barrio 18 members. They demanded monthly protection money from the family and threatened to enlist Abrego Garcia in the gang as payment or even to stalk, kidnap and kill him, according to court records entered by his attorneys.
A short distance from where Cece once rolled out her pupusas sits the local watering hole, run by a husband and wife.
On an afternoon in mid-April, beer-swilling revelers crowded inside and listened to rancheras and watched futbol. Waiters carried plates of seafood and fried potatoes from the kitchen to the simple wooden tables. Patrons covered the mouths of their beer bottles with paper napkins against the flies buzzing around, attracted by a free lunch, or drink.
Like the flies, gangsters from the surrounding barrios historically swarmed around local businesses that made money in Los Nogales - even if they're tucked away and shut behind metal bars and barbed wire.
Insects and extortionists always find their way in, said Edward, the bar's current owner.
The bar's previous owners had to sell because the payments to Barrio 18 were too burdensome, Edward said. His wife pointed to where a cluster of popular restaurants once sat. They, too, closed because of financial pressure from the bandidos.
Whether Abrego Garcia's family was the victim of Barrio 18, the neighbors hadn't heard. But they did know the family had fallen on hard times.
"The bank was foreclosing on their house, that's why they had to sell up and leave," Fredy said. "They moved nearby to another house."
Cece long planned for her sons to leave El Salvador and the dangers lurking there, Los Nogales residents said.
Cesar, the oldest boy, went first. He left for the United States. Abrego Garcia soon followed. He was just 16.
For days, he walked north, crossing the Rio Grande. He entered the United States illegally near McAllen, Texas, around March 12, 2012.
His journey, however, was far from over.
A Home Depot in Maryland
In the suburb of Hyattsville, Maryland, Home Depot is where homeowners shop for supplies for do-it-yourself repairs and where construction crews come for materials.
It's also where migrants look for day jobs.
Groups of men from Latin American countries wait in the parking lot. Some help customers carry supplies in exchange for a cash tip or, if they are lucky, a day gig. A woman sells tamales out of the back of a van while a small boy plays in the back.
It was here that Abrego Garcia's new life started to unravel.
An 'administrative error': A Maryland dad was sent to El Salvador prison by mistake. Can his community get him back?
He had made his way to Maryland. His older brother, Cesar, was living there and had become a U.S. citizen.
In 2016, Abrego Garcia met the woman who would become his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a Salvadoran American. Around the same age, they connected through her coworker, Abrego Garcia's best friend.
There was an instant spark. He liked that she was a strong woman.
"It would amaze him that no matter what life put me through, I would face it," she said in a phone interview with USA TODAY in early April.
They moved in together two years later. Vasquez Sura had two children from a previous relationship, a daughter who has epilepsy and a son with autism. The girl wanted to be a makeup artist and her brother, a soccer player. Abrego Garcia raised the two children as his own. To them, she said, he's their dad.
The children's biological father, Edwin Ramos, filed a custody claim against Vasquez Sura in 2018 allegeding she lived with a gang member. The document circulated as more evidence of Abrego Garcia's MS-13 affiliation, but the case was quickly dismissed, according to court records.
A year later, Ramos was charged and convicted of second-degree rape and remains incarcerated in Maryland.
Abrego Garcia found work as an HVAC installer and was a member of CASA, a nonprofit that operates day worker centers in Maryland. The couple learned they were expecting a son, who they'd name Kilmar Jr.
They had what seemed like a good life, until police spotted him in the Home Depot parking lot.
On March 28, 2019, Abrego Garcia drove to the Hyattsville store on East-West Highway, about eight miles north of the U.S. Capitol. He was looking for construction work, his wife would later say in court documents.
Records released by Hyattsville, Maryland, and Prince George's County police say he was loitering. He was standing in the parking lot with three other men, two of whom he recognized. The four were chatting to pass the time, his lawyers said.
Abrego Garcia was taken in for questioning. One of the men he had been talking to, Christhyan Hernandez-Romero, had an extensive rap sheet that included assault, burglary and concealing a weapon. He was known to Hyattsville police as an MS-13 gang member.
Prince George's police detective Ivan Mendez, the investigating officer, suspected Abrego Garcia was also part of the gang. He reached that conclusion, he wrote in his police report, based on three things: Abrego Garcia was sporting a Chicago Bulls hat, which authorities say is worn by active MS-13 members. He had on a dark-hooded sweatshirt, which authorities also said was associated with or consistent with an MS-13 slogan. And a confidential informant had identified him as a member of MS-13.
Abrego Garcia denied he was a member of MS-13 or any gang.
Days later, the police detective's credibility would come under scrutiny. The force accused him of sharing confidential information about an ongoing investigation with a sex worker. He was later fired and placed on the county district attorney's do-not-call list of unreliable sources.
Hyattsville police, meanwhile, say records of their encounter with Abrego Garcia made no connection to MS-13. He had two vials of marijuana, which they seized. No charges were filed against him.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were called in because police suspected Abrego Garcia was an undocumented immigrant. He was assigned an Alien Registration Number, or A-number. The federal government could now keep tabs on him.
Based on the conclusions of the now-disgraced Prince George's detective, ICE wrote in Abrego Garcia's file: "Subject has been identified as a Member/Active of M.S.13."
At a hearing before an immigration judge that April, Abrego Garcia denied that he was a gang member, insisting he wasn't a risk to the community. The judge declined to issue him a bond, citing the gang report filed by Mendez and the tip from the confidential informant.
Abrego Garcia remained in jail, awaiting possible deportation.
That June, Abrego Garcia and a seven-months-pregnant Vasquez Sura married at the Howard Detention Center in Jessup, Maryland, where he was being held. Their son, Kilmar Jr. was born in August. The child has microtia, a congenital malformation of the ear, is intellectually disabled with a speech disorder and has been diagnosed with autism.
Abrego Garcia asked the courts for a protective order preventing his deportation to El Salvador, where he feared gangs threatened his life. The judge granted the order on Oct. 10. Abrego Garcia could still be expelled from the United States - he just couldn't be returned to El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia was released from custody after six months in detention, but was required to check in with ICE yearly.
For six years, records show, he did.
No 'Maryland father': What to know on White House allegations against Kilmar Abrego Garcia
A house in suburbia
The tree-lined street where Abrego Gracia and his growing family settled sits in a quiet neighborhood. Pink and white blossoms fall from branches and decorate the front lawns of small, brick houses. In one yard, a Mexican flag flutters in a mild breeze.
Near the bottom of a slight hill is the white-brick house that Abrego-Garcia called home. A child's scooter and a toy lawn mower rest on the grassy lawn. Parked in the driveway is a white pickup, a boat hitched to its rear.
The suburb of Beltsville, Maryland, between Baltimore and Washington, is where Abrego Garcia was living the American dream.
He'd found work as a union sheet metal apprentice. He took worker safety training and classes at the University of Maryland. He was in the first year of a five-year apprenticeship and working toward a union "pink card" that would mean higher pay and benefits.
"He was on track, really, to the middle class," said Tom Killeen, political director for the sheet metal workers Maryland-based Local 100.
But home life was turbulent.
Abrego Garcia had grown "more reserved" after his release from detention and now had "a sadness" about him that his wife hadn't seen prior to his time in ICE custody, she said in court records.
In 2020, Vasquez Sura petitioned a court for a domestic protection order against her husband. One altercation, she said, resulted in police responding to their home after he slapped and threatened her.
"Like at 3:00 in the morning, he would just wake up and, like, hit me," she told a judge in a recording obtained by USA TODAY. Then before her daughter's birthday party, "he slapped me three times...then last week my sister called the police because he hit me in front of my sister."
In 2021, Vasquez Sura petitioned for a protection order a second time, citing instances of violence in 2019, 2020 and 2021. Abrego Garcia "punched and scratched" her, ripped off her shirt and grabbed and bruised her, according to her testimony to a judge.
The case was closed after a month, according to Prince George's County records.
Vasquez Sura said in a statement to USA TODAY that neither she nor her husband was in a good place when she filed for the protective orders.
"My husband was traumatized from the time he spent in ICE detention, and we were in the throes of COVID," she said. "Like many couples, we were caring for our children with barely enough to get by. All of those factors contributed to the actions, which caused me to seek the protective order."
In an earlier statement released April 17, she also told USA TODAY she sought the 2021 order out of precaution because she had experienced domestic violence in a past relationship.
Then, in March 2025, ICE re-entered their lives.
Abrego Garcia was working at a job site in Baltimore, installing HVAC ducts on a new University of Maryland hospital building. He finished his shift on Wednesday afternoon, March 12, and then picked up his 5-year-old at the home of Cece, who had followed her sons to the United States. With his own son in the back seat, Abrego Garcia was on his way home when he phoned his wife to say he was being pulled over for what he thought was a routine traffic stop.
It wasn't. It was ICE.
Timeline: How an error led to the deportation of a legal resident of US to El Salvador
Abrego Garcia wasn't confident speaking English, so Vasquez Sura told him to put her on speakerphone while he talked with the officers, she said in a court filing. She could overhear the conversation as an agent told her husband to turn off the car and get out. Abrego Garcia explained to the officer, in English, that his son with special needs was in the back seat. Vasquez Sura heard the officer take his phone and hang up.Minutes later, she got another call, this time from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The caller gave her 10 minutes to get to the scene and pick up her son or child protective services would be contacted. When she got there, Abrego Garcia was on the curb and in handcuffs, crying, she said.
Officers said they were taking him in. His immigration status had changed, the agents informed him.
"I told him he would come back home," Vasquez Sura said, "because he hadn't done anything wrong."
Abrego Garcia was detained, sent to Baltimore and transferred to a Texas detention center. There, he was handcuffed, shackled and, three days later, put on a plane with other detainees. None of them had any idea where they were going. They were being sent to El Salvador, despite the protective order barring Abrego Garcia's return to his homeland.
In El Salvador, he and others expelled by the Trump administration were placed in the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, a notorious prison criticized for its harsh and dangerous conditions and its rough treatment of prisoners.
Vasquez Sura and their 5-year-old sued the federal government, demanding that Abrego Garcia be returned home. Days later, government attorneys admitted in court records that he had been deported by mistake - an "administrative error" was the official explanation - but said they had no authority to return him because he was now in a foreign country.
A federal judge in Maryland, Paula Xinis, disagreed and ruled on April 4 that the Trump administration had committed an "illegal act" by deporting him. Xinis directed the U.S. government to "facilitate" his return. In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court also demanded the administration start the process of bringing Abrego Garcia back to the United States.
The Trump administration, however, dug in.
Trump called Abrego Garcia a foreign terrorist. A White House spokesman labeled him a "wife beater," citing Vasquez Sura's four-year-old request for a temporary protective order. Stephen Miller, one of Trump's top advisers, described him as a "human smuggler."
The administration released records from a traffic stop in an effort to back up its claims. The Tennessee Highway Patrol had pulled Abrego Garcia over on Interstate 40 in December 2022. He was driving with eight passengers and no luggage. Local authorities suspected he was smuggling people north from Texas to Maryland, the Department of Homeland Security said. But the state police officer who pulled him over released him without charges or even writing a ticket.
Abrego Garcia's wife said in a statement that he worked in construction and sometimes transported groups of workers between job sites, which could explain why there were others in the vehicle.
In search of Abrego Garcia
El Salvador's CECOT prison is a rambling complex spread across 57 acres southeast of San Salvador. Built in 2022, the maximum-security facility is surrounded by two sets of walls. Its prisoners, who include gang members, are often called the worst of the worst.
Abrego Garcia had last been seen frog-walking through the prison.
Vasquez Sura, his wife, spotted him in news photos. She recognized the two scars on his now-shaved head and the tattoos on his knuckles. From the Oval Office, Trump has shown reporters a photo of the tattoos as proof that Abrego Garcia is a gang member.
By now, it had been a month since he was last sighted. Questions about Abrego Garcia's location and status - including those ordered by the federal judge overseeing the case - remained unanswered.
Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat, wanted to know if his constituent was safe, healthy and, above all, alive. So he headed to the Central American country to check on Abrego Garcia himself.
The two-day trip had proved fruitless: Salvadoran Vice President Felix Ulloa had denied the senator's request to enter CECOT. Van Hollen's last-minute push to drive to the prison and demand a meeting was thwarted by a military checkpoint. Less than two miles away, armed military personnel pulled over his small convoy of vehicles.
"He is totally beyond reach," Van Hollen said at the side of the road.
Van Hollen and his team headed back to their hotel. In a few hours, they were to fly back to the United States. The senator still didn't know if Abrego Garcia was even breathing.
Then, a phone call from the U.S. embassy: Would he be willing to meet with Abrego Garcia at his hotel that afternoon?
They negotiated the optics. The Salvadoran government wanted the meeting to take place next to the pool in the hotel's lush gardens. Van Hollen said no and suggested the hotel restaurant instead. Wait there, he was instructed.
Turned away: Van Hollen stopped at military checkpoint on way to Salvadoran prison
Fans turned in the restaurant's cream-colored ceiling. Waiters swished from table to table, politely taking orders. Children played nearby as an afternoon breeze combed through the palm trees.
Abrego Garcia emerged, escorted by at least five officials. Dressed casually in jeans, a plaid button-down shirt and a Kansas City Chiefs baseball cap, he was not handcuffed.
The two men spoke alone for a few minutes, sipping coffee and water as Abrego Garcia told of his ordeal. They sat in wicker chairs at a four-top wooden table set with white china, glasses and silverware.
'Prayers have been answered': Sen. Chris Van Hollen meets with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man wrongly deported to El Salvador
"He spoke of the trauma he had experienced, both with being abducted and then, when they got to Texas, being shackled, handcuffed, and put on a plane with no way to see out of the windows," Van Hollen told USA TODAY.
Abrego Garcia told the senator he had been placed into a cell with 25 people at CECOT. He said he was fearful of the prisoners in other cells who called out to him. But a few days earlier he had been moved out to a lower-security prison, Centro Industrial in Santa Ana, with better conditions.
When they finished, Van Hollen escorted Abrego Garcia to the front of the hotel lobby. They walked over the highly polished marble tiles and past wooden furniture. On the walls were framed photographs of visiting heads of state, including several U.S. presidents.
Van Hollen watched as officers whisked Abrego Garcia from the Sheraton Presidente. Avenida de la Revolucion was the last place he was seen.
His steps receding, he vanished again.
National correspondent Will Carless anchored this story from El Salvador. Eduardo Cuevas and Michael Collins reported from Maryland. Investigations reporter and records expert Nick Penzenstadler dug through court documents and police reports.
Contributing: Cybele Mayes-Osterman in Washington and Julia Gavarrete in San Salvador, El Salvador.
Editing: Romina Ruiz-Goiriena and Doug Caruso
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With Republicans holding the slimmest of majorities in both chambers of Congress and with Democrats showing no sign of wanting to help Trump notch a major win to begin his new administration, lawmakers from Trump's own party are sounding apprehensive about threading the needle before their self-imposed July 4 deadline to get something to the president's desk for signature into law. More: Trump and Musk's bromance ends after personal attacks over criticism of tax bill "We're anxious to get to work on it," Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota, told reporters earlier in the week as Republicans and Musk started publicly airing their complaints about the effort. Adding to the challenge: Some of the very House GOP members who last month voted in favor of their 1,100-page version of Trump's tax and policy plan started finding faults of their own that they say meant they'd probably have been a 'no' if they had the chance to do it again. Presidents often aim high to start terms Presidents often try in their first year to build on the momentum of their elections to get major legislation approved. For Joe Biden, it was an infrastructure bill. For Barack Obama, it was overhauling healthcare insurance. For George W. Bush, it was overhauling public education. Trump leapt into action in 2025 with an unprecedented pace of executive orders: 157 through May 23. When he turned to legislation, he persuaded Republican congressional leaders to package all his priorities into one bill, rather than splitting taxes and border security into two different bills, to complete the debate in one fell swoop. More: Everything's an 'emergency': How Trump's executive order record pace is testing the courts Lawmakers often shy away from piling too much into one bill because each contentious provision spurs its own opposition. But faced with the prospect of unanimous Democratic opposition, Trump opted for a strategy that focuses on GOP priorities such as tax relief and border security while personally lobbying reluctant Republicans to stay in line. "Americans have given us a mandate for bold and profound change," Trump told Congress in a speech March 4. "I call on all of my Republican friends in the Senate and House to work as fast as they can to get this Bill to MY DESK before the Fourth of JULY," he added in a social media post about three months later, on June 2. Musk opposition makes waves Trump's efforts worked in the Republican-led House, which after several days of negotiations and an all-night floor debate voted 215-214 in favor of a plan that had the full backing of the White House. Getting the measure through the Senate - even with the GOP in charge needing just a simple majority of 51 votes - is proving to be its own elusive challenge. Musk, the former head of Trump's bureaucracy-slashing Department of Government Efficiency, spent this past week unloading on the House-passed bill for spending too much money. He called the legislation "pork-filled" and a "disgusting abomination," and urged lawmakers to "KILL the BILL." More: The post-fight fallout from Trump-Musk battle could get even uglier While Musk's barrage ignited a war with Trump and left many Republicans cringing, deficit hawks in the GOP said they appreciated the world's richest man also pushing for deeper spending cuts from the U.S. government. "I welcome people like Elon Musk that try to hold our feet to the fire," said Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Missouri. "We often disappoint our voters when we don't do the cuts that we campaign on, when we're not fiscally responsible." But Rep. Don Bacon, R-Nebraska, who served in the Air Force for 30 years, said the division between Trump and Musk wasn't a good look for his party, especially when it's trying to advance the primary piece of legislation on the president's agenda. "It's just not helpful," Bacon said. "When you have division, divided teams don't perform as well." 'The opposite of conservative': Sen. Paul on bill Several pockets of Republican senators have voiced concerns about the House-passed legislation. Each group has their issue that they want addressed, and each one presents a hurdle for Trump and GOP leaders like Thune as they try to cobble together a winning 51-vote coalition that can also make it back through the House for another final vote. The Senate factions include one group seeking to cut more spending because the Congressional Budget Office said the House-passed plan would add $2.4 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years. Others are worried about cutting Medicaid, the federal health insurance program for low-income families. And another handful of senators say they are worried about the House-passed bill rolling back renewable energy tax credits for solar, wind, geothermal and nuclear energy. "There are many of us who recognize that what came out of the House was pretty aggressive in how it seeks to wind down or phase out many of the energy tax credit provisions," said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska. "I happen to think that we've got tax policies that are working to help advance our energy initiatives around the country, as diverse and as varied as they are. Wouldn't we want to continue those investments? "This bill is the opposite of conservative, and we should not pass it," added Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, in a June 4 social media post that raised concerns about the nation's debt limit. Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley is one of the outspoken Republicans taking issue with the House-passed bill's provisions that would cut nearly $800 billion during the next decade from Medicaid and, according to the Congressional Budget Office, cost 7.8 million people their health insurance. "I don't want to see rural hospitals close and I don't want to see any benefits cut in my state," Hawley said. Trump and his allies contend spending cuts of $1.6 trillion are the most ever approved in a House bill and that the tax cuts will spur economic growth to offset the costs. Trump got personal this week in calling Paul's ideas "crazy" in a social media post and said the people of Kentucky "can't stand him." More: Trump lashes out at Sen. Rand Paul over opposition to big tax bill House Speaker Mike Johnson, a staunch Trump ally, told reporters June 4 that few people are going to like everything in an 1,100-page bill. But the Louisiana Republican said the measure he helped craft in the House was carefully calibrated to gain wide support. "I hope everybody will evaluate that - in both parties, and everybody - and recognize, 'Wow, the benefits of this far outweigh anything that I don't like out it,'" Johnson said. Senate dropping local tax deductions would be 'radioactive': Rep. Lalota Any changes made by the Senate will force another vote in the House before the bill can become law - and that's where the math can get tricky. Republican senators are talking about tinkering with a key compromise that Trump and Johnson signed off on in the House that raised the federal deduction for state and local taxes (SALT) from $10,000 to $40,000 for people earning less than $500,000 per year. That provision is important to GOP lawmakers from high-tax states such as California, New York and New Jersey who supported the House bill that passed through the 435-seat chamber by only a one-vote margin. More: Senate Republicans plan to amend SALT tax deduction in Trump's sweeping bill The Senate aims to cut back that provision. But Rep. Nick Lalota, R-New York, told reporters on June 4 that revisiting the tax issue "would be like digging up safely-buried radioactive waste." House members scouring through the bill they voted on weeks ago are also finding unfamiliar provisions in the version that they say they would have opposed. For example, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, said in a social media post June 3 that the Senate needs to strip out language she hadn't noticed earlier that would prevent states from regulating artificial intelligence. Rep. Mike Flood, R-Nebraska, said he opposed a section that aims to hinder federal judges from enforcing their court orders. Trump sought the provision to prevent judges from blocking policies largely spelled out via his executive orders. Senate could drop contentious provisions House members risked supporting Even though Republicans control both chambers of Congress, the Senate could drop or fail to approve contentious parts that GOP House colleagues in competitive districts already went out on a limb to support. It's happened many times before - with sizable political consequences. The concept even has a name: Getting BTU'd. That refers to a 1993 House vote on a controversial energy tax during the first year of Bill Clinton's presidency based on British thermal units. House Democrats lost 54 seats in the 1994 election - and control of the chamber for the first time in 40 years - in part because of supporting the BTU tax that the Senate never debated. John Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College, has said a book about such votes could be called "Profiles in Futility." Another example was the 2009 American Clean Energy and Security Act, a bill which Obama supported as president that aimed to limit the emissions of heat-trapping gases from power plants, vehicles and other industrial sources. The Democrat-controlled House narrowly approved the measure 219-212 but the Senate never took it up. Critics said it would raise the cost of energy. The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a non-profit libertarian think tank that opposed the measure, counted 28 House Democrats from coal states who lost their seats in the 2010 mid-term election after voting for the bill. Fast forward to 2025 and Republicans are the ones facing a similar dynamic. Musk, who contributed about $290 million of his personal fortune to help Republicans including Trump win last November, slammed House lawmakers who voted for the president's legislative package."Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong," Musk wrote June 3 on social media. But House Republicans who voted for the legislation, including some who also demanded deeper spending cuts when it was in their hands, said they're not worried about the package falling apart and coming back to haunt them. They say that's because they did fight for more budget cuts. "This wasn't a hard vote. It was hard going through the process to get more, and you can always do better," said Rep. Ralph Norman, R-South Carolina. "But look at what Donald Trump's done, the great things that are contributing to cutting the deficit." Rep. David Schweikert, R-Arizona, who represents a competitive toss-up district, noted that he's introduced multiple bills to trim federal spending. "If Mr. Musk wants to be helpful, what he should do is start to understand that those of us in a 50-50 district who have shown up with actual policy solutions that offset every penny of this bill," he said. Leaving Washington for the weekend, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force Once on June 6 that he wasn't worried about Musk and that he remained confident he'd get "tremendous support" in the Senate to pass the bill. "I don't know of anybody who's going to vote against it," the president said, before adding: "Maybe Rand Paul." For his part, Johnson told reporters June 4 that he wasn't concerned about House Republicans losing seats in 2026. Predicting that the Senate would find the necessary votes on the president's tax bill, the speaker said he expects Americans will see the benefits of Trump's efforts before the next election. "Am I concerned about the effect of this on the midterms? I'm not," Johnson said. "I have no concern whatsoever. I am absolutely convinced that we are going to win the midterms and grow the House majority because we are delivering for the American majority and fulfilling our campaign promises." Contributing: Reuters
