GOP senator gets big mad at Elon Musk for his honest prediction about the 'long-term goal' of the so-called border bill

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) rebuked billionaire Elon Musk on Monday for criticizing the controversial so-called border bill that he helped co-author.

After the Senate released the full text of the bill on Sunday, Musk expressed concern that the overall trajectory of immigration policy in the U.S., as the bill demonstrates, is that eventually, immigrants living in the U.S. illegally will be allowed to vote.

"The long-term goal of the so-called 'Border Security' bill is enabling illegals to vote!" Musk reacted. "It will do the total opposite of securing the border."

Importantly, Musk did not say the bill itself would permit non-citizens to vote.

But Lankford, in an interview with CNN anchor Jake Tapper, still used the concern to attack Musk personally, making reference to a Tesla recall over a software update.

"I think he needs to go back to doing the 2 million Teslas currently being recalled to be able to focus in on that," Lankford said. "It is not focused on trying to get more illegals to vote. That is absurd. It is against the law for anyone that is not a citizen of the United States to be able to vote in the United States in any federal election. That remains so."

Musk's present concern, he later explained, centers on automatic voter registration, which 24 states and the District of Columbia have implemented.

"Many states automatically register anyone with a driver’s license to vote (no citizenship verification), ballots are then mailed out and 'ballot harvesters' pick them up mail them in, making fraud traceability impossible," he wrote on social media.

Over the past several days, Musk has been outspoken with his concerns about the current state of the immigration system.

But Musk has also made it clear that he is not anti-immigrant.

"As a reminder, I am very much PRO increasing legal immigration significantly," Musk said on Sunday. "I’m not anti-immigration, I’m just against a massive number of unvetted people flooding into America, which any rational person should be."

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