After years of howling about the federal deficit, Mike Lawler cast the deciding vote last week in favor of the Big Beautiful Bill (“BBB”). A bill that would increase the deficit by $3.8 trillion. Why? Because Donald Trump told him to.

One immediate sign of trouble for Lawler is that his largest campaign donor, Elon Musk, is not happy with the BBB because it “undermines” the chainsaw work of his DOGE team, and would spend trillions in excess of what DOGE claims to have saved with its painful and reckless cuts.

Lawler’s strategy this week for dealing with the BBB fallout has been classic. First, lie about the bill, say that you did it for the “hard-working middle class” taxpayers of NY. See “You Were Going To Lose Anyway.” Ignore the reality that the BBB represents “a massive transfer of wealth from the most vulnerable Americans to the richest.”

Second, get out of town and tend to your donors. So Mike was off to the Middle East to impress the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), his second largest donor after Elon.

Lawler led a small bipartisan Congressional delegation to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Bibi’s readout of the meeting:

A safer place?

Cozying up to a man who faces an ongoing trial in Israel on charges of bribery and fraud; and the subject of arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Another lawless “strongman” for Lawler to follow with devotion.

And finally, fallout strategy number three for Lawler this week was to work on his resume. As we know, Mike likes to pump out the bills and join bipartisan Congressional caucuses so that he can continue to declare in every press release: Congressman Lawler is one of the most bipartisan members of Congress. He was rated the most effective freshman lawmaker in the 118th Congress, 8th overall, surpassing dozens of committee chairs.

Lawler is already a member of 65 Congressional caucuses, but felt the need to create another this week: the “Congressional Extreme Heat Caucus.” His co-founder is a Democratic representative from Arizona, where dealing with extreme heat is definitely a priority. But New York? Not the next hot spot that would come to mind.

Lawler is the guy who just voted to eliminate clean energy credits, while he promotes natural gas and supports the administration that wants to remove greenhouse gas limits on power plants, among other policies that will fan the heat.

Nonetheless, he and his new heat buddy have introduced a bill to create a National Extreme Heat Awareness Week. Govtrack.us gives this bill a 0% chance of passing. And Lawler didn’t even bother to put out a press release or post anything about it. But it will add to his list of bipartisan caucuses and bills.

We’re not buying it, Mike. Your deciding vote on the Big Beautiful Bill tells us all we need to know. When the heat gets extreme, you follow the money and toe the line.