WASHINGTON — New York’s Democratic senators braced for an uphill fight as the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate returned this past week to take up a megabill filled with President Donald Trump’s second-term priorities.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said in interviews with Newsday that they were ready for a messaging war aimed at pressuring Republican colleagues with reservations about the budget bill to vote it down, after it passed last month in the Republican-majority House.

Then, the public pressure campaign received an unlikely ally this past week as billionaire Elon Musk, who recently left his post as a special adviser to Trump, unleashed a torrent of posts on his social media platform, X, calling on congressional Republicans to "KILL the BILL

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