Astronaut Butch Wilmore believes Biden refused to let Elon Musk's SpaceX help bring him and Sunita Williams home after being stranded in ISS

Over a month ago, Donald Trump asked Elon Musk's SpaceX to bring the two NASA astronauts - Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore - back from the International Space Station (ISS)

On Thursday, the Tesla founder tweeted an update about the mission, writing that they were doing everything possible to bring them back as soon as possible. In his tweet, Musk also wrote that SpaceX could have brought Wilmore and Williams back to Earth six months ago, but the "Biden White House" refused to allow it.

Butch Wilmore has now agreed with Musk's statement in an in-orbit press conference. Per Hindustan Times, the NASA astronaut had previously denied any political involvement behind their delayed return from the ISS.

However, when asked about Musk's claim about Biden intentionally stalling their rescue in a recent press conference, Wilmore said:

"I can only say that Mr. Musk, what he says, is absolutely factual … I believe him."

However, Butch Wilmore also admitted that the astronauts had no knowledge about the behind-the-door discussions regarding their rescue, including "what was offered, what was not offered, who it was offered to, how that process went."

Elsewhere in the conference, both Williams and Wilmore expressed their appreciation of Musk and Trump, adding:

"All of us have the utmost respect for Mr. Musk, and obviously, respect and admiration for our president of the United States, Donald Trump. We appreciate them. We appreciate all that they do for us, for human space flight, for our nation."

Another Elon Musk-related question that the astronauts in ISS answered was about the entrepreneur claiming that the ISS should be taken out of orbit, with their resources devoted to reaching Mars. They didn't seem to agree with Musk on this matter, with Sunita Williams saying:

"I actually was extremely impressed coming up here and seeing how much science is going on. This place is ticking. It’s just really amazing. So I would say we’re actually in our prime right now... I would think that right now is probably not the right time to say, quit, to call it quits."

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Elon Musk claimed that the Biden Administration rejected his offer for political reasons

The press conference of Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams comes days after Elon Musk was invited to The Joe Rogan Experience. On the podcast (recorded on Friday, February 28), Musk also touched upon the NASA rescue mission, saying:

"We offered to bring them back early. This offer was rejected by the Biden administration."

When asked why, Elon Musk answered:

"For political reasons. There's no way that they're gonna make anyone who's voting Trump look good."

Per a Business Insider article (published on March 1), the interview lasted for three hours, in which Elon Musk touched upon several hot subjects, including social security.

Musk heavily criticized social security, alongside the retirement and disability benefits program, calling it "the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time." The X owner continued:

"Basically, people are living way longer than expected, and there are fewer babies being born, so you have more people who are retired and that live for a long time and get retirement payments."

Then, elaborating on the impact it was having on the country's debt, Musk added:

"Have you ever looked at the debt clock? There's our present-day debt, but then there's our future obligations. So when you look at the future obligations of Social Security, the actual national debt is like double what what people think it is because of the future obligations."

Elon Musk also mentioned that the federal government's financial situation was poor now but would be much worse in the future, citing the US's falling birth rates as the prime reason behind it.