Musk To Señor Trumpanzee: Go Fund Yourself… Vanity Legislation Meets Tech Billionaire Meltdown

Trump Built A Monument To Himself— Then Musk Pissed All Over It

Is it possible that one of Trump’s White House henchmen gave Musk that black eye and not “Little X?” Probably not, but if Trump was sensing how Musk was preparing to turn on him and his big ugly bill, he at least wouldn’t have given him a ceremonial “very special” key to the White House. I sensed something was awry by the way the drug-addled Musk was ignoring Trump’s boring speech and then making fun of Trump’s gaudy Oval Office decorating prowess.

A day and a half later he exploded with the wild tweet heard round the world: “I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.” So far Trump’s kept quiet about it, apparently scared to get into a war with the world’s richest man, even though Musk’s outburst could ruin Trump’s desire to sign the bill on July 4th. A “White House official” told Politico that “‘The West Wing is perplexed, unenthused and disappointed’ with Musk… By far the most interesting of his stream of Twitter posts yesterday was the one carrying an implicit threat to parts of the GOP. ‘In November next year,’ Musk wrote, ‘we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people.’ Musk clearly has the wealth and influence to be a huge player in the midterms— or indeed in GOP primaries— if he wants to. Hill Republicans up for reelection will be watching with bated breath.” Or maybe this is just Musk trying to get people to stop hating him and Tesla as much by pretending to be breaking with Trump.

“But what you saw yesterday, was not just an attack on Hill Republicans. This bill is the legislative centerpiece of Trump’s second term, and its passage means the world to the president. Trump— with his usual understatement— has called it ‘arguably the most significant piece of Legislation that will ever be signed in the History of our Country,’ and an ‘Historic Opportunity to turn our Country around.’ This very week, he urged his GOP colleagues to get it done ‘AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!’ This kind of thing isn’t go to help Trump though:

“A careful briefing operation is now underway via Republicans close to the White House— not a push to denigrate Musk per se, but rather to frame his opposition to the bill as what you might call principled self-interest.” Trump had MAGA Mike, his silly puppet speaker, imply to reporters that Musk was attacking the bill for his own selfish reasons: “I know the EV mandate is very important to him. That is going away, because the government should not be subsidizing these things as part of the Green New Deal. I know that has an effect on his business, and I’ll admit that. For him to come out and pan the whole bill is, to me, just very disappointing, very surprising.”

Michael Gold reported yesterday that some House Republicans are already saying they never should have voted for the big ugly bill, including slavish Trump ally Marjorie Traitor Greene! He wrote that “now, Republicans who rallied behind the bill are claiming buyer’s remorse about measures they swear they did not know were included.” Reading the bill before voting on it— always a good idea.

ABC News is reporting that Musk’s dissatisfaction with Señor TACO extends beyond the big ugly bill, highlighting a “widening rift on a range of recent moves by the administration.” (It’s possible, though that ABC’s sources are all orchestrated from the White House.) Musk’s not just disgruntled about the EV tax credit going bye-bye, something he was once fine with, but is also the Trump administration striking artificial intelligence deals with his competitor OpenAI… Another source of tension: the withdrawal of Musk ally Jared Isaacman's nomination as NASA administrator over the weekend, according to sources who stated that Musk was deeply disappointed by the move. There have also been deep disagreements on trade policy. In April, Musk called trade advisor Peter Navarro a ‘moron’ and ‘dumber than a sack of bricks.’”

Elmo wasn't finished on Tuesday either

All this leaves Trump scrambling to get recalcitrant Senate Republicans to vote for a version of the bill that the House will agree to. Catie Edmondson: Senor Trumpanzyy “ratcheted up pressure on Senate Republicans to quickly embrace and pass legislation carrying his domestic agenda, intensifying a battle inside the GOP about what should be in the measure and how much it should cost. The deepening divisions are threatening the fate of the sprawling bill… The back-and-forth highlighted the challenges facing Trump’s top domestic priority, which has prompted a searing debate in the GOP about policy priorities and how much additional debt the federal government should take on to address them. Trump began the day lashing out on social media at Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, for refusing to back the bill, claiming that Paul had little understanding of the measure and adding: ‘His ideas are actually crazy (losers!). The people of Kentucky can’t stand him. He loves voting NO on everything, he thinks it’s good politics, but it’s not,’ Trump wrote of Paul, calling the legislation a ‘big WINNER!’” (Not be be outdone, Ron Johnson (R-WI) called the bill “grotesque” and said “This is immoral, what us old farts doing to our young people… I can’t accept the scenario, I can’t accept it, so I won’t vote for it, unless we are serious about fixing it.”)

So far it isn’t anything approaching being a big WINNER— unless by “winner” Trump means a Frankenstein monster stitched together out of lobbyist wish lists, fossil fuel handouts, authoritarian surveillance powers and budget gimmickry… or the sheer volume of pharmaceutical-grade delusion oozing out of the West Wing. What was meant to be his signature legislative triumph is now bleeding support from both MAGA dead-enders and Chamber of Commerce types, and Musk’s highly public defection has turned what should’ve been a coronation into a knife fight. Trump, who once fancied himself a master dealmaker, is suddenly looking like a sad old man stomping around the West Wing, yelling at Fox News. Musk’s carefully calibrated meltdown did more than just blow up Vought’s and Trump’s dishonest narrative… it exposed it for what it is: a paranoid strongman’s vanity project crumbling under the weight of its contradictions, but leaving Señor T too scared to hit back at Musk, too angry to focus and too desperate to admit he’s lost control of his own party to a megalomaniac with a WiFi connection. And as the bill staggers toward the Senate like a half-dead horse full of earmarks, Trump is left doing what he always does: lashing out, lying about the numbers and pretending the circus fire behind him is actually a sunrise. If this is the “historic opportunity to turn our Country around,” then maybe the country should consider turning the hell back.

UPDATE: Trump Strikes Back With An Existential Threat

This was probably inevitable from the first time these two spoiled ego-maniacs jumped into bed together. Keep in mind that it could still just be kabuki theater and manipulative cosplaying but… it does seem to be getting more real and even angrier by the day. Let’s hope it ends up getting really insane, which either of these two drug-addicted maniacs could easily make it! Musk also said that “Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House & the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate. What ingratitude!”