Tim Miller takes on the hilarious public feud between two members of Trump's inner circle: Elon Musk and Peter Navarro.
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Also, the GOP has rejected calling a problem a problem for purely economic and ideological reasons such as climate change, pollution, wildlife population declines, wildlife habitat loss, children dying from vaccine preventable diseases, innocent people ending up in Salvadoran prisons, etc. So, let's eliminate that problem by eliminating the GOP!
Tim with the tea 🍵 👀 I'm here for it!!
I’m confused: the US and Europe DID have free trade before Trump put on tariffs!!!
Sorry Elon, this still won't improve Tesla sells in Europe. Funny, but some countries don’t appreciate billionaires interfering in their elections!!!!
It may be dawning on Elon Musk that Trump - and many of his favored advisors - use a shovel labeled “grievance” to dig themselves deeper and deeper into a hole… and they refuse to stop digging even when the walls are caving in on them.
Unlike the other nazis Elon can do arithmetic .
I am sick of this whole lot. They all are wankers who better know we are all taking them down!!
Navarro is a pretty crusty individual. He's been pedaling this right wing nationalistic "tariff" and "protection" racket for 30 years. He's written numerous books and quotes an Economist Ron Varro, that nobody has ever heard of because it's an anagram of his own name. Since he lost the election in 2020 Trump has been surrounded during his exile and come back by the dregs of the far right...that's whose with them in his administration. There's a serious lack of competence running the country right nw
Only a fraud like Trump would hire another fraud like Navarro.
A sign from the protest on Saturday:
Morons
Are
Governing
America
Tesla......zero to 1939 in under 10 seconds
There was a working relationship between the US and Europe, including Ukraine.
The Chainsaw and The Don blew it up and continue to do so.
And Navarro blurted out the the January 6 game plan and went to prison for refusing to answer a subpoena from Congress.
These people were probably rotten kids on the playground and they still are.
Elon, for weeks was watching his wealth shrink as the boycott Tesla took hold. Now he gets a kick in the rear from Trump on tariffs. Soon he's going to lose the subsidies for EVs.
Being a nazi is turning out to be bad for his business.
It’s not just Navarro and The Muskrat who’ve gotten crosswise. The Dearest Donald and The Muskrat have gotten crosswise with each other.
Musk’s promoting an eventual outcome of zero mutual tariffs (contrary to Trump’s ideas about how to use tariffs) and Musk’s throwing shade on Navarro (Trump’s trade guru) are pretty direct challenges to Trump himself. Maybe Musk hopes that Trump will take a hint to retreat from his trade war and make Navarro the scapegoat for the trade war’s economic damage, which will harm Musk’s financial interests.
If it really is Musk’s hope that Trump will throw Navarro under the trade war bus and start looking for the nearest off ramp, Musk has probably miscalculated. Trump doesn’t like his fantasies to be challenged, he doesn’t like to retreat, and he sure as heck doesn’t like and never liked Elon Musk—for a reason that’s almost too obvious to mention: envy. Envy of Musk’s brains, wealth, influence, success, and cult-like status. In the deepest recesses of his feces-filled hollow heart, Trump hates Musk. For his part, Musk doesn’t hate Trump, but he is contemptuous of Trump. Musk thinks Trump is an easily-manipulated fool.
No matter how Trump and Musk perceive each other, we must have the imagination to perceive that both Trump and Musk are non-state actors. Neither feels a sense of duty or even loyalty to the United States, to any other country, or to a liberal world order. They will use, misuse, and abuse the levers, systems and processes of national governments and international institutions to their own advantage, but they do not considered themselves bound to those governments and institutions. They are extra-national figures, attached to no nation-uniting principle or aspiration. They are driven only by their egotistical sociopathic desires for wealth and power. They will do whatever they can get away with to obtain an advantage. They will stop at nothing.
When the world’s most powerful national executive comes into open conflict with the world’s richest man, neither of the two narcissistic, masochistic psychopaths is likely to back down. And that fight might quickly devolve into a virtual civil war, fought not with bullets, but with Trump wielding his regulatory and prosecutorial power against Musk and Musk’s allies, while Musk marshals his financial and high tech power against Trump and Trump’s allies.
In such a virtual civil war, our Republic and its people are likely to suffer grave and lasting damage. Whoever wins will win only because he was willing and able to deploy his power more effectively in extra-legal, quasi-legal, and unjust ways. After a man prevails in such a momentous struggle, he will perceive that he cannot remain secure if he stops acting unjustly. So he will continue to use his power unjustly, ever more unjustly, including the power he will have acquired from his rival by defeating him.
If Trump and Musk come into open conflict, our polity might not survive the contest.
Do all these people receive federal benefits and pension?
Elon looks more and more like a Hieronymus Bosch character.
I’m going to drive my Subie into the ground. Run it to 330k miles. Who needs a new car?
Rachel Maddow just did a story saying:
https://youtu.be/MJbZCbBLqkk?si=zErfmqMBssvfSOdF
Trump asked Jarrad Kushner to find him an economic advisor who agreed with Trump's economic ideas, back in his first administration.
And Jarrad did this by going on Amazon and reading the titles of books until he found the book title "Death By China." Navarro recommended endless tariffs, and he based his books on an expert named "Ron Vera." And once Navarro joined the administration there were tweets from Vera lauding him and saying something like "ride tariffs to greatness!"
Of course it turns out that Ron Vera is an anagram of Navarro. He never existed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/16/us/politics/peter-navarro-ron-vara.html
Navarro is also the nut who came to meetings and sold Trump on hydroxychloroquine and, later, bleach as the cures for Covid.
By the way, the last 3 cars I've owned had engines made in Korea, and two of those were Chevys. Does Cadillac really make engines in America? I'm sure the PARTS aren't made in America!
Oh good lord, re: Ron Vara. Just read the 2019 NYT article, thanks for the link. I’m surprised the NYT hasn’t repeated that nugget of information in their reporting of Trump 2.0. A charlatan hires a charlatan. This is a horror movie we’re living in. I wonder who’s going to make it out alive?
There's so much wrong with this Musk/Navarro exchange. First, is Musk trying to break free of Trump? He surely knows that Trump loves his tariffs and is never going to give them up. Navarro is an idiot but probably tracks Trump better than Elon. Alternatively, perhaps Musk thinks this is a roundabout way to lecture Trump on tariffs. Good luck with that! #ETTD! Musk is wrong about Harvard PhDs. What he should have said is that having a PhD even from a top school doesn't protect one from idiocy.
The real question is how do TFG and Musk break up? Musk now owns all US secrets and could probably lock the Air Force itself out of the nuclear football. Okay, that's not a realistic threat, but Elon also owns all TFG's personal data, too, because he has to file tax returns.
Also, all it takes is the troll/bot Twitter army to plant and amplify a few rumors to take down, oh, I dunno, maybe DJTJ, and Eric. Musk has their data as well. That would be a shot across the orange bow, for sure.
Perhaps Elon Musk's tweet would have been clearer if he had multiplied both sides of the inequality by brains and just written ego>>brains. I was amused that Tim not quite understanding what Elon had said claimed Navarro's IQ was sub-50.
And the follow-up question to Navarro is if it’s a great idea to have one of the governments biggest contractors in the hen house. Navarro basically spells out one of the problems but is too arrogant and blind to see it.
This will be fun! Was getting bored with all the predictability.
Omg, I spit my drink out.
Biggest Loser: Elon. He recognizes his time is up and is finally considering Tesla's position. But he's damned either way. He's not going to get the brand protection from this administration with this rift and the Left will not stop destroying him.
2nd Loser: Harvard. My God, can any white guy get in there?
Elon is learning an old lesson: there is no honor among thieves
Have you seen the maddow clip discussing Navarro's go-to expert, Ron Varo? Perhaps you'll notice that that name is an anagram of Navarro. Very perceptive, as Ron Varo doesn't exist. (Fixed typo)
Thanks for your tireless work!!
I hate when I agree with Elon🤣. Bessent, Ludnick, Wright and Burgum are obviously beta males and are a disgrace to a free market economy, they should resign. Let Maria Bartiromo be Secretary of the Treasury.
Every country that Peter Navarro mentioned isn't in Europe. So his argument is baseless. I mean I can't believe I'm defending Elon Musk, but...
Pretty sure 'Insurrection Barbie' is Pam Bondi.
How the hell am I supposed to know who to root for ?
Exactly like Ovechkin breaking Gretzky’s goal record. Gretzky is a Trump Buddy so 🇨🇦no longer Gretzky fans broken but Ovechkin is a Putin fan. Ideally someone will break Ovechkin record.
im thinking Elon is the most level headed guy around the MAGA verse
Thanks Tim
Ronald Lauder painted a Gilded Age Financial windfall opportunity for Don the Con. TARIFFS!! Don grew up around 5th Ave/CPW mansions built by Rockefeller, Mellons, Carnegies, Vanderbilt, Astor, Brady, etc etc… that had impact…. Tariff’s some for the country - some for the Trump Bribes fee.
This is why Grifter is soooo determined. Count on it. Nothing like CASH.
We appreciate you watching this stuff and breaking it down so we don’t have to. I’ve hit my quota of stupid this week.
He’s also looking for regulation free trade. Which the EU won’t allow.