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Let It Burn!
Elon Musk can easily use Donald Trump's greatest advantage against him
Trump isn't fooling anyone by saying Elon Musk's "not going to be president"
Trump says Elon Musk's "not going to be president." Sure, Jan
While the president-elect babbles about Panama, Republicans celebrate the Tesla CEO as "our prime minister"
www.salon.com
The more Donald Trump denies he's being controlled by billionaire Elon Musk, who purchased the president-elect with over $250 million in campaign spending this year, the less anyone believes him. Last week's spending battle was complex in the details, but not in the main takeaway: The Tesla CEO is leading the aging and tired Trump by the nose. Trump's sole ask of congressional Republicans going into budget negotiations was to end the debt ceiling, at least for a couple of years, to spare him the headache of negotiating it while in office. Then Musk started flipping out on Twitter about all manner of line items, seemingly spun up by random social media users named after feline waste products. Both Trump and the GOP meekly followed suit, nearly bringing government to a halt while scrambling to cut a bunch of stuff to appease Musk, who didn't even understand most of the arguments he was making.
In the end, both Musk and Trump failed to kill the bill. Musk did slightly better, getting some of his specific funding proposals, but he failed at the big-picture goal of decimating the budget. Trump, however, failed miserably, losing most GOP votes for his one goal of shutting down the debt ceiling. Most importantly, the process thoroughly exposed Musk's hold over Trump. Democrats started the "President Musk" meme, and, predictably, Trump's narcissism has led to defensiveness. First, Trump's spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt put out a statement insisting, "President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. Full stop."
It wasn't a full stop, because Trump himself stepped into the fray Sunday at a Turning Points USA event, during an especially sleepy speech. "No, he’s not going to be president, that I can tell you," Trump told the crowd. “And I’m safe. You know why he can’t be? He wasn’t born in this country.”
The generous interpretation of this comment is that Trump is attacking a strawman, as no one thinks Musk is literally going to be president. They are accusing Musk of being the true power behind the throne. A less generous interpretation is that Trump, age 78, got confused and forgot that he doesn't have to keep campaigning. Either way, lots of folks on social media recalled the famous line from "Game of Thrones": "Any man who must say 'I am the king' is no true king at all."