Transcript
Dave Smith (0:00)
Foreign welcome to a special episode of Part of the Problem Special day and time. We moved this episode over because I wasn't able to get one out on Wednesday. And yeah, you know, every now and then things really work out where there's a, is a good time to, to have a new episode. Okay, so what can we say here? It was, we had a good run, guys. We had a good run. Of course, I want to, to talk today about the rather bizarre and extreme fallout between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk. I, you know, you know, I've got a lot to say about this, and so I'm, I'm struggling a little bit on like what order to even go in or how to even approach breaking all of this down. So bear with me here. I'm just going to kind of, we're all going to figure this out together and we'll see what order we end up doing it in. So the first thing I would say is, and this is something we've talked about quite a bit on the show, is that the Trump coalition for Donald Trump 2.0, for, for Donald Trump 47 has been a very interesting coalition. It's made up largely of former Democrats, including Donald Trump himself, who's a former Democrat. But obviously, going into this election cycle, Donald Trump put together a coalition that was very different from the one he had in 2016, very different from the one he tried to put together in 2020, people like Elon Musk and Bobby Kennedy and Tulsi Gabbard. And you know, there was just a huge group of people who supported Donald Trump this time who did not support him in 2016 or 2020. And that also includes a group of like tech billionaires who were not his allies historically, but did support him in this presidential campaign. And you know, I've been saying this for, for about a year now, just about, I think it's, it was just about a year ago that Donald Trump got shot and maybe a little less like 10, 10 months ago that Donald Trump got shot and Elon Musk threw a support behind him. So through this whole time, what, you know, one of the things I've been saying, and I'm certainly the far from the only one to make this point, it's a fairly obvious observation was that this coalition had a window, you know, it, there were going to be cracks in it eventually and there still probably will be more cracks. Things are going to change as 2028 gets closer and some people might be competing for positions there. There might be a competition in which direction the kind of broader MAGA movement or the Maha movement is, is going to go. And you look, you've just got, you. You can see the writing on the wall. You've got people like, say, Bobby Kennedy, who really does not have that much fundamentally in common with Donald Trump. And in fact, the health stuff that Bobby Kennedy's all, you know, is his big deal seems to almost be something Donald Trump just kind of picked up. Like, why not? I, I don't really have a coherent health policy, so why not go with the make America healthy again thing and combine forces? But there's no, like, there's no obvious permanent reason for them to be in a coalition together, aside from the fact that he gave Bobby Kennedy the health department. J.D. vance himself was once a never Trumper. There's just a lot of, there's a lot of people who essentially are unified by, or were unified by their opposition to Kamala Harris and Joe Biden and the Democratic agenda. That's a, that in general, in politics, it works very well as a unifying force to be against a regime while that regime is in power. But, but once they're not in power anymore, it's just that that isn't quite strong enough glue to hold a coalition together. So this is kind of like a broader, you know, point with Elon Musk and Donald Trump. More specifically. I certainly thought it was maybe not inevitable, but quite likely that it would end in this way or something similar to this. I didn't, I didn't think it would get quite so fiery quite so fast. But of course, it's, it's important to remember with all of this stuff that there, there were tremendous efforts from the very beginning of Donald Trump's second term to undermine that relationship. And there was, it was a, an attempt by the corporate media and the establishment of, I think, both political parties to kind of drive a wedge between the two of them. All this talk, this ridiculous talk that people were saying, you know, is Elon Musk really the president? All of this stuff was always designed to drive a wedge between Trump and Elon Musk. By the way, you got to say, for all the people who were saying Elon Musk is the real president, this looks pretty bad for them. I'm not holding my breath that we'll get apologies from any of them anytime soon, but it does make that look like pretty ridiculous that you thought. But Elon Musk was the one who really was in charge of the White House, seeing as how he's now not only out at Doge, but is, is Now I, I would imagine an enemy of Donald Trump's. So look, there's a lot going on here that we don't know for sure what's happening. And of course this is fertile ground for speculation. Now, I'm not against that. I think it's reasonable for people to speculate about what might be going on, particularly when there's details like Elon Musk shows up with a black eye to the White House just recently, which is just strange. You know, that's maybe that's nothing he said that. I think he said it was one of his kids gave it to him. And I, you know, I got little kids and there's, you know, you rough house. Sometimes they come sprinting at you and you might catch a head to the head or something. It's possible also just seems a little bit strange. Okay, so there's some stuff like that. I, I will say that again. This is still also in the realm of speculating. There, there certainly is something that happens when you get men who are at this level where, you know, a level where Donald Trump and Elon Musk exist, that like ego comes into play. There's a certain alpha energy that men at that level tend to have. And it's not necessarily like alpha in the sense of like a personality type, because certainly I don't think Elon Musk is like, you know, it's not exactly what you'd think of as like an alpha male, but he's the richest man who's ever existed in the history of the world, and he had a huge role in getting Donald Trump reelected. And just in general with men, when you're playing at that level, I think it's almost impossible for there not to be like a certain level of ego that comes with that. That's not a knock on Elon Musk or a knock on Donald Trump. I think that's just more the way men work. And you, you are, are going to find that level of ego at that level of like apex domination in every tribe throughout human history. That's just, I think, part of, part of who we are as a species. And, you know, so I'm sure there's a lot of that going on. Now, I, I will say, to start, there's a lot of speculation about what Elon Musk's real motivations are. And I'll be the first to, to acknowledge that. I don't know. You know, I don't know. It's. It's hard enough in this world to know the true motivations of people who you know very well it's a challeng Know your own true motivations. Like, the human psychology is complicated. You know, it's like I could, I could sit here and say, you know, before I go on a big show or something like that, like, well, my motivation is just to tell the truth. And I believe that. And certainly that is true to some degree. But then, of course, if you're being honest is my motivation to make money and to get more recognition on myself and all of these things, it's like, oh, yeah, I guess all of that is kind of part of my motivations if I'm being completely honest. Because it's even a challenge to understand your own motivations. It's a challenge to understand your wife's motivations, your best friend's motivations. Now you're talking about people you don't personally know, and the whole world is speculating on their motivations. It's just a very, you know, it's something we don't know. Now, I've seen people put forth the idea that Elon Musk bought Twitter because he wanted to collect the data that Elon Musk was involved in Donald Trump's, in getting Donald Trump elected because he thought it would help further his business interests. You know, that he's closely associated with Peter Thiel and like the Palantir thing, which, by the way, I don't know nearly enough about. I do know that the company was essentially started by the CIA as like a data collection company. And my, my general rule of thumb is if anything was started by the CIA, it ought to be abolished. I'm not saying that's a 100% ironclad law, but it's a rule of thumb anyway. Perhaps some of that is true. Maybe not in general. I think when it comes to these types of things, you could always endlessly speculate about other people's motivations. I, I tend to try to judge people based off what they're doing, based off their actions and their stated motivations, unless they give you reason not to. It just seems to me to be a better way to move through the world than to constantly be wondering what people's secret motivations are, especially if you don't have good evidence to believe them. And so, and, and also, keeping in mind with what I just said, that you could have all of these motivations, like it's not, they're not necessarily in conflict. So I would say that Elon Musk is outrageously successful and outrageously rich. And I don't know if it quite Makes sense to me that his motivations were purely more power and control and money and things like that. I don't know. I have a tough time believing that there wasn't anything to what he was saying. But who knows? The bottom line is essentially this. Here's what happened. And by the way, I'm open to someone being corrected if I'm getting something about the timeline wrong here. That is not the part of this that I'm most married to. But essentially, as we, as we've been talking about for, for a while on the show, Doge failed. Now, I don't blame Elon Musk for that. I think Elon Musk gave it a good go. He gave it the old college try. I think there were lots of reasons why Doge was destined to fail. I talked about this since the idea of Doge was first floated out. And, you know, look, you're, you're going, you're, you know, when Elon Musk could just say things like, we're going to find $2 trillion to cut and the Pentagon isn't off limits and all this, and this sounds really nice. And look, man, you're the boss of companies and you, you're a genius, and you're like, hey, I've figured this out. We're going to use AI we're going to use these young genius guys to go do this. It's like, okay, but what, what you're actually talking about here is attacking the biggest honeypot in the history of the world. You're going after the most entrenched power in the history of the world. And by the way, at the top of this entrenched power is killers, like people who are quite comfortable killing large numbers of people to get more power, get more money. That's a dangerous game, and it's one that's kind of unlikely to be successful. And as we've seen over the last few months, while many of the latest public narratives that the regime uses have been weakened or destroyed or abandoned by many people, that does not mean that, that people, there's no more power. That doesn't mean that they have no other tools at their disposal. And let me tell you, going into Washington, D.C. talking about cutting trillions of dollars, you're going to make some enemies in that town and some pretty powerful enemies. So Doge failed, and it ultimately failed partially because of the swamp and partially because Donald Trump kind of turned his back on it. Donald Trump really wasn't that committed to cutting spending. And this is something we should have known from his first term. And in fact, you know, whatever it was, Doge comes out and, and finds, you know, some money that they've recommended we cut. And then Donald Trump turns around and asked for a trillion dollar defense budget. And just. Which would have been more than the cuts that Doge had proposed, which never even got put into place. Anyway. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Sheath Underwear, longtime sponsor of the Part of the Problem podcast and the best, most comfortable boxer briefs you will ever wear. Of course, Father's Day is coming up in a few weeks. This makes the perfect Father's Day gift. It is. I will tell you, I stand by this product. The most comfortable pair of boxer briefs you will ever put on your body. Go get some@sheathunderwear.com use the promo code DAD30 for Father's Day, and you're going to get 30% off your next order. This is the best deal they've ever done. Best pair of boxer briefs you're ever going to get at their best price. Sheath underwear.com promo code DAD30 for 30% off. All right, let's get back into the show. Okay, so as we know, the, the, there is this, the big, beautiful bill, this awful spending bill that Donald Trump is getting behind, and everyone who's Good in Washington, D.C. which is a small handful of people, have opposed it. You know, so Thomas Massie and Rand Paul and Ron Johnson and whoever else have been against this bill. And then, of course, Donald Trump being Donald Trump, he has to, like, aim all his fire at these guys, the best guys in Washington, the only ones who really stand for draining the swamp and having an America first foreign policy and all this stuff that Donald Trump runs on but doesn't govern on, he starts attacking those guys. Now, I noticed yesterday, we talked about this briefly in the members only episode yesterday, but this is before all the shit really went down. Elon Musk start now after he's, you know, announced that he's leaving Doge, he's out of the White House, has a suspicious black eye, but whatever. That's neither here nor there, I guess. Or maybe it is, but we don't know. So Elon Musk now starts on Twitter, starts backing up Rand Paul and Thomas Massie and talking about how terrible this bill is. Now, here is really where, where things kind of escalate a bit. So I thought, as I'm watching this on Twitter the other day, I thought to myself, well, okay, Elon's going for it here. And this is already Enough to kind of ruin the relationship with Elon Musk and Donald Trump. And this is, you know, Donald Trump, when he is. When he sets his targets on somebody, and that's the bad person. Now, that's the enemy already. You being on the side of the enemy is. That's, I think, in Trump's world, a declaration of war. Now, I think that's unfair, obviously, especially in this situation where Elon Musk is right and Rand Paul is right and Thomas Massey is right, they're correct on the issue. And Elon Musk. And you have to imagine. This is why I kind of preface with the stuff I was saying about having an ego. I don't mean this in a negative way. Elon Musk is not a guy who, I don't think you're going to be able to tell. You got to bite your tongue on an issue you really believe in, that you have made your central issue of what you stand for. That's too. That is not a reasonable ask of Donald Trump. I'm not saying he actually asked that, but I'm saying it's not reasonable for that to allow you to get upset. Now, what I will say, and again, like I said before, I'm open to anyone correcting me on the timeline here, but this is as far, you know, because it's not like you go in one place and it has, like, the whole thing laid out. It's like Elon's firing tweets, Donald Trump's making comments, Elon's firing more tweets. You know, it's like, maybe I'm getting something wrong. But I did think. What I noticed was that, okay, the first major escalation came from Elon Musk. And the escalation that came from Elon Musk was that he went from not only backing Rand Paul and backing Thomas Massie and coming out in opposition to the big, beautiful bill. God. What? Okay, but not only that, but then he had a post where he encouraged people to call their representatives to tell them not to support the bill. Now, look again, I want to be clear on this. This was an escalation by Elon Musk. However, it's fair game. Like, it is a bad bill. He's against it for principled reasons. He's correct to be against it. And he has every right to encourage people to call their congressmen, to call their senators and encourage them to vote against it. There is. There's. There's nothing wrong in him doing that. However, this is politics. And you do have to recognize that once you do that. You are now, you are actively opposing the President's agenda. And you are, you're not some guy who's doing this. You're a guy with, I mean, how many Twitter followers does Elon Musk have? Is it like, it's like over 100 million or something? Right. Let me see here. Hold on one second. I'll look it up. Right now, Elon Musk has 220 million Twitter followers. So you are now broadcasting from the largest platform to oppose the President's legislative agenda. Now, just in politics, that's how you make enemies. Now, again, I'm not knocking Elon Musk for that. He's right to do it. But this is where. This is where this becomes a confrontation. And you, you have to kind of say to yourself, well, on one hand, Elon Musk decided to make himself, you know, in a political enemy of the President. On the other hand, and I would argue here, Elon Musk has done a lot for President Trump. You know, I think this is one of the things that, what comes down to this here is that both, you could kind of see. And again, this is. This is speculation to some degree, but you could see where in both of these guys minds, they could feel like they've done a lot for the other person. However, in reality, if we're being fair here, Elon did a lot more for Donald Trump than Donald Trump did for Elon Musk. I mean, yes, Donald Trump brought Elon Musk into the White House, and yes, he let him run Doge, but again, Doge never had any real power. Most of the things that he wanted to do, Donald Trump didn't do. And then by asking for a trillion dollar defense budget and by throwing his support behind this bill, he essentially undid all of whatever Doge may have done. And so still, it's, it's just, look, it's hard for me to look at what Donald Trump did by giving Elon Musk Doge and go, oh, my God, he did so much for Elon Musk. The truth is, Elon Musk, it took a. An enormous pay cut. He was getting paid nothing by Doge. And I, I'd imagine every minute that Elon Musk is working, he's making millions of dollars. So he's like, sacrificing quite a bit to do the Doge thing. He's also getting Tesla's keyed and all this other shit. Elon Musk put himself in a position to take a lot, a lot of abuse by supporting Donald Trump. Donald. Now, Donald Trump could Sit here and say, you know, I've been impeached, I've been had, the, the legal system weaponized against me. I've been tried, I've been convicted, I've had people, you know, try to kill me. All the things that Donald Trump's been through. Elon didn't do any of that to Donald Trump. Elon came on board after all of that had happened to Donald Trump. And it is hard. Now, I'm not going to quite make the statement that Elon Musk did more for Donald Trump than any human being has ever done for a presidential candidate. But, you know, like a few really brilliant historians could have a very, you know, like it, it might be the case. Now maybe you want to argue that like if you go, you know, the, the Rockefellers helped Woodrow Wilson even more. And in the old system where everything was completely controlled, having like the Morgans or the Rockefellers on board with you or something like that would have been more powerful, but you'd have to go to something like that. And there's certainly, I don't think there's anything in my lifetime that even comes close. I mean, Elon Musk, first of all, I don't think you can overstate how important for Donald Trump it was that Elon Musk bought Twitter. But you know, if you could try to put yourself back in this place. Just a few years ago, Donald Trump had been banned, permanently banned from Twitter. Donald Trump, not only was he banned, but so many of his, his most vocal supporters were banned. The, the entire kind of cultural constraints on speech had reached a peak of sorts. I mean, Donald Trump, after, particularly through the year 2020 with COVID but really when it came to like the Donald Trump's challenging of the 2020 election, January 6, all of these things, if you remember, the media was starting to do this thing where they wouldn't even cover Donald Trump. They used to, straight up, they'd be covering a speech and then cut away and say, we're not going to play the rest of this speech because he's making up ridiculous lies. Like they, they wouldn't even let the American people hear the former president or he was actually currently still the president when they first started doing this. They wouldn't let him hear the president make his case about why the, the last election was fraudulent. Think about how crazy that is. Twitter kicked off the sitting President of the United States of America. This is so wild. I mean, I know this was five years ago or whatever, but it's so wild that this actually happened. Imagine, imagine Living in a world where the sitting commander in chief cannot tweet because Twitter has decided that, like, what he says is too dangerous or something like that. But so this was the situation Donald Trump is in. An outgoing president who is more handcuffed than any president in modern American history. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Quince, a great clothing brand. Quince has always all the things you actually want to wear this spring, like organic cotton silk polos, European linen beach shorts and pants that work from everything to backyard hangs to nice dinners. The best part is that everything is priced 50 to 80% less than what you'd find from similar brands. You'll be looking great and saving tons. I will tell you, personally, I love Quint. It's an excellent clothing brand. I just got a beautiful hoodie from them that I love. I was just wearing it on the show the other day. Definitely go check them out. Elevate your closet with quince. Go to quince.com potp for free shipping on your orders and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N C E.com potp for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com potp all right, let's get back on the show. So Elon Musk buys Twitter after Donald Trump gets shot. Elon Musk throws his support behind Donald Trump. Elon Musk gives Donald Trump 300 million doll or so. He's a huge, huge contributor to his campaign. Not only that, there's just no question that Elon changed. Like, him getting on board with Donald Trump was a huge change in this massive cultural shift. Because, you know, you had. You had Zuckerberg backing down and then getting on board. You had essentially, like, all these different platforms, YouTube and all of this stuff. They all kind of followed suit. Then you had Elon Musk opened up, like, a world of, like, tech billionaires who would now openly be behind Donald Trump in a way that they never would have before. You know, I'm just saying, when you look at it, Elon Musk did a ton to back Donald Trump. And if we're being completely fair here, this is after the assassination attempt against Donald Trump. This is after Elon Musk had seen that, you know, we're playing for keeps here. And he still went all in with Donald Trump. Now, I would suggest that that type of contribution to somebody's campaign. Now, listen, don't, don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that therefore Elon should get to be president or that therefore Elon gets his agenda through. No, the American people did not vote for Elon Musk. The American people voted for Don. Donald Trump. Now, probably I think it's reasonable to say Donald Trump wouldn't have won without Elon Musk's support, or certainly his support helped a lot. But I'm not suggesting that therefore Elon is entitled to anything other than he's entitled to say he doesn't like a bill and you should call your congressmen and senators to not support it. Like he has a right to do that. And I think after doing that much for somebody, it is not reasonable to feel like that crossed some line that they're not allowed to cross. That's all I'm saying. Okay, so that being said, okay, so, so then in the, in the escalations of all these things, so then at this point now, Elon Musk has backed Rand Paul, backed Thomas Massie, opposed the bill and encouraged people to call their congressmen to put pressure on them not to vote for the thing. Now this is where Donald Trump really escalates the situation. And I gotta say, I think this was a very poor decision by Donald Trump. I think that there is, again, in this world, there are allies that are powerful enough that you should not burn that bridge over something that, you know, you may not agree with but was their right to do is not unreasonable. It's. I, I'm sorry, I'm just never going to get to a place where you'd say that somebody who gave you, who bought a platform for you, I mean, he didn't buy the platform for you, but in effect, buying this platform opened it up for you to have a voice again and your biggest supporters to have a voice again, gave your campaign $300 million, has, has put his reputation behind you and risked his company, is his reputation, perhaps his life to support you. That guy, that guy should be shown the respect of like, okay, we agree to disagree on this one. Let's go to the tape because this is what Donald Trump said and I really think this is where things headed south. Do we have that? Thanks, Natalie.