Elon Musk (9:56)
Okay, so Elon was watching this press conference happen in the Oval in real time. And at this point, Elon signed into chat. So he tweeted out at 12:19pm Whatever. Keep the EV solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil and gas subsidies are touched. Very unfair. But ditch the mountain of disgusting pork in the bill. In the entire history of civilization, there's never been legislation that is both big and beautiful. Everyone knows this. Either you get a big and ugly bill or a slim and beautiful bill. Slim and beautiful is the way. And then Elon really went off. He said, without me, Trump would have lost the election. Dems would control the House, and the Republicans would be 5,000, 149 in the Senate. That was a response to President Trump saying in the press conference that he didn't need Elon to win Pennsylvania. And again, you can see this argument either way. Certainly, President Trump won Pennsylvania pretty solidly there's a case to be made that he would have won Pennsylvania without Elon Musk. But was Elon's imprimatur involved in Trump's victory? No question. Elon was very important to the 2024 race. And then Elon tweeted, such ingratitude. About an hour later, he tweeted, is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle? Okay, the idea being that he's left the Republican Party now. He had left the Democratic Party. Do we need a new party now? I know this question comes up a lot, actually. I'm asked this question a lot. And the answer is, no, we don't actually need another party. Because the reality is that just because you're dissatisfied with vanilla and you're dissatisfied with chocolate doesn't mean everybody's going to like strawberry. Everybody has these ideas about what a third party will amount to, but there are many third parties in American public life. That 80% is just an 80% that is dissatisfied with both of the parties, not an 80% that is desperate for a third kind of mashup party. In any case, President Trump then responded, quote, the easiest way to save money in our budget billions and billions of dollars, is to terminate Elon's government subsidies and contracts. I was always surprised Biden didn't do it. So Trump responds on Truth Social, his own competing social media service, by saying that he is going to remove subsidies from, say, SpaceX, for example, which, by the way, is kind of a bad idea because SpaceX actually happens to be one of the only efficient parts of the American federal spending plan. And then Trump, just a few minutes later, put out a statement. Elon was wearing thin. I asked him to leave. I took away his EV mandate that forced everyone to buy electric cars that nobody else wanted that he knew for months I was going to do. And he just went crazy. So there is Trump accusing Musk of. Of essentially being corrupt because Musk was there just for the EV mandate. And then Trump decided he didn't like him and that he was tired of him, and he threw him out. Ok? And then somebody tweeted Musk, this would both end the International Space Station and simultaneously provide no way to safely deorbit it. And Elon tweeted back, this just gets better and better. Crying, laughing emojis, go ahead, make my day. And then he finally drops the biggest bomb of the exchange. 2:49pm Quote, Time to drop the really big bomb. Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, Donald J. Trump. Okay, now, the reality is, is Donald Trump in any really nefarious way in the Epstein files? Highly doubtful. Democrats had a look at the Epstein files. They, of course, were in power during the entirety of the last four years. Do we really believe that if they had access to information that Donald Trump was stupping minors on Epstein island, that never would have leaked into the public? We got his IRS records. I really, really doubt that. With that said, Elon, of course, had access to the Epstein files via Doge. And so you have to take it with a little bit of seriousness. Although, again, I take with a gigantic grain of salt. However, it is Elon going really, really low there. And meanwhile, President Trump is going low by claiming that Elon is corrupt and was only doing all of this so he could secure his EV mandate. And when that got taken away, he went crazy. Trump, a few minutes later, tried to ramp it down a little bit. He said, I don't mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago. This is one of the greatest bills ever presented to Congress. It's a record cut in expenses, $1.6 trillion and the biggest tax cut ever given. If this bill doesn't pass, there will be a 68 tax increase and things far worse than that. I didn't create this mess. I'm just here to fix it. This puts our country on a path to greatness. Make America great again. Now, by the way, this is the response Trump probably should have used the entire time. When we get into who's to blame for all this, the answer is everyone. As we'll get to in a moment, everyone is to blame for all of this. However, this is the attitude that Trump should be taking and should have taken the entire time, which is, ok, Elon's over in the corner ranting about the big, beautiful bill. That's his prerogative. But we like the big, beautiful bill. The Republicans in Congress are going to pass the big, beautiful bill. So if it doesn't pass, we have an economic downturn, end of story, and move on with your life. I mean, that's exactly what Speaker Johnson's been doing. That's what President Trump put out on Truth Social yesterday. Well, at the same exact time that Trump was doing that on Truth Social media, on the competing social service X. Again, this is just from a comedic perspective, very high comedy. From a country perspective. I think all of this is going to blow over. I actually do. But Elon then tweeted out in response to another tweet from a person named Ian Miles Chong. That tweet said, president versus Elon. Who wins? My money's on Elon. Trump should be impeached and JD Vance should replace him. And Musk tweeted back, yes. Hey. So that obviously creates splits inside the Trump administration. Again, I mentioned before, there's sort of this tech bro, blue collar alliance that has happened inside the Trump administration and in the Trump movement. J.D. vance sort of has one foot in each camp. J.D. vance, of course, spent an awful lot of time in Silicon Valley. He has many allies in these sort of Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, Elon Musk category. David Sacks. Right. All those people are very fond of J.D. vance. And J.D. vance, the vice President of the United States also, of course, has a foot in the blue collar group because he is from white Appalachia and he has made a big deal, properly so over his rise from impoverished circumstances in his youth. And so if of any figure who sort of straddles that divide, it's J.D. vance is a very bad thing for J.D. vance that Elon is saying that he wants to oust Trump in favor of J.D. vance. And J.D. vance last night came out with a tweet saying that his loyalty is entirely to President Trump, which of course it would have to be. He's the Vice President of the United States. What's he going to say that his loyalty is to Elon Musk? I mean, there's no other choice for him. Coming up, we'll go through all of President Trump's polling data, what's happening in the polls. We'll go through that with John Bickley of Morning Wire in a moment. First, every family has precious moments. First steps. 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So no matter what format holds your memories, they can bring it back to life. And I've been using Legacy Box for years. I use it for myself, for my parents, for my in laws. With over 1 million families already trusting Legacy Box to preserve their most cherished moments, you can feel confident your memories are in expert hands. Head on over to legacybox.com Shapiro and get 50% off today. That's legacybox.com Shapiro also, let's face it, trying to get in shape for summer is a giant pain in the butt. Between finding time for the gym, tracking every gram of protein and carbs, and sticking to a diet, it feels like an uphill battle. And that's where Lean comes in. It's a doctor formulated weight loss supplement backed by real research, not just marketing hype. What makes Lean different is how it works with your body's natural processes. It helps convert fat stored into energy throughout the day through something called lipolysis. Basically the same fat burning process that happens when you're fasting or working out, but it's happening while you're just going about your day. Plus, it helps keep your blood sugar stable. And that's a huge thing because blood sugar spikes completely derail your diet, leave you craving junk food. It's simple, it's effective, it actually delivers real results. Whether you're just starting your weight loss journey or you're looking to break through a plateau, lean is exactly what you need to finally see the progress that you have been working toward. One of our very own Daily Wire account executives, Butch, started taking Lean. He's already dropped seven pounds in two weeks. He's been so impressed with how effective Lean has been in such a short period of time. You will be too. I'm getting you started with 20% off when you enter Ben20@takelean.com that's code Ben20@takelean.com Meanwhile, Elon tweeted out the Trump tariffs will cause a recession in the second half of this year. Okay, so all of this is is nuclear. All this melts down, sort of the combined movement. Now, will there be a detente? I think it's likely there will be a detente. In fact, Elon had made some signs of that. Even late last night, somebody with like a hundred followers tweeted at him, you probably shouldn't kill Dragon X, he had said in response to Trump saying he'll remove the subsidies, that he was going to stop producing Dragon X, which is of course the space vehicle that is used to go to and from the International Space Station. Well, if the United States were to stop using SpaceX, stop, quote unquote, subsidizing SpaceX, one of the most efficient parts of the government, what would happen? I asked our sponsors at perplexity what actually SpaceX does for NASA and what would happen to America's space program if SpaceX were going to stop providing services. And what I found out from Perplexity, SpaceX's Dragon capsule is currently the only US spacecraft capable of transporting astronauts to and from the International Space Station. SpaceX conducts regular cargo resupply missions to the ISS. SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets handle two thirds of all NASA launches, including science payloads, satellites and interplanetary missions. SpaceX is developing the Starship vehicle, which NASA has selected as the lunar lander for its Artemis program, which is about returning astronauts to to the moon. And if SpaceX stopped providing services, I mean, first of all, nobody could get to the iss. Second of all, all the other stuff would become way more expensive. Alternatives such as the United Launch alliance and Blue Origin are either more expensive or not yet capable of matching SpaceX's launch cadence and reliability. Instead, NASA might actually have to contract with like the Russian Soyuz rockets. So yeah, it would be a problem if this relationship broke up, at least on the material side. You had investors like Bill Ackman saying that both sides should go weapons down. And Politico reported this morning signs of a truce are emerging in the increasingly bitter clash between two of the world's most powerful men. President Trump projected an air of nonchalance in an interview Thursday with Politico. Separately, White House aides, after working to persuade the president to temper his public criticism of Musk to avoid escalation, scheduled a call on Friday with the billionaire CEO of Tesla to broker appease. Trump told Politico in a brief telephone call. When asked about the public breakup with Elon, he said it's okay. It's going very well. Never done better. The numbers are through roof the, the highest polls I've ever had and I have to go. And we'll discuss with John Bickley, the host of Morning Wire and editor in chief of Daily Wire. We will discuss with John in just a few moments what those numbers look like. And Trump isn't wrong about that. His poll numbers actually look quite solid at this very moment. However, Jonathan Karl then reported this morning, quote, in a phone conversation, Donald Trump told me Elon Musk is, quote, the man who has lost his mind. Trump did not, however, seem angry or even concerned about the feud. As for reports, there is going to be a Trump Musk call scheduled for today. Trump told me he is not particularly interested in talking to Musk, although he says Musk wants to talk to him. So we'll have to see how this entire thing plays out. Do I think this is a long lasting debate? I don't. Do I think that this is a debate that is going to wreck the Republican Party? I do not. But it is worth analyzing the causes of this particular debate. So the causes, first of all, the political. So again, as I've said for several weeks at this point, the political debate between Elon and Trump is very simple. Elon is on the side of idealism and Trump is on the side of pragmatism. Elon is saying we need to cut. The national debt's a major crisis. It's going to sink the country. He's correct about that. Trump is saying, that may be true, but I do not actually have the political support to do the thing you want me to do. And Elon came into government really thinking that he could run it like a business. Elon came into government thinking that he could do the Steve Jobs thing where he could go to an elevator. The elevator would open, a government employee would be on the elevator. He would ask that person what they did, and if they couldn't answer properly, he could just fire them. And it turns out the government is a gigantic bureaucracy, particularly in the executive branch. There are regulations that apply, there are union rules, there are judges who oversee a lot of these sorts of things. There are pieces of legislation that have to be complied with. It is just not that easy to. To redo government. It isn't. It's not like a business. You can't just come in and clean it out top to bottom. It's one of the great misnomers of American politics that you can do that. You can treat government as though it's a tech company. It doesn't work that way. And Elon, I think, ran up headlong against that. That is also true when it comes to the big, beautiful bill. So I agree with Elon. We should not only go back to 2019 spending levels, we should totally restructure our entitlement programs. We should. That is a thing that should be done. Is there support in Congress to do that right now? No. Is there support in the Senate to do that right now? No. Is there even support among the broader American populace to do that right now? The answer, unfortunately, is no. And that's a Real problem. So President Trump is coming down on the pragmatic side. And that debate, again, that's nothing new in American politics. Ideologues versus the pragmatists in office. That, that sort of push and pull is quite normal in American politics. It's some. It's a conversation I'm constantly having with members of Congress, senators and, yes, presidents. Now the, the, the conversation about what is pragmatically available and what is the thing you should shoot for because you're never going to get 100% of the pie. Can you get 65 or 70% of the pie? And is that better than zero? Okay, then there is the question of business. So you heard President Trump over there going after Elon, suggesting the reason that Elon is mad is about the EV subsidies. Now, a while back, Elon was openly calling for an end to EV subsidies, right? And by I mean, like July of last year, he said, take away the subsidies, it will only help Tesla. He said, remove subsidies from all industries. So while that's true, it is also true that Tesla's solar power unit put out its post on X late last month, quote, abruptly ending the energy tax credits would threaten America's energy independence about and the reliability of our grid. So, and then Musk put out a tweet at the time saying there's no change to the tax incentives on oil and gas just for EV solar. So why are you benefiting one portion of industry at the expense of another portion of industry? And that latter point is actually a good point. The reality is the government is just a giant grab bag of cash. And so various industries lobby for a piece of that cash. And so you can't be surprised when the EV industry wants cash and the oil and gas industry wants cash. They all want tax subsidies. That's not anything new. This is a great reason why government should be limited, specifically so that you don't have that giant grab bag of cash that everybody is trying to stick their hands into the middle of. But on a business level, obviously what President Trump is doing with regard to the big beautiful bill and EV subsidies and all the rest, that has an impact on Musk's business. That's true. Musk says, fine, do it, but cut everything else also. And then there's the personal, and this is, I think, the straw that actually broke the camels back then, nobody's actually talking about from people who know both men and who know the administration. What I have heard is that the straw that broke the camel's back on all of this was the decision last week by President Trump to withdraw the nomination of tech billionaire Jared Isaacman, a longtime associate of Elon Musk, to lead NASA. So President Trump put out a statement on his social media site, quote, after a thorough review of prior associations, I'm hereby withdrawing the nomination of Jared Isaacman to head NASA. I will soon announce a new nominee who will be mission aligned and put America first in space. Apparently this really angered Musk and he put out a post saying, it is rare to find someone so competent and good hearted. Now, I gotta say I'm on Musk's side of this. I understand that Jared Isaacman is a Democratic donor. Can he run NASA properly? There are a bunch of people in doge world, in tech world, who are new to the Trump administration, who are very, very competent and ought to be in their positions because of competence. And let's face it, if we're, if we're not talking about people who gave Democrats donations until relatively recently. Donald Trump was a Democratic donor until he ran for President of the United States in 2015 as a Republican. He gave money to Democrats repeatedly. That doesn't mean he's a bad Republican. That means he changed his opinion. It means he decided that he was no longer going to give money to those people. So the idea that Jared Isaacman had to sort of be ousted as the NASA head because of his prior associations, I think you have to chalk that one up to the Office of Personnel Management run by Sergio Gore. OPM has become sort of a gigantic loyalty test, personal loyalty test for President Trump. And the problem with that is that Trump doesn't know any of these people who are applying for job. He doesn't know Isaac man from Adam. He doesn't know any of these people. And so that means that there's a lot of wiggle room for people at OPM to basically get in the President's ear and tell him, and certain people are loyal and certain people are not loyal. But the reality is people who are trying to apply for jobs in the Trump administration are generally very loyal to President Trump. Doesn't mean everybody. There are certainly some egregious outliers. But using loyalty as sort of the way of weeding people out of the Trump administration, if that were the case, J.D. vance would not be vice president right now. J.D. vance has said things way harsher than I ever have about President Trump. He's the current Vice president. There are a lot of allies of the president who have said incredibly harsh things about the president. One of the things about President Trump is that he has been able to bring many of those people into the fold, many of them right in the commentariat in his administration. Some of his harshest critics are now people like his secretary of state. Right? Donald Trump has always been able to do that. So this is this bizarre idea that somebody like Isaacman had to be outed for lack of loyalty. It seems to me that loyalty is now being used as a club by some actors inside the administration who are more ideological and somewhat revenge minded in the way that they view the staffing of the administration. And so firing Isaacman is what actually set this thing off, from what I understand, because Musk said, listen, Isaacman knows this arena, he will be a good NASA administrator. And there's no one in America, literally no one who knows the space industry better than the founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk. So I trust Elon on that. If Elon says that Isaacman would have been a good NASA pick, I trust Isaac. I trust Elon on that way more than I trust anybody at OPM who isn't going to know anything about space, about NASA, about what's actually necessary for the job. Apparently, on a personal level, that's what set it off. Okay, if that's the spark, that sort of petty stupidity, that's dumb and really somebody should be called on the carpet for it if that's what set off the spark for that. However, with that said, what came next is perfectly predictable. Elon Musk is not an ego free human. President Trump is not an ego free human. Both of these men are incredibly large personalities. Both of them are incredibly sensitive to slights. They don't like being insulted. And so the idea they were then going to take access to one another and that it was going to be very entertaining for everybody watching, that was sort of the way it was going to go. Now, does this mean a broader crack up in sort of the Republican Party? The answer there is no, because the people who are elected are in fact aligned with President Trump's priorities, as we'll get to in a moment. But there are some people who are going to try to take advantage of this split. There are some people who are going to try to worm their way into the administration by suggesting that because they didn't personally like Musk, and now Musk is attacking Trump, they should be given more power. One of those people, longtime Musk critic Steve Bannon. So Steve Bannon, you'll remember, as the former chief of staff to the president during his first term, then President Trump decided he didn't like Bannon and fired him, calling him Sloppy Steve in one of the more entertaining moments of Trump 1.0. Well, now Musk is calling Bannon, who's been a longtime critic of Musk, because Bannon is much more sort of protectionist and, and nativist in his orientation toward American politics. He, he's calling for Elon Musk to be deported. And presumably he feels this is his way back into the Trump administration, which he desperately would love to be a part of.
