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‘The basis of eugenics’: Elon Musk and the menacing return of the R-word
by Evelyn Reynolds 3 March 2025, 13:00
I got into my one and only physical fight when I was in seventh grade. It was right after school let out, the other boy was called Nathan, and moments before I launched at him, he knocked the books out of my brother Casey’s hands and called him “retarded”. More than 20 years after that scuffle, I still wonder how often Casey, a now 35-year-old autistic man, is called that word. Given the current political landscape, I’m certain he’s going to start hearing it more often.The R-word is in a new era of prominence in rightwing, chronically online circles – especially on 4chan and X. A favorite of those who currently hold power or stand to gain power under Donald Trump’s second administration, the slur is being used with gleeful relish to belittle and mock ideological enemies.In the past year, Elon Musk has used the R-word at least 16 times on X. He thought Ben Stiller was one for endorsing Kamala Harris; so was the Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz for comparing Tesla to Enron.Elsewhere, brash, right-leaning personalities such as the political commentator Dave Rubin, and Dasha Nekrasova and Anna Khachiyan of the podcast Red Scare, frequently throw the word around with provocative irreverence, attempting to discredit those who don’t align with their politics.Trump reportedly used the word to denigrate both Joe Biden and Harris in private conversations during the 2024 election. When Trump won in November, a “top banker” told Financial Times: “I feel liberated. We can say ‘retard’ and ‘pussy’ without the fear of getting cancelled.” (Interestingly, this banker chose to remain anonymous.)I’ve spent my life on the lookout for this word: how it shrinks people with intellectual disabilities down to a caricature, incorrectly depicting them as incapable of coherence and, ironically enough, social decorum; how it communicates a lack of respect for their humanity. It’s just something that you do when you have an autistic brother. And while the slur was certainly more prevalent when we were teenagers in the early 2000s, this resurgence is still menacing, not least because I can’t fight Musk after class.Right now, the right wants a word that stings, and the R-word does the trick, according to Dr Kelly Wright, an experimental sociolinguist, lexicographer and assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin. In the 2000s, disability advocates waged a moderately successful social campaign to stop kids (and everyone else) from using the slur. Now, its proponents cling to it because of its taboo nature, lauding it as a victory over censorship by the woke mob (like the insults “libtard”, “fucktard” and “gaytard” before it).“Conservatives are empowered … People struggle with holding back what they actually want to say, so there’s something psychologically ‘freeing’ for this group of empowered people to be able to be like: ‘I’m going to punch up my words with something edgy and get attention,’” said Wright, whose work focuses on self-censorship, or the ways we limit ourselves when speaking.“[It is used] in a ‘please see me’ way.”They are getting seen. A recent study from Montclair State University found that Musk’s use of of the slur in early January correlated with a 200% spike in usage of the word by users on X, the platform Musk owns, in the days following.“There’s this whole generation of people who did use it in a more neutral way in the beginning, especially when we were younger,” Wright said. Now, “it’s like, ‘Oh, this other person who I identify with is using it.’ It gives people permission.” Cut to inauguration weekend, when the tech right and Maga youth descended on DC, throwing around the slur as they celebrated their win over the left. Just this week, Musk responded to a critical post on X: “I’m tempted to call this guy a retard, but I won’t because I’ve used that word too many times.” (Ironically enough, X’s own AI chatbot outlined the slur’s offensive history in the replies.)But the R-word isn’t just a rallying cry. It’s an attack on someone’s personhood.We’ve seen this before. Starting in 1910, the term “mental retardation” was used to diagnose those who were “feeble-minded”, failed to develop on the average timeline, and were deemed by some doctors as “incurable”. Around the same time, the belief that undesirable traits – specifically intellectual disabilities, and eventually race and sexual orientation – could be “bred out” of existence was growing in popularity in the US. This eugenics movement was endorsed by political powerhouses and substantial research on eugenics was bankrolled by the likes of the Carnegie Institution and the Rockefeller Foundation.View image in fullscreenAdvocates of eugenics suggested people with disabilities should be institutionalized and separated by gender, so as to discourage “bad breeding”. It was the popularity of the eugenics movement that served as inspiration for the Nazi party: in 1939, the Third Reich began systematically murdering Germans with disabilities in institutions; an estimated quarter of a million people were killed during this “euthanasia” program, at least 10,000 of them children. Stateside, tens of thousands of people with intellectual disabilities were forcibly sterilized from the turn of the century and into the 1970s. People with disabilities didn’t secure sweeping civil rights, including equal access to employment and housing assistance, until the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 – just one generation removed from present day.“[The use of the R-word] is absolutely historically linked to the understanding that ‘retarded’ children are defective children and that we can eliminate defective children for the good of society,” said Topher Endress, a reverend in Missouri who holds a doctorate in philosophy from Vanderbilt University. His focus is disability theology, including the words used to describe people with intellectual disabilities, and he spends much of his days working with this community. “I mean, that’s the basis of eugenics. I’m a little fearful of seeing this word pop back up because it does have such a strong eugenic connotation,” he continued.Today, approximately 7.4 million people in the US have an intellectual or developmental disability. Vocational services have connected them to employment in service, healthcare and food industries. Madeline Stuart, a model with Down syndrome and autism, walked her first runway in 2015 after falling in love with modeling at a fashion show. The chef Adam Libby, who has Down syndrome, treats his 2.6 million TikTok followers to cooking demos and recipes (pizza sauce and dough, all from scratch). Stories like these are everywhere, chipping away at the stigma around intellectual disabilities. But this is a highly vulnerable community, and their recent successes have hinged in part on government support systems put in place to foster growth and independence. This progress is still so fragile.Musk, a man who launched a Nazi salute at Trump’s inauguration festivities, has aligned himself dangerously closely with eugenicist thinking. Musk, who has said he is on the autism spectrum himself, also wields oligarchic power as he attempts to eliminate “unnecessary spending” in the federal government with Trump’s blessing. Early on, Musk set his sights on Medicaid, which was created in part to ensure people with disabilities had access to affordable healthcare. Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers are looking to slash Medicaid spending to support Trump’s tax cuts. When the Trump administration temporarily froze federal funds in its second week, programs like vocational rehabilitation and disability housing assistance were put into jeopardy, according to the American Association of People with Disabilities, which condemned the move. One source told ProPublica that even one more spending freeze could keep their organization from delivering hot meals to people with disabilities.Trump, who has used eugenicist language to describe undocumented immigrants, implied that February’s deadly plane and helicopter crash was linked to the FAA’s hiring of people with “severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems and other mental and physical conditions”, dragging disability into his anti-DEI crusade.And Trump’s pick to run the Department of Education, Linda McMahon, could be disastrous for children with disabilities, reports the New Yorker, as the department helps fund special education programs across the US. It’s also likely that McMahon would advocate for school choice, redirecting tax dollars to private schools that are not legally required to accept students with intellectual disabilities.According to Endress, people who use the slur “understand at a deep level that there is a bottom rung to our social hierarchy, and that is intellectually disabled people. And so because the word ‘retarded’ still links to them and pretty much to them alone, it becomes the worst insult you could give somebody,” Endress says.If the government were to withhold care from our most vulnerable, leaving them unhoused and uneducated and without healthcare or employment, it would make it easier to point a finger at them and say: “What a burden.”“It [suggests] you are the worst of the worst … You don’t deserve to be part of our social fabric,” Endress said.Casey works at a Wendy’s in our hometown – he’s been employee of the month twice (I have to brag about him when I can). We talk on the phone weekly, and he recently told me that, unfortunately, someone called him a “retard” late last year. One of his coworkers jumped over the counter and laid into the guy. Again, one person in the right place at the right time.In that way, I see the rise of the R-word as a gauge for how far society is willing to let people like Musk and Trump go. And while I believe that in most reasonable environments, it’s still very much taboo to say the word aloud, the fact that it’s being said by some of the most powerful people in the world, with no recourse, says enough. More
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‘I’m selling the Nazi mobile’: Tesla owners offload cars after Musk’s fascist-style salutes
by Evelyn Reynolds 2 March 2025, 12:00
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View image in fullscreenWhen Elon Musk unveiled Tesla’s “truck of the future” in 2019, Filipos could barely contain his excitement. He quickly paid $100 to get on the waitlist. Filipos described himself as a “true Tesla fanboy”, and the Cybertruck would be the third vehicle he’d buy from the company.“When the Cybertruck came out, I watched the live event that night, and my wife was sitting there going, ‘No. No. No,’” said Filipos, who lives in a suburb of Philadelphia and whose last name is being withheld for fear of online retribution. Despite his wife’s disapproval, Filipos loved the bulky trapezoidal truck. “I was truly geeking out on it,” he said.Now things have changed. Filipos bought a Ford F-150 Lightning instead of the Cybertruck. And even though his other car, a Model 3 Performance Tesla, had just 30,000 miles on it, he traded it in for an Acura in February. Frustration had been building for Filipos over the last few months, but the turning point was when Musk did back-to-back Nazi-style salutes during an inauguration day celebration for Donald Trump in January.“I didn’t want to be saddled with a vehicle that was associated with something so awful,” Filipos said. “When you own a vehicle like that, you are advertising for that company.”Filipos is part of a growing movement of Tesla enthusiasts who are now turning their backs on the company – selling their cars, dropping their leases and getting rid of Tesla stock. Many say that, while they still love the cars, they can’t square the CEO’s politics and behavior with their own. Musk is synonymous with Tesla; his vehicles, the Cybertruck in particular, are his calling cards.The Guardian spoke with three people who offloaded their Teslas in protest of Musk over the last month alone. All said they did so explicitly because of Musk’s salutes during the inauguration. Another person who spoke with the Guardian on the condition of anonymity started the process of dropping her lease on the day of the salute with an email to Tesla reading: “Your boss is a Nazi.”Across Reddit, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, dozens of posts are popping up with people saying they are also getting rid of their Teslas. Some have added photos of themselves flipping the bird as a goodbye gesture to their cars. 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When you own a vehicle like that, you are advertising for that company
One celebrity Tesla owner has even taken part. Singer Sheryl Crow posted a video of herself to Instagram waving goodbye to her vehicle as it was hauled off in a flatbed truck on Valentine’s Day. Her caption read: “There comes a time when you have to decide who you are willing to align with. So long Tesla.” She said she was donating the sale proceeds to National Public Radio because it was under threat by “President Musk”.Musk, the world’s richest man, has wholeheartedly thrown his weight behind Trump. He donated $288m to his presidential campaign and uses X, the social media platform he owns, as a megaphone to tout the new administration’s policies and goad anyone who disagrees. This support has earned Musk a coveted position heading the unofficial “department of government efficiency” (Doge), which is tasked with cutting federal spending. His government overhaul has been so sweeping that Democrats such as Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer have called Doge an “unelected shadow government”.Musk and Tesla did not return requests for comment. The CEO responded to backlash over his fascist-style salute with jokes and memes on X.‘No Swastikars’: protesters across the US lambast MuskThe Tesla selloffs come amid nationwide US protests against Musk and his actions. Protesters have gathered outside Tesla showrooms in cities including New York, Seattle and Kansas City, and in towns as small as West Chester, Pennsylvania.In San Francisco, roughly 100 people descended on the city’s Tesla showroom in late February chanting: “Hey hey, ho ho, Elon Musk has got to go”. They unfurled a banner reading “Musk must GO” showing a boot kicking a swastika and carried signs saying “No Swastikars”, an apparent new nickname for Teslas. Passing cars drove by honking enthusiastically.Several anti-Musk websites and social media accounts have also popped up. Tesla Takedown encourages people to protest. One of the organizers is actor and activist Alex Winter, the titular Bill from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. A TikTok account called Cybertruck hunters has also surfaced. It’s filled with posts of people projecting anti-Musk videos onto the massive rear bumpers of Cybertrucks.The Instagram account Everyone Hates Elon is distributing stickers that say, “Don’t buy a Swasticar” and sending out posters for people to plaster around their cities that say “Goes from 0 to 1939 in 3 seconds” with a picture of Musk doing the Nazi salute. Tesla showrooms and individual cars are also being vandalized, according to Wired. One Cybertruck in downtown Manhattan was spraypainted with a swastika last week.This anti-Musk protest movement started to percolate over the summer, when Tesla owners began to put bumper stickers on their own cars that said: “I bought this before Elon went crazy”.Rebekkah, who lives in the Tampa area and is only going by her first name for fear of retribution, said she started looking for one of those bumper stickers to put on her Model 3 after Musk endorsed Trump for president in July.“It was just the shame of driving it around and getting out of it,” she said. “The potential optics that we were supporting him.”Rebekkah bought the car in 2020 because she was passionate about the climate crisis and wanted an electric vehicle, she said. She was initially thrilled with her Tesla, but like Filipos, things started to sour as she watched the Musk-Trump alliance grow. Then came Musk’s two-time inauguration day salute.“I was dead set on selling the car after that,” Rebekkah said, adding that her grandmother was a Holocaust survivor. Rebekkah said she called her mom and told her: “I’m selling the Nazi mobile.”The car was gone within days. “We haven’t looked back since,” Rebekkah said. She put down a deposit for a Rivian.Tesla owners sell at a loss: ‘I happily paid $4,000 to get rid of that car’Ron likewise decided to sell his Tesla after Musk’s salute, even though he knew he would lose money. He bought his first Tesla in 2020, a gray Model 3 Performance, and loved it from the minute he test drove it. In 2023, he upgraded to a Model Y. Ron said he hadn’t really followed Musk at the time, but last summer, he began to pay attention to the billionaire’s increasing involvement in politics.“I started looking back at some of the things he said, and I started to feel guilty that I didn’t do more research beforehand,” said Ron, who lives in Los Angeles and is only going by his first name for fear of retribution. “I always just assumed he was a quirky, nerdy, you know, space-first exploration technology type of guy.”As time progressed and Musk became more outspoken, Ron said he grew increasingly embarrassed to drive the Tesla. “I felt like I was driving a billboard that supported his endeavors and his thoughts and ideologies,” he said.In the beginning of February, Ron swapped out his Model Y, which only had 15,000 miles, for another electric vehicle, a Hyundai Ioniq. He still owed thousands of dollars on his Tesla. 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I felt like I was driving a billboard that supported his endeavors and his thoughts and ideologies
“I guess you could say I happily paid $4,000 to get rid of that car,” Ron said. “That’s how much I disagree with his politics.”Tesla sales have plummeted over the last year. In California, the biggest US market for electric vehicles, they fell by 12%. And registrations for new Tesla vehicles fell by 11.6%, according to the California New Car Dealers Association, even as overall registrations for electric vehicles have grown in the state. Nationwide, the slump in Tesla sales marked the company’s first decline in how many cars it delivered to buyers annually. It’s unclear if the decrease can be fully attributed to Musk, since the electric vehicle market has seen increased competition over the past couple of years, especially out of China.In Europe, Tesla has taken an even more severe hit. In January, sales fell by 12% in Britain, 38% in Norway and 63% in France, according to the New York Times. Sales in Germany fell by 59% that month, coinciding with Musk’s outspoken support for the far-right alternative party AfD and with scolding Germans for focusing too much on “past guilt” for the Holocaust.Tesla stock flies, then plummetsIn spite of its poor sales and weak earnings reports, Tesla’s stock price soared in 2024 – likely boosted by Musk’s proximity to Trump and a regulatory outlook that’s friendlier than ever to the car maker. The day after the election alone, shares jumped 14%. But, as Musk has become increasingly involved in the day-to-day of the new administration, that has changed, too. Since mid-December, Tesla’s stock has plunged 25%.On social media, people are encouraging others to sell their Tesla stock. Reddit has threads of people posting their share sales with headlines like, “Never normalize Nazis” and “This is my way of fighting Nazis and I’m damn proud.” Since inauguration day, there’s been a 21% selloff of Tesla stock, according to ABC. Musk has lost more than $100bn from his personal fortune and the company’s valuation has now dipped below $1tn.Filipos is one of the people who sold his stock. He first bought 40 shares in 2020, not long after he joined the Cybertruck waitlist. Over the years, that number grew to 717 shares. He planned to keep holding, but when Musk endorsed Trump last summer, Filipos changed his mind.“I had to come to a reckoning,” he said. Filipos didn’t see Trump as standing up for the environment, and Musk’s endorsement “was against what I perceived as the original vision for Tesla”.In late July, Filipos sold all of his shares – even though he knew he probably would have made more money if he held. Now, he and his wife have gotten rid of their Model 3 too and are free of all things Tesla.“We feel lighter not being saddled with a symbol of hate,” he said. More
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Elon Musk’s quest for power has a new target: Wisconsin’s supreme court
by Evelyn Reynolds 2 March 2025, 10:00
He is slashing US government agencies, building electric vehicles and space rockets and running one of the world’s biggest social media platforms. But Elon Musk has still found time – and money – to meddle in a relatively obscure election in a state of 6 million people.The close ally of Donald Trump is spending millions of dollars in an effort to tip the scales in favor of a Republican candidate running for a seat on the highest court in Wisconsin. Critics regard it as a statement of intent by Musk to expand his political power in America by playing an insidious role in key races across the country.“It’s one of the most significant threats to our democracy in the current moment,” said Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. “You’ve got money and power in one person who’s been given access to the upper echelon of the federal government. He’s fused the power of the Oval Office with his almost unlimited amount of money to support Republicans, both at the state level and national level.”Musk has grabbed attention during Trump’s first month in office with his so-called “department of government efficiency”, or Doge, a team of mostly young male software engineers who have laid waste to the federal government and dismissed thousands of workers in ways that have been challenged in the courts.Musk’s startling ascent was on vivid display when he spoke to reporters alongside Trump in the Oval Office and wielded a chainsaw before a cheering crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Earlier this week, he held court at a cabinet meeting, where the president dared any of his officials to express discontent about Musk’s scorched-earth approach. No one did.But away from the TV cameras, Musk is also at work in Wisconsin, which holds an election for its state supreme court on 1 April. The vote will decide whether liberals maintain a 4-3 majority with major cases dealing with abortion, union rights, election law and congressional redistricting already under consideration by the court or expected to be argued before it soon.Such campaigns are now non-partisan in name only. Republicans are lining up behind Brad Schimel while Democrats are backing Susan Crawford. It could be the most significant US election since November, an early litmus test after Trump won every swing state, including Wisconsin.Crawford has received $3m from the state Democratic party, including $1m that the party received from the liberal philanthropist George Soros and $500,000 from the Illinois governor, JB Pritzker.Musk’s America political action committee is spending $1m to back Schimel, a former state attorney general who attended Trump’s inauguration last month. Another group Musk has funded, Building America’s Future, is spending $1.6m on TV ads attacking Crawford, a Dane county circuit judge. It reportedly had to withdraw one social media ad after it featured a photo of a different woman named Susan Crawford.Crawford told a recent meeting of the Wisconsin Counties Association: “Elon Musk is trying to buy a seat on our supreme court so Brad Schimel can rubber-stamp his extreme agenda.”Schimel denies that money would affect his independence on the court. He told reporters: “I don’t have any agenda that I’m working alongside anyone. I’m grateful for our supporters, but they’re getting nothing except me following the law.”But Musk has both business and political incentives to back him. Tesla, the electric car company owned by Musk, has a lawsuit pending in Wisconsin challenging the state’s decision blocking it from opening dealerships. The case could ultimately be decided by the Wisconsin supreme court and Schimel has not committed to stepping aside.Furthermore, in the event of a disputed election in the crucial swing state in 2028, the supreme court could be decisive. Musk tweeted last month: “Very important to vote Republican for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to prevent voting fraud!” And as Doge lays siege to the administrative state, the courts have provided the strongest pushback. Tilting them to the right could neutralise that opposition and work to Musk’s advantage.Ben Wikler, chair of the Democratic party of Wisconsin, said: “He is not the first far-right billionaire to pour money into a Wisconsin supreme court election but he is spending money hand over fist at the same time the whole world is wondering whether courts will ever be a check on the Musk/ Trump/GOP attack on the rule of law.“While he’s firing veterans with disabilities in Wisconsin from the veterans administration, he’s also working to buy a supreme court majority that could eliminate any possibility of accountability to state law.”Musk exploded onto the political stage last year, spending nearly $300m supporting Republican campaigns, according to Federal Election Commission filings. While most of his efforts went toward electing Trump, a super political action committee he founded also spent millions of dollars on House of Representatives races to keep Republicans in control.Musk also dabbled in state politics in Texas, where he had moved several of his businesses. In 2024, he gave $1m to a tort reform group supporting Republicans in state legislative races and $2m to a political action committee that campaigned to elect Republican judges in the state.Wikler believes there is more to come. “There’s been a question about whether Musk would follow Trump in only caring about elections when Trump is on the ballot. The answer is now clearly no. Musk wants control over every level of government at the same time as he takes control of people’s personal tax information and treasury payments that keep childcare centres open in Wisconsin,” he said.He added: “Musk is trying to execute a uniquely and profoundly grotesque perversion of justice by buying the court system while defying the constitution in order to rip off the poor and the middle class to enrich himself.”Not even Republicans are safe from the world’s richest man, whose fortune is estimated at $426bn. Musk threatened to fund primary election challengers to members of Congress who failed to back Trump’s cabinet picks and legislative priorities.Charlie Sykes, a conservative political commentator based in Wisconsin, said: “Elon Musk’s money is the bullets in the chamber aimed at wavering Republicans: ‘You don’t support us, Elon Musk will come into your state or your district [and] he will spend more money than God has to defeat you in a primary.’”Musk’s control of the X social media platform gives him profound influence over online discourse and the flow of information. His own feed, with 219 million followers, has become like a running commentary on the Trump administration.He has even sought to flex his muscles abroad, backing Germany’s far-right AfD party, calling for Nigel Farage to quit as leader of Britain’s Reform UK party and pushing false claims that white people are persecuted in South Africa.But while he currently appears omnipotent – a Time magazine cover depicted him sitting behind the Resolute desk like a president – there are signs of growing public discontent.In a Washington Post-Ipsos opinion poll, 34% of respondents said they approved of how Musk was handling his job, compared with 49% disapproving and 14% not sure. Protests against the tech oligarch have been held across the country and congressional Republicans have faced the backlash at raucous town halls.Sykes questions how long Musk’s political honeymoon can last: “He’s signalling that, at least for now, he’s going to be Trump’s enforcer and he’s going to be the force multiplier for the right wing. But as he does so, he’s also establishing himself as an independent force. The dilemma for Trump is that Musk is useful until he’s not but he’s not easy to get rid of.“In the end, there can only be one. The dilemma right now is it’s important to keep the focus on what Elon Musk is doing but not forget that the only reason he’s been empowered to do it is because of Donald Trump.” More
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Trump administration briefing: pro-Ukraine rallies across US as Trump officials fume at Zelenskyy
by Evelyn Reynolds 2 March 2025, 01:29
The disastrous meeting between US president Donald Trump and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday has catalysed a series of pro-Ukraine protests across the US.Protesters took to the streets in New York, Los Angeles and Boston, with hundreds gathering to express support for Ukraine and Zelenskyy.Hundreds of protesters also gathered in Waitsfield, Vermont, on Saturday to oppose vice-president JD Vance’s visit to the state for a ski trip with his family.The demonstration had been planned earlier in the week by the Mad River Valley chapter of Indivisible, a grassroots group, but additional protesters said they were motivated to join after watching Vance and Trump’s combative Oval Office meeting.Pro-Ukraine rallies in multiple US cities after chaotic White House meetingVideos posted on social networks showed hundreds of demonstrators gathered in New York’s Times Square, many carrying the blue-and-yellow flag of Ukraine on their backs. In Los Angeles county, a pro-Ukraine crowd rallied in front of a SpaceX’s facility, and protesters in Boston held an “emergency rally” for “fair peace” for Ukraine at Boston Common.Read the full storyTrump officials fume at Zelenskyy for disregarding advice before meetingInside the Trump White House, officials blamed Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, for the meltdown in the Oval Office on Friday, and expressed frustration that he pushed for security guarantees even though the US had made clear they wanted to negotiate that later, according to people familiar with the matter.Read the full storyFiring of watchdog agency chief illegal and would give ‘license to bully officials’, court rulesA US judge on Saturday declared Trump’s firing of the head of a federal watchdog agency illegal in an early test of the scope of presidential power likely to be decided at the US supreme court.Read the full storyKennedy Jr backtracks and says US measles outbreak is now a ‘top priority’Two days after initially downplaying the outbreak as “not unusual”, the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, on Friday said he recognized the serious impact of the ongoing measles epidemic in Texas – in which a child died recently – and that the government was providing resources, including protective vaccines.Read the full storyAndrew Cuomo announces run for mayor of New York CityFormer New York state governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Saturday he would run for New York City mayor, an attempt to come back from a sexual harassment scandal that forced him to resign more than three years earlier.Read the full storyEmail shows Musk ally is moving to close office behind free tax-filing program at IRSAn Elon Musk ally installed in the US government said in a late-night email going into Saturday that the office behind a popular free online tax-filing option would be shuttered – and its employees would be let go.Read the full storyMedicaid recipients fear ‘buzzsaw cuts’ for Trump’s agendaRepublicans are considering a rollback of the federal social safety net, particularly Medicaid, which has nearly 80 million enrollees in all 50 states. The budget plan proposes an $880bn reduction in funding for the insurance over the next decade, an amount experts warn would hollow out the program.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:
Civil rights attorneys sued the Trump administration on Saturday to prevent it from transferring 10 undocumented immigrants detained in the US to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
A FedEx cargo airplane caught on fire after striking a bird shortly after the plane’s departure from Newark, New Jersey, on Saturday morning, according to officials.
A decision by regulators to extend the life of two of the oldest reactors in the US decades beyond their original permits has elevated the risk of a nuclear disaster in heavily populated south Florida, environmental groups are warning.
Singer Angie Stone, known for her hit Wish I Didn’t Miss You, has died in a car crash at the age of 63. More
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Email shows that Musk ally is moving to close office behind free tax filing program at IRS
by Evelyn Reynolds 1 March 2025, 15:25
An Elon Musk ally installed in the US government said in a late night email going into Saturday that the office behind a popular free online tax filing option would be shuttered – and its employees would be let go.The 18F office within the General Services Administration (GSA) created the IRS Direct File program that allows for free online tax filings. It has been a frequent target of Musk, and one of the billionaire businessman’s close associates who holds a key position in the GSA informed staffers that the agency would close 18F in an email to staffers that arrived around 1am on Saturday morning.According to the message, the firings were in support of the executive order Donald Trump issued after beginning his second US presidency, which has empowered Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) taskforce to cut federal workers.“The 18F Office has been identified as part of this phase of the GSA’s Reduction in Force (RIF) as non-critical,” the email states. “This decision was made with explicit direction from the top levels of leadership within both the Administration and GSA. There are no other TTS programs impacted at this time, however we anticipate more change in the future.”The email came from Thomas Shedd, a 28-year-old former Tesla software engineer who took over in late January as head of the GSA’s Technology Transformation Services. It’s not immediately clear what may happen to 18F programs such as the direct filing system or the total number of workers that the GSA is firing from the office, which has about 90 employees.Musk claimed in early February that he had “deleted” 18F while responding on X to a rightwing influencer who accused the agency of being “far left”. Musk didn’t elaborate on his statement, which caused confusion as the 18F website and services like its direct file program remained online.In addition to working on the free tax return program, the 18F office worked across government agencies to update technology and launch new software products. It worked on more than 31 projects across different government agencies in 2024, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa). It has been part of the GSA since 2014.Shortly after taking over TTS, Shedd told staffers that he planned to run the agency like a tech startup and that he wanted to implement artificial intelligence programs throughout the government. The GSA is one of the major agencies that Musk and his allies have taken over as part of their wider and potentially illegal dismantling of the federal government, which has cut services such as humanitarian aid and disease prevention while attempting to reshape agencies along ideological grounds. More
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It might be a small consolation, but Elon Musk is getting poorer by the day | John Naughton
by Evelyn Reynolds 1 March 2025, 15:00
Extreme wealth has always played a role in democracies. Money has always talked, especially in the US. Years ago, Lawrence Lessig, the great legal scholar, calculated that most of the campaign funding for members of Congress and aspiring politicians came from one-twentieth of the richest 1% of Americans – about 150,000 people. This is about the same number as those who are named “Lester” and explains the title of his book: The USA Is Lesterland.But that particular corruption of American politics only involved billionaires like the Koch brothers playing organ-grinders to congressional monkeys. The obscene wealth generated by the tech industry has catapulted a new organ-grinder into the heart of the machine. He was able to pay his way in with a spare quarter of a billion dollars that he happened to have lying around. And now the wretched citizens of the US find themselves living in Muskland.At the time he made the decision to ensure that Trump got elected, Musk was estimated to be worth $244bn. That didn’t mean, of course, that he had that amount of hard cash in his possession, just that he owned millions of shares in a number of companies that he had founded which were judged by investors to be valuable liquid assets that could be sold if necessary.Hold on to that thought: it may come in useful.How did Musk become so rich? It started, really, with PayPal, of which he was one of the founders, and from the sale of which he emerged with enough money ($175.8m) to become an early investor in Tesla and chair of its board. In 2002, he founded the rocket company SpaceX and, later, Starlink – which has launched thousands of low-orbit satellites for providing internet connectivity to remote regions. In 2015, he founded a solar power company, Tesla Energy, and Neuralink, a company aiming to integrate the human brain with AI the following year. In 2017, he founded The Boring Company, which did what it said on the tin, namely digging tunnels.And then in October 2022 he lost his mind, bought Twitter, and renamed it X. This last decision was a commercial disaster, but it gave him a huge megaphone which he deployed to support Trump’s campaign. It also got him a place right at the heart of the US government, with a mandate to dig deep into the machine, find out how it worked and – allegedly – to detect fraud and eliminate waste.As his goons were rooting through the innards of the federal payment system, one wonders if they came across some of the disbursements that the government has made to his companies. Payments from Nasa to SpaceX, for example, for launching stuff into orbit – or eventually bringing home astronauts from the International Space Station. Or subsidies and tax refunds to Tesla, whose early survival was ensured by government loans.There are some rich ironies to be found here. Could the Elon Musk who ranted that the US should “get rid of all subsidies” be the same Elon Musk who decided to build SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink and Starlink in the US rather than in his native South Africa? For, as the tech pundit Scott Galloway puts it: “There would be no SpaceX without Nasa, its largest customer. Tesla built its Fremont factory with a $465m DoE loan in 2010, and its first 200,000 cars benefited from tax credit subsidies of up to $7,500. For years the company was able to report profits thanks to the ‘sale’ of emissions credits to other carmakers. All told, the company has accepted an estimated $2.5bn in government support.” And all of those subsidies went through the federal payments machine.At the moment, Musk looks unstoppable because he hasn’t yet triggered Trump’s narcissistic envy, and his wealth isolates from the consequences of his actions. But nothing lasts for ever and there are some encouraging straws in the wind. One is that Tesla is no longer looking as good as it once did. Sales of its cars are down 45% in Europe – at a time when EV sales there are generally up by 37%. And Muskwagens are losing ground to increasingly more attractive EVs from Kia and the Chinese challenger BYD.And then there’s what Tesla owners are ruefully calling “the Musk factor”. Owners of the company’s hideous Cybertruck, for example are finding red swastikas spray-painted on them in car parks. One sometimes sees Tesla saloons with embarrassed notices on their side windows saying “I bought this before we knew Elon was crazy”. There’s even a poster showing Musk standing in a Tesla giving a Nazi salute with the caption “0 to 1939 in 3 Seconds”. And Tesla stock is now on a downward track, which means that Musk’s net worth is not what it was. Who knows, maybe one day Trump will be richer than him after he’s finished looting Ukraine.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhat I’ve been readingTalking to ourselves
A fine essay by Renée DiResta on what’s happened to democracies’ public sphere.Herd mentality
A really sombre Substack post by Charles Arthur.How Europe was left in the cold
Nicholas Colin is back online. This post shows why he was missed. More
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Federal workers might get email requiring response after Trump and Musk praise efforts to investigate workforce – live
by Evelyn Reynolds 28 February 2025, 20:22
This report is from the Associated Press.Federal employees could get another email on Saturday requiring them to explain their recent accomplishments, a renewed attempt by Donald Trump and Elon Musk to demand answers from the government workforce.The plan, first reported by the Washington Post (paywall), was disclosed to AP by a person with knowledge of the situation who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.The first email, which was distributed a week ago, asked employees “what did you do last week?” and prompted them to list five tasks that they completed. Musk, who empowered by Trump is aiming to downsize agencies and eliminate thousands of federal jobs, said anyone who didn’t respond would be fired. Many agencies, meanwhile, told their workforces not to respond or issued conflicting guidance.The second email will be delivered in a different way, according to the person with knowledge of the situation, potentially making it easier to discipline employees for noncompliance.Instead of being sent by the Office of Personnel Management, which functions as a human resources agency for the federal government but doesn’t have the power to hire or fire, the email will come from individual agencies that have direct oversight of career officials.It’s unclear how national security agencies will handle the second email. After the first one, they directed employees not to write back because much of the agencies’ work is sensitive or classified. Less than half of federal workers responded, according to the White House.The Office of Personnel Management ultimately told agency leaders shortly before the Monday deadline for responses that the request was optional, although it left the door open for similar demands going forward.On Wednesday, at Trump’s first cabinet meeting of his second term, Musk argued that his request was a “pulse check” to ensure that those working for the government have “a pulse and two neurons”.Both Musk and Trump have claimed that some workers are either dead or fictional, and the president has publicly backed Musk’s approach.Trump said that people who didn’t respond to the first email “ are on the bubble”, adding that he wasn’t “thrilled” about them not responding.“Now, maybe they don’t exist,” he claimed without providing evidence. “Maybe we’re paying people that don’t exist.”The White House communications team just sent reporters a lengthy round up of statements of support from Republican lawmakers and cabinet members for what many Ukrainians see as the Oval office ambush of Zelesnkyy by Donald Trump and JD Vance.Perhaps concerned that the press corps is not closely following Republicans on X, the social-media platform that has tilted right since Elon Musk’s takeover, or Fox, the email includes quotes praising Trump and Vance from 45 Republican lawmakers and eight cabinet secretaries.Among them was this, from Senator Lindsey Graham: “I’ve never been more proud of President Trump for showing the American people — and the world — you don’t trifle with this man … He wanted to get a ceasefire. He wants to end the war and Zelenskyy felt like he needed to bait Trump in the Oval Office”.Graham’s comment, made to Fox, is curious because he told reporters earlier that he had spoken with Zelenskyy this morning, before the meeting, and warned him, “don’t take the bait”. That seems to suggest that he had cautioned Zelenskyy against being baited into an argument. Then, after Zelenskyy did respond to insults from Vance and Trump by arguing back, Graham accused him of “baiting” Trump.Graham then said that he was proud of both Trump and Vance.“What I saw in the Oval Office was disrespectful, and I don’t know if we can ever do business with Zelenskyy again”, Graham said. “He either needs to resign and send somebody over that we can do business with or he needs to change”.Here is video of Graham’s earlier comments, to a group of non-partisan reporters outside the White House after the meeting.David Smith, the Guardian’s Washington DC bureau chief, in his ‘US politics sketch’, has more on the historic and histrionic Trump-Zelenskyy Oval office showdown.For American readers unfamiliar with the term, political sketch writing is a British newspaper genre, described as “a form of verbal cartooning” akin to the kind of satirical truth-telling we more commonly get from late-night comedians.Here is how David’s latest sketch begins, but please do read it all:
This is going to be great television,” Donald Trump remarked at the end. Sure. And the captain of the Titanic probably assured his passengers that this would make a great movie some day.
Trump has just presided over one of the greatest diplomatic disasters in modern history. Tempers flared, voices were raised and protocol was shredded in the once hallowed Oval Office. As Trump got into a shouting match Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a horrified Europe watched the post-second world war order crumble before its eyes.
Never before has a US president bullied and berated an adversary, never mind an ally, in such a public way. Of course reality TV star and wrestling fan turned US president had it all play out on television for the benefit of his populist support base – and a certain bare-chested chum in the Kremlin.
Zelenskyy had come to the White House to sign a deal for US involvement in Ukraine’s mineral industry to pave the way for an end to three-year war in Russia. There was a hint of trouble to come when he arrived at the West Wing, wearing black – not a suit – and Trump greeted him with a handshake and sarcasm: “Wow, look, you’re all dressed up!”
Donald Trump cut talks with Volodymyr Zelenskyy short following heated exchanges in the Oval Office during which the US president and his vice-president JD Vance falsely accused Zelenskyy of being “disrespectful” and not thanking the US for its support. European leaders promptly rallied behind the Ukrainian president in a show of unity after the joint press conference was canceled and he left the White House early. No mineral deal was signed. More on that here.
Federal employees could get another email on Saturday requiring them to explain their recent accomplishments, a renewed attempt by Trump and Elon Musk to demand answers from the government workforce. The second email will come from individual agencies that have direct oversight of career officials, rather than being sent by the office of personnel management as was the first email. It’s unclear how national security agencies will handle the second email.
Trump was sued by the Democratic party over a recent executive order it says violates federal election law by giving him too much power over the independent federal election commission. The lawsuit objects to an 18 February order giving the White House more control over the election commission, the National Labor Relations Board, the Securities and Exchange Commission and other traditionally independent agencies that normally operate day-to-day at arm’s length from the president. Critics have called the order an unprecedented power grab. The Democrats said it would effectively substitute Trump’s views on election-related disputes for those of the bipartisan election commission, and let him dictate outcomes.
The US government’s “severe” cuts to USAid will make the world less healthy, less safe and less prosperous, the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, said. Imploring the US to reverse its decision to cut funding for life-saving initiatives across the world, Guterres said America’s retreat from its humanitarian role and influence will run counter to its influence globally and its own interests. He said: “America’s generosity and compassion have not only saved lives, built peace and improved the state of the world; they have contributed to the stability and prosperity that Americans depend on.” In South Africa alone, the US shutdown of HIV/AIDs funding could lead to 500,000 deaths over the next ten years, modelling suggests.
The Social Security Administration is preparing to lay off at least 7,000 people from its workforce of 60,000, AP reported. The workforce reduction could be as high as 50%.
Trump wants to also radically shrink the state department – leaving it with fewer diplomats, a smaller number of embassies and a narrower remit that critics argue could hand China wins across the world, Politico reported.
Meanwhile around 800 employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Assocation (Noaa), the US’s preeminent climate research agency, have been tapped for termination, according to ABC7 NewYork.
Five former US defense secretaries have demanded congressional hearings on Trump’s firings of several military commanders, including the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, saying it was done for “purely partisan reasons” and weakens national security.
This report is from Reuters.Donald Trump was sued on Friday by the Democratic Party over a recent executive order it says violates federal election law by giving him too much power over the independent federal election commission.The lawsuit filed in the Washington DC federal court by three national Democratic committees is the party’s first against Trump during his second term.It comes as Democrats, outnumbered in Congress, seek an effective means to counteract far-reaching changes from Trump’s first six weeks in office, including many steps to lessen government oversight and eliminate internal dissent.Several dozen lawsuits have challenged other actions taken by Trump since his inauguration last month.Friday’s lawsuit objects to a February 18 order giving the White House more control over the election commission, the National Labor Relations Board, the Securities and Exchange Commission and other traditionally independent agencies that normally operate day-to-day at arm’s length from the president.Other defendants include attorney general Pam Bondi, the election commission and three commissioners.The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for the election commission said that agency does not discuss litigation.Trump’s order, “Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies,” makes his and Bondi’s opinions on questions of law “controlling” for all federal employees performing their official duties, and bans executive branch employees from advancing contrary views.Critics have called the order an unprecedented power grab.The Democrats said it would effectively substitute Trump’s views on election-related disputes for those of the bipartisan election commission, and let him dictate outcomes.According to the complaint, letting Trump micromanage the commission would undermine that purpose, by allowing a “single partisan political figure” to rig campaign rules and resolve disputes against his opponents.The plaintiffs include the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.They said Trump’s order is already causing irreparable harm, by making it harder for the Senate committee to defend against a complaint by the 2024 reelection campaign of Republican US Senator Ted Cruz of Texas over his opponent’s advertisements.The lawsuit seeks a declaration that a federal law shielding the election commission from “presidential coercion and control” is constitutional, and to block Trump’s February 18 order.US defence secretary Pete Hegseth has confirmed a report by CBS that the Trump administration has moved to ease restrictions on American commanders carrying out raids and ordering airstrikes outside battlefields.CBS reported that Hegseth changed the rules of engagement for the US army during a meeting with members of the US Africa Command (Africom) last month. In a post on social media above a hyperlink to the story, Hegseth wrote: “Correct.”The change gives greater latitude to American commanders to choose their targets and move against them.Biden initially tightened restrictions around airstrikes outside traditional conflict zone in 2022 after Trump loosened them. Under Biden’s guidance the president would have had to approve the drone strike himself, whereas Trump has moved decision making power further down the chain of command. Trump ordered his first airstrikes against IS-Somalia targets earlier this month.The state department this week terminated a USAid initiative that has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to help restore Ukraine’s energy grid from attacks by the Russian military, two USAid officials working on the agency’s Ukraine mission have told NBC News.According to NBC’s report, power outages have been applied overnight in some regions of Ukraine due to the attacks on energy facilities. Ukraine’s systems have been systematically targeted by Russia since its full-scale invasion three years ago.“It significantly undercuts this administration’s abilities to negotiate on the ceasefire, and it’d signal to Russia that we don’t care about Ukraine or our past investments,” one USAid official involved in the Ukraine mission said.The official continued:
Russia is fighting a two-pronged war in Ukraine: A military one but also an economic one. They’re trying to crush the economy, but USAid has played a central role in helping it be resilient, [including] shoring up the energy grid … We’ve provided vast amount of support to the Ukrainian government to avoid a macro economic crisis.
In addition to ending the Ukraine Energy Security Project, USAid is also dramatically downsizing its presence in Ukraine.Before the Trump administration’s latest moves, 64 American government employees and contractors were serving on the ground in Ukraine for the agency. Just eight of those personnel are slated to remain on the ground in the war-torn country after the Trump administration placed its remaining global workforce on administrative leave and ordered those workers not deemed “critical” to return to the US.The two officials warned that USAid withdrawing from Ukraine would leave its energy grid vulnerable in the heart of the winter as it endures assaults from further Russian missiles.You can read NBC’s report here.From Reuters:House Democrats demanded answers on Friday from health and human services secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr on the exact number of employees fired from the health agencies he oversees and warned the dismissals could undermine public health.Hundreds of workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, and the National Institutes of Health have been forced out as the Trump administration overhauls government agencies.In three letters sent on Wednesday, one each for the CDC, the FDA, and the NIH, energy and commerce committee senior Democrat Frank Pallone Jr, and the top Democrat on the health subcommittee, Diana DeGette, pressed Kennedy to disclose not only how many workers were terminated at each agency, but also how many more layoffs are expected.They also asked how many of the currently vacant positions would be left unfilled and how many of those fired were responsible for responding to outbreaks of diseases like bird flu, measles, and mpox.Kennedy had pledged “radical transparency” and accountability including an “unprecedented level of collaboration” with Congress during his confirmation hearings.HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether Kennedy intended to provide the information.Pallone and DeGette also asked whether HHS conducted any assessment of how these firings would impact the country’s ability to respond to public health threats. They wrote:
We are deeply concerned these widespread terminations took place without any review of these employees’ work history or without any analysis of the impacts these job losses would have on the Department’s ability to protect the health and well-being of the American people.
The letters come just a day after a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration’s directives, which led to the mass firings, were illegal and ordered them to be rescinded.Pallone and DeGette warned that failing to restore these positions could put Americans at greater risk from foodborne illnesses, infectious disease outbreaks, and delays in medical research.
The impending impact of these terminations, including exposing Americans to greater death and illness due to outbreaks of foodborne illness and infectious disease, will fall on your shoulders.
The S&P 500 dipped slightly in choppy trading on Friday after talks between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy ended in disaster.Trump and Zelenskyy traded verbal blows at the White House before the world’s media, adding fresh uncertainty for investors already worried about sticky US inflation and a tepid economy.The S&P 500 was last down 0.07% at 5,857.40 points. The Nasdaq declined 0.22% to 18,504.02 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.01% at 43,236.40 points.Earlier, a Commerce Department report showed inflation rose in line with expectations in the previous month. However, consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of the economy, dropped 0.2% after an upwardly revised 0.8% increase in December.Not that there was any ambiguity, but the White House has confirmed that Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not sign a minerals deal on Friday.Trump has not ruled out an agreement, but not until Ukraine is ready to have a constructive conversation, a senior US official told Reuters.It was up to the Ukrainians if the leaders’ canceled joint news conference could be rescheduled while Zelenskyy remained in the US, the official said.Following furiously heated talks earlier, during which Donald Trump shouted at the Ukrainian president, the joint press conference has been canceled, the White House said.A White House source confirmed to Reuters that Volodymyr Zelenskyy is leaving the White House early.Trump posted on Truth Social that Zelenskyy was “not ready for peace”. He claimed Zelenskyy had “disrespected” the US (as did his vice-president, JD Vance, who also accused Zelenskyy during the meeting of apparently not thanking the US enough for its support thus far).Trump added:
He can come back when he’s ready for peace.
For all the details head to over Europe live blog:This report is from the Associated Press.Federal employees could get another email on Saturday requiring them to explain their recent accomplishments, a renewed attempt by Donald Trump and Elon Musk to demand answers from the government workforce.The plan, first reported by the Washington Post (paywall), was disclosed to AP by a person with knowledge of the situation who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.The first email, which was distributed a week ago, asked employees “what did you do last week?” and prompted them to list five tasks that they completed. Musk, who empowered by Trump is aiming to downsize agencies and eliminate thousands of federal jobs, said anyone who didn’t respond would be fired. Many agencies, meanwhile, told their workforces not to respond or issued conflicting guidance.The second email will be delivered in a different way, according to the person with knowledge of the situation, potentially making it easier to discipline employees for noncompliance.Instead of being sent by the Office of Personnel Management, which functions as a human resources agency for the federal government but doesn’t have the power to hire or fire, the email will come from individual agencies that have direct oversight of career officials.It’s unclear how national security agencies will handle the second email. After the first one, they directed employees not to write back because much of the agencies’ work is sensitive or classified. Less than half of federal workers responded, according to the White House.The Office of Personnel Management ultimately told agency leaders shortly before the Monday deadline for responses that the request was optional, although it left the door open for similar demands going forward.On Wednesday, at Trump’s first cabinet meeting of his second term, Musk argued that his request was a “pulse check” to ensure that those working for the government have “a pulse and two neurons”.Both Musk and Trump have claimed that some workers are either dead or fictional, and the president has publicly backed Musk’s approach.Trump said that people who didn’t respond to the first email “ are on the bubble”, adding that he wasn’t “thrilled” about them not responding.“Now, maybe they don’t exist,” he claimed without providing evidence. “Maybe we’re paying people that don’t exist.”Florida first lady Casey DeSantis doesn’t rule out running for governor alongside her husband.At an event at the Florida International University Academic Health Center on Friday, after reporters asked if she could confirm if she was considering a run, DeSantis said: “Well, I would say one thing. To quote the late, great Yogi Berra, ‘when you come to a fork in the road, take.’”Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, said of his wife that people have been approaching him “for years, begging to get her in the fray”. More
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Stephen Colbert on Trump’s second term: ‘The last five weeks have been shock and awful’
by Evelyn Reynolds 28 February 2025, 14:19
Late-night hosts took aim at Donald Trump’s disastrous start to his second term as president and looked at the rising cost of food.Stephen ColbertOn The Late Show, Stephen Colbert spoke about his expectations versus his reality of Trump’s comeback, saying that the president has done “every terrible thing I could imagine” but that “I just never imagined he’d do all of them at once.”He said: “The last five weeks have been shock and awful.” Things have got so bad, he added, that even those within the Maga-verse have been getting “buyers’ remorse”, with reports of unhappy Trump voters.Colbert said it was “kinda hard to feel a lot of sympathy” for them, though. “They ordered the turd soup then said: ‘Waiter, there’s turds in my soup’ and then they came back four years later and asked: ‘Do you still have that turd soup?’” he joked.While Trump had promised that prices would go down on day one, his supporters “still think things are too expensive”.The last few weeks have seen “Elon slice through the federal government like a drunk raccoon with a samurai sword”.Colbert moved on to the soaring price of eggs, which may still go up even further by 41%. “This year’s Easter egg hunt is going to be The Purge,” he said.Stores in New York have been selling loose eggs for those who can’t afford a full pack and customs agents have stopped at least 90 people from smuggling them into the country.Colbert said that the head of the smuggling operation is “Pablo Eggs-cobar”.Jimmy KimmelOn Jimmy Kimmel Live! the host also spoke about how bad things have quickly become under Trump, joking that he was “tired of all the winning”.He said that “no one seems to know what the hell is going on” with Elon’s ongoing “chainsaw massacre of the federal workforce”.He spoke about an email sent to federal workers asking them to share five things they accomplished last week or face job loss while also talking about Republican senators demanding a meeting with the White House chief of staff to complain about cuts.The Department of Veterans Affairs has seen 1,400 jobs cut, which is a “tricky situation for Trump” as “we know he doesn’t think much of veterans but he loves affairs”.He said that Elon had been “just about as efficient as a Cybertruck in 2in of snow”.This week has seen the far-right Republican Lauren Boebert tweet that she didn’t realise how much “distain” she had for many of these departments. “Maybe let’s not get rid of that Department of Education just yet,” Kimmel said.The Federal Aviation Administration also cancelled its major contract with Verizon to instead sign with Starlink, a company owned by Elon Musk. “Nothing shady about that at all,” he said.Giving Musk government contracts is “like putting Pac-Man in charge of fruits”.The Trump administration also claimed it would release the full list of Jeffrey Epstein’s clients and flight logs this week but instead just released “binders full of information everyone already had”, which led Kimmel to say: “Everything these people do is screwed up.”He remarked that the craziest thing is that Trump was “good friends” with Epstein, something his followers have chosen to ignore. More

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