Elon Musk moved fast in Washington, but broke only his reputation
I take it personally because my dad spent 20 years as a police inspector in Washington in charge of Senate security. He would run to the House whenever there was trouble. So if on January 6 Mike Dowd had been preventing insurrectionists from assaulting lawmakers, he would now be, in Trump's eyes, not a hero deserving of a plaque, but a blackguard who was thwarting 'patriots,' as Trump calls the rioters he pardoned.
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It is a disturbing bizarro world.
Trump was rewriting reality again as one of the most flamboyant, destructive bromances in government history petered out in the Oval Office.
It had peaked last winter when Musk posted on social platform X, 'I love @realDonaldTrump as much as a straight man can love another man,' and again when Trump tried to reciprocate by hawking Teslas in the White House driveway.
But Friday, even these grand master salesmen couldn't sell the spin that Elon had 'delivered a colossal change.'
Musk has acknowledged recently that his dream of cutting $US1 trillion ($1.5 trillion) had been a fantasy. He said changing Washington was 'an uphill battle' and complained that Trump's 'big, beautiful' budget bill, which could add over $US3 trillion ($4.6 trillion) in debt, could undercut his DOGE attempts to save money.
As Trump said, Musk got a lot of 'the slings and the arrows.' His approval rating cratered and violence has been directed toward Tesla, a brand once loved by liberals and in China, which is now tarnished.
Musk cut off a reporter who tried to ask about a Times article asserting that he was a habitual user of ketamine and a dabbler in ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms even after Trump had given him enormous control over the government.
That could explain the chain saw-wielding, the jumping up and down onstage, the manic baby-making and crusading for more spreading of sperm by smart people, and the ominous Nazi-style salutes.
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When a reporter asked Musk why he had a black eye, he joked about the viral video of Brigitte Macron shoving her husband's face. Then he explained that while 'horsing around' with his 5-year-old, X, he suggested the child punch him in the face, 'and he did.'
The president and the Tony Stark prototype tried to convey the idea that they would remain tight, even though Musk would no longer be getting into angry altercations with Scott Bessent outside the Oval, sleeping on the floor of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and hanging around Mar-a-Lago.
Musk, wearing a black 'DOGE' cap and black 'Dogefather' T-shirt, looked around the Oval, which Trump has tarted up to look like a Vegas gift shop, and gushed that it 'finally has the majesty that it deserves, thanks to the president.'
Trump gave Musk a golden ceremonial White House key, the kind of thing small-town mayors give out, and proclaimed: 'Elon's really not leaving. He's going to be back and forth, I think.' Trump said that the father of (at least) 14 would never desert DOGE completely because 'It's his baby.'
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ABC News
an hour ago
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Isabella Higgins: WA Senator Dorinda Cox has quit the Greens and joined Labor in a shock defection. She says it's about getting results and not rebellion, but her exit has left the Greens blindsided and fuming. Political reporter Olivia Caisley joins me from Parliament House. Olivia, why did she walk away from the Greens? Olivia Caisley: Well, standing alongside the Prime Minister in Perth yesterday, Senator Dorinda Cox says that her values align more closely with Labor and that she believes she'll be able to deliver better outcomes and results for the people of WA. She was a member of Labor briefly in her youth before she did join the Greens. Her switch though comes after months of internal tensions within her former party, so she failed in her bid to become deputy leader following the party's poor showing at the election, and there were also growing doubts that she'd secure a winnable spot on the next Senate ticket. The Greens say they were blindsided by this, that Senator Cox only called the Greens leader Larissa Waters about an hour before announcing her shocked defection, and there have also been allegations of bullying or a toxic workplace culture in her office, which emerged during the last term of Parliament. Anthony Albanese was asked about this yesterday and he says that he's confident that those issues have been dealt with. Here's, Senator Cox, yesterday announcing her defection from the Greens. Dorinda Cox: Being in the government and alongside the wonderful team that the Prime Minister has, you are able to make change. You are able to do the things that raise up and represent the voice of Western Australia and Canberra, and that's what they elect me to do, so I will continue to do that. Isabella Higgins: And Olivia, what does this mean for the Senate and for both of those parties? Olivia Caisley: Well, when it comes to the composition of the Senate, it's not a major shift. The Greens will still ultimately hold the balance of power. So this defection takes Labor's senators in the upper house to 29. The Greens, meanwhile, will drop to 10. But Labor will still need to rely on the Greens for votes in order to pass legislation. Symbolically, though, this is a major blow to the Greens. So at the election, they lost three of their four lower house seats and also their former leader, Adam Bandt, who was unable to retain his seat of Melbourne. And now they've got a high-profile senator defecting without warning. There is a question about how Senator Cox will square some of her policy positions with Labor's party platform. So for example, just last week, she criticised the Albanese government for extending WA's North West gas shelf, a move that environmentalists have also slammed. So how she reconciles those views while inside the Labor tent remains to be seen. Isabella Higgins: Olivia Caisley reporting there.
