Republicans set make-believe deadline, turning agenda into process story
Republicans find themselves in a familiar battle that seems to happen every time a new president also holds the congressional majority.
House and Senate leaders declare deadlines to try to force their agenda along. Once one deadline gets missed, others start to slip. And eventually these big agenda items turn into internal feuds about process and timing, diverting focus from the substance meant to actually help voters.
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Yahoo
7 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Column: Will Tesla suffer if Musk alienates both political wings?
Donald Trump and Elon Musk — two epic disrupters of U.S. politics and the automotive industry, respectively and vice versa. Over the past year, they united over the election and efforts to cut government spending. They parted ways amicably … and then started trashing each other. It escalated quickly with Musk suggesting that the president be impeached and that he is implicated in the Jeffrey Epstein child-prostitution scandal. Musk later reportedly called the president before posting that he regretted some of his words: 'They went too far.' It was a remarkable breakup — incredible drama between the world's most powerful man and the world's richest man, who had been the closest of allies for hundreds of days of campaigning and governing. To the extent that it was a reality TV train wreck, I'd just as soon leave it be. But since the primary business in Musk's remarkable portfolio is nominally an automaker, it actually matters in this industry we cover. Sign up for Automotive Views, Automotive News' weekly showcase of opinions, insights, ideas and thought leadership. Love it or hate it, this disruptive era in which we live is providing us all with some real-life experiments in economics — the likes of which we probably thought we would never see. For decades, basically everyone who went to college was taught in an economics or history class that widespread tariffs would do more harm than good. Trump argues for a different approach, and he's pursuing it. Or he's pursuing it to negotiate for something else. In either case, we're now seeing how that works: So far, there's been a lot of paralysis, especially among suppliers and foreign automakers, but also a big investment announced recently by General Motors. His political strategy has been unorthodox, yet he's won two electoral colleges and one popular vote. He's only the 21st president to win two elections. So he's had success, whether some people like it or not. Same for Musk, of course: He approached the auto industry unlike anyone else — with an expensive electric car — had a couple of near-total collapses, and came out as the world's richest man and CEO of the world's most valuable automaker. That success helped propel his rocket business SpaceX and other ventures such as Starlink satellites and Twitter, which he bought and renamed X. But the disruptive move I'm watching was his decision to be an automaker CEO who got personally and financially involved in partisan politics. While new-vehicle sales skew to the affluent, when you sell something in the millions or tens of millions, a brand or model has to connect with a broad swath of people. And while there can be success with, say, a polarizing design, mass-market brands generally try to avoid alienating large chunks of their potential customer base. I've cited here before the story about Michael Jordan saying he didn't speak out on politics because 'Republicans buy sneakers, too.' In retrospect, he said it was just a funny line among friends. But the thing is that he wasn't wrong, and every business school graduate knows it. Musk, however, is not your typical MBA type. So out of his frustration with former President Joe Biden — who habitually sided with the UAW and its automakers against the U.S.-based global leader in EVs, even as he advocated for a carbon-neutral future — Musk threw an estimated quarter of a billion dollars behind the Trump campaign. That's an unbelievable sum of money to many of us, but when Trump won, it looked like the greatest bet ever. From late October to late December, Tesla stock more than doubled and its market cap approached $1.5 trillion. While Musk's political activism may have upset many of his loyal, environmentally motivated customers, there were a lot of reasons to be bullish on Tesla under Trump. It seemed likely that NHTSA and the SEC would take a more sympathetic view of the company's issues. Beyond that, Musk has refocused the company's future on artificial intelligence, humanoid robots and robotaxis. (Tesla said it plans to launch its service in Austin, Texas, on June 22.) A new administration with a deregulatory inclination toward self-driving cars was a significant tailwind. Now, those advantages for Tesla are gone or at least seemingly diminished. Structures that have legacy automakers paying to buy Tesla's credits for selling emission-free, fuel-efficient vehicles could be eliminated. (And let's not forget that Trump hinted at ending federal contracts with other Musk-affiliated companies.) Turning back to the auto business: The conventional wisdom is that Musk has now alienated all but the most apolitical consumers. Environmentally minded liberals might like EVs, but Musk's support of Trump (and the far-right Alternative for Deutschland party in Germany) has them seeking out other brands' offerings. There might have been an opportunity to become the preferred electric brand of the president's Make America Great Again movement — especially the tech-forward, high-income types and those motivated by the president's endorsement of the brand on the White House grounds. But after this month's blowup — with longtime Trump adviser Steve Bannon arguing to deport Musk — that notion seemed ever more remote. No fans on the left, no fans on the right. Is Elon out in deep water in an electric boat surrounded by sharks with no friends to bail him out? Maybe not. There is significant animus against Musk on the EV-inclined left, especially in the wake of his DOGE team's deep and sometimes chaotic cuts to government entities and programs. Certainly, protests at auto retail outlets are rare. The damage to stores is not acceptable, but it shows the intensity of the situation. But I still have to wonder how far consumers will follow those kinds of feelings. Michiganders, for instance, often assume that Americans prefer to buy American cars made by American (union) workers. But I've been to America, and most of them don't care. They want the best car for their money, whether it's American, German, Japanese or Korean. Some are clamoring for cheap Chinese cars: If Xi Jinping wants to pay for half of their EV, they ask, why not let him? So maybe they won't care about Elon's politics. Tesla sales are down a little this year, but some of that might be attributable to production hiccups. If the Model Y — the bestselling model in the world last year — provides a great value, they'll probably buy it regardless of what they think of the CEO. And now we get to find out. Have an opinion about this story? Tell us about it and we may publish it in print. Click here to submit a letter to the editor. Sign in to access your portfolio
CNN
17 minutes ago
- CNN
Voice of America brings back Farsi-speaking staff amid Israel-Iran conflict
Several dozen sidelined Voice of America staffers have suddenly been called back to work as the Israel-Iran conflict escalates. It is a dramatic turn of events for the American government-funded broadcasting system that was shut down by the Trump administration in March. Steve Herman, who has been VOA's chief national correspondent since 2022, said the broadcaster specifically brought back Farsi language speakers who have been on paid administrative leave. The move suggests that the US government wants to bolster its programming into Iran. Before the cutbacks were instituted in March, VOA said that it produced four-plus hours a day of 'Persian-language programming to Iran.' The VOA website said the content 'confronts the disinformation and censorship efforts of the Iranian regime and enhances U.S. efforts to speak directly to the Iranian people and the global Persian-speaking diaspora.' It is unclear how much content VOA has been beaming into Iran in recent weeks. The broadcaster's VOA Farsi channel on YouTube showed eight new videos since Israel struck inside Iran early Friday. Staffers from some other VOA language services have also been called back to work. Brett Bruen, president of the consulting firm Global Situation Room, reacted to Herman's X post about the news by tweeting to Kari Lake, the Trump loyalist who has been tasked with gutting VOA. 'Turns out not having a channel to communicate with the Iranian people was a pretty bad idea, @KariLake,' Bruen wrote. A spokesperson for Lake did not immediately respond to CNN's request for comment. Patsy Widakuswara, one of the sidelined journalists who is suing the Trump administration to salvage the broadcaster, told CNN on Friday that 'VOA's role in providing independent, factual and authoritative news has been proven throughout countless times of crisis. But after months off the air, we've already lost a lot of audience and credibility. They should bring us all back so we can respond to breaking news in all parts of the world.'
CBS News
22 minutes ago
- CBS News
Judge blocks plan to allow ICE office at Rikers Island
A judge has blocked Mayor Eric Adams from letting federal immigration authorities reopen an office at Rikers Island, in part because of concerns the mayor invited them back in as part of a deal with the Trump administration to end his corruption case. New York Judge Mary Rosado's decision Friday is a setback for Adams, who issued an executive order permitting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies to maintain office space at the jail complex. City lawmakers filed a lawsuit in April accusing Adams of entering into a "corrupt quid pro quo bargain" with the Trump administration in exchange for the U.S. Justice Department dropping criminal charges against him. Rosado temporarily blocked the executive order in April. In granting a preliminary injunction, she said city council members have "shown a likelihood of success in demonstrating, at minimum, the appearance of a quid pro quo whereby Mayor Adams publicly agreed to bring Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") back to Rikers Island in exchange for dismissal of his criminal charges." Rosado cited a number of factors, including U.S. border czar Tom Homan's televised comments in February that if Adams did not come through, "I'll be in his office, up his butt saying, 'Where the hell is the agreement we came to?' " Adams has repeatedly denied making a deal with the administration over the criminal case. He has said he deputized his first deputy mayor, Randy Mastro, to handle decision-making on the return of ICE to Rikers Island to make sure there was no appearance of any conflict of interest. Rosado said that Mastro reports to Adams and "cannot be considered impartial and free from Mayor Adams' conflicts." Mastro said in a prepared statement Friday the administration was confident they will prevail in the case. "Let's be crystal clear: This executive order is about the criminal prosecution of violent transnational gangs committing crimes in our city. Our administration has never, and will never, do anything to jeopardize the safety of law-abiding immigrants, and this executive order ensures their safety as well," Mastro said. City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who is running in the Democratic primary for mayor, called the decision a victory for public safety. "New Yorkers are counting on our city to protect their civil rights, and yet, Mayor Adams has attempted to betray this obligation by handing power over our city to Trump's ICE because he is compromised," she said in a prepared statement.
