Elon Musk Uses Donald Trump's Own Words Against Him
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
Elon Musk has been using President Donald Trump's past criticisms of raising the debt ceiling against him, as he continues to attack the "big, beautiful bill."
The former Trump ally shared several posts on X from the president, dating back more than ten years ago.
In one, dated January 23, 2013, Trump wrote, " I cannot believe the Republicans are extending the debt ceiling—I am a Republican & I am embarrassed!"
"Wise words," Musk commented as he shared the post.
This is a breaking news story, updates to follow.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
9 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Elon Musk threatens to decommission SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft after Trump feud. What does it mean for the US space industry?
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. An explosive, and very public, feud between President Donald Trump and SpaceX founder Elon Musk on Thursday (June 5) has raised doubts over the future of America's space industry. The war of words could place $22 billion of SpaceX's government contracts with multiple U.S. space programs at risk, according to one estimate, although the real figure — which remains classified — could be significantly higher. Following threats from the president on his social media platform Truth Social that the U.S. could cancel the government contracts and subsidies awarded to Musk's companies, the CEO of SpaceX retorted that his space company would "begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately." Hours later, Musk responded to a follower telling him to "cool off" by saying "Good advice. Ok, we won't decommission Dragon." The disagreement began on Tuesday (June 3) when Musk criticized the administration's proposed tax and spending bill on his social media platform X. "This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it," Musk wrote on X. Related: 'No radio astronomy from the ground would be possible anymore': Satellite mega-swarms are blinding us to the cosmos — and a critical 'inflection point' is approaching This then escalated into a full-blown social media feud on Thursday, with Musk claiming that Trump's name appears in unreleased files relating to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The White House condemned these allegations. "This is an unfortunate episode from Elon, who is unhappy with the One Big Beautiful Bill because it does not include the policies he wanted," representatives wrote on X. Trump then claimed Musk "just went CRAZY," posting: "The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn't do it!" SpaceX's Dragon capsule is a reusable spacecraft capable of carrying up to seven passengers and cargo to and from Earth orbit, according to SpaceX. NASA currently relies on the capsule to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), so canceling these government contracts effectively eliminates America's ability to launch astronauts to space from American soil, Live Science's sister website, reported. NASA also heavily relies on SpaceX for other space programs, having selected the Starship Human Landing System (HLS), a lunar lander variant of the company's next-generation Starship spacecraft, to carry American astronauts to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years aboard the 2027 Artemis 3 mission. NASA is investing $4 billion into Starship's development, and canceling its contract could seriously handicap NASA and the future of U.S.-led space exploration. While other competitors exist, such as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin and Boeing's Starliner spacecraft, they lag far behind SpaceX. RELATED STORIES —Facing steep funding cuts, scientists propose using black holes as particle colliders instead of building new ones on Earth —Trump's 2026 budget would slash NASA funding by 24% and its workforce by nearly one third —NASA plans to build a giant radio telescope on the 'dark side' of the moon. Here's why. The Starliner capsule is not yet certified to fly operational astronaut missions and was responsible for "stranding" two astronauts on the ISS for nine months last year. The astronauts returned to Earth on March 18 aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule, and neither Boeing nor NASA have offered any significant updates into fixes that will make Starliner flightworthy. SpaceX's lead on its competitors is reflected in the size of its government subsidies. In April, the U.S. Space Force, the military branch of U.S. space exploration, awarded the company nearly $6 billion in launch contracts, while the United Launch Alliance received $5.4 billion and Blue Origin $2.4 billion. In response to the feud between Musk and Trump, NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens declined to comment on SpaceX, but she did tell Reuters that "we will continue to work with our industry partners to ensure the president's objectives in space are met." NASA's deputy administrator Lori Garver told Reuters that, as well as not being in national interests, canceling SpaceX's contacts would probably not be legal. However, she also added that "a rogue CEO threatening to decommission spacecraft, putting astronauts' lives at risk, is untenable."
Yahoo
9 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Ohio food banks strain as Trump slashes federal aid programs
By P.J. Huffstutter COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) -On a warm spring morning, volunteers at the Mid-Ohio Food Collective plucked cucumbers from a greenhouse where a state psychiatric hospital once stood and the land lay fallow. Now the state's largest food bank is working that ground again, part of an urgent effort to shore up supplies amid shrinking federal support, including deep funding cuts under President Donald Trump. They are planting more. Prepping soil for fruit trees, and installing hives for honey. In the greenhouse, crates of romaine and butterhead lettuce were packed for delivery, bound for a pantry across town. Back at headquarters in Grove City, staff chased leads from grocers, manufacturers, even truckers looking to unload abandoned freight. Every pallet helped. Every pound counted. In a state that handed Trump three straight wins, where Trump flags flap near food aid flyers pinned on bulletin boards, the cost of his austerity push is starting to show. "Food banks will still have food," said Mid-Ohio CEO Matt Habash. "But with these cuts, you'll start to see a heck of a lot less food, or pantries and agencies closing. You're going to have a lot of hungry, and a lot less healthy, America." For decades, food banks like Mid-Ohio have been the backbone of the nation's anti-hunger system, channelling government support and donations from corporations and private donors into meals and logistics to support pantries at churches, non-profits and other organizations. If a food bank is a warehouse, food pantries are the store. Outside one of those – the Eastside Community Ministry pantry in rural Muskingum County, Ohio – Mary Dotson walked slow, cane in hand. The minute she stepped through the doors, her whole body seemed to lift. They call her Mama Mary here, as she's got the kind of voice that settles you down and straightens you out in the same breath. The regulars grin as Dotson, 77, pats shoulders, swaps recipes. She had tried to do everything right: built a career, raised five children, planned for the quiet years with her husband. But after he died and the kids moved away, the life they'd built slipped out of reach. Now her monthly Social Security check is $1,428. She budgets $70 of that for groceries, and she gets $23 in food benefits as well. She started as a volunteer at Eastside. Simple math convinced her to become a customer. 'I figured if I'm going to take these things,' Dotson said, 'I'm going to work here, too.' CAMPAIGN FODDER The Mid-Ohio Food Collective was born out of church basements and borrowed trucks nearly a half-century ago, when factory closures left more families hungry. It's now the state's largest food bank, feeding more than 35,000 Ohio families a week. It supplies more than 600 food pantries, soup kitchens, children and senior feeding sites, after-school programs and other partner agencies. When Trump returned to office in January, Mid-Ohio was already slammed. Pantry visits across its 20 counties hit 1.8 million last year, nearly double pre-COVID levels, and are continuing to grow this year. The biggest surge came from working people whose paychecks no longer stretch far enough due to pandemic-era inflation under Joe Biden's presidency, staff said. Then came the Trump cuts. In March, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) cancelled the pandemic-era Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA) program, which funded about $500 million annually for food banks; and froze about $500 million in funding for The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), one of the agency's core nutrition programs that supplies food to states to pass on to food banks for free. Much of the food Mid-Ohio distributes is donated, but donations alone can't stock a pantry consistently. Its current $11.1 million purchasing budget, built from federal, state and private dollars, helps fill the gaps. The March cuts wiped out about 22% of Mid-Ohio's buying power for next fiscal year – funds and food that staff are trying to replace. In early December, Mid-Ohio ordered 24 truckloads filled with milk, meat and eggs for delivery this spring and summer. The food came through the TEFAP program, using about $1.5 million in government funding. The first delivery was scheduled to show up April 9. The only thing to arrive was a cancellation notice. USDA said in a statement Secretary Brooke Rollins is working to ensure federal nutrition spending is efficient, effective and aligned with the administration's budget priorities. More cuts could come. Last month, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed Trump's tax and spending bill. It called for $300 billion in cuts to food benefits for low income people under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which fed nearly 1.4 million Ohioans in January, according to the latest state data. If the cuts survive the Senate and are passed into law, it annually would cost Ohio at least $475 million in state funding to maintain current SNAP benefits, plus at least $70 million for administrative program costs, said Cleveland-based The Center for Community Solutions, an independent, nonpartisan policy research group. That would consume nearly every state-controlled dollar in Ohio's Department of Job and Family Services budget, roughly 95% of the general revenue meant to help fund everything from jobless claims to foster care. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and other lawmakers in this GOP supermajority state capitol, facing a constitutional requirement to pass a balanced budget, told Reuters that extra money for food banks isn't there. The proposed fiscal 2025 Ohio budget would set food bank funding back to 2019 levels – or about 23% less than what it spent this year, in a state where nearly one in three people qualify for help. Federal safety-net programs have become campaign fodder, too. At a recent Ohio Republican Party fundraiser in Richland County, Ohio, voters in suits and Bikers for Trump gear alike listened to Vivek Ramaswamy, the tech millionaire turned presidential candidate now running for Ohio governor. He spoke out against "a culture of dependence on the entitlement state that has festered in our country for 60 years." SAVING A PENNY So what happens when the government pulls back and supplies thin? If you're Victoria Brown and her small team of four, it means working the phones, chasing leads, watching markets, and moving fast. At Mid-Ohio's offices in Grove City, the food bank's director of sourcing sipped her coffee and squinted at her screen, eyes tracking the price-per-pound of cucumbers down to the cent. Saving a penny might seem inconsequential, unless you're trying to buy 40,000 pounds. In a supply chain that has relied on steady government support, food donations have become even more important, even as they grow more haphazard in both timing and what's available. Outside Brown's office, one staffer was trying to track down a shipment of pineapples. The rest were on the road, talking crop conditions with farmers, negotiating delivery times with suppliers and checking with grocers to see what might be sitting in the back, waiting for a second life. Brown glanced at her inbox, where new offers stacked up: At 11:10 a.m., one pallet of frozen chicken. I'll find out why it's being donated, a staffer promised. At 11:13 a.m., four pallets of cereal, bulk packed in industrial totes. Brown jotted a note for the volunteer coordinator: Anyone available to scoop a thousand pounds of cereal into small bags? RACING THE CLOCK Some of that food may be headed for Mid-Ohio's Norton Market, a modern food pantry built to feel like a real store in Columbus. The man in charge here is Denver Burkhart. He moves with the kind of precision the military teaches and life reinforces. At 35, he looks every bit the soldier he still is – broad-shouldered and lean, squared off at the edges. Fifteen years in the Army, two tours in Afghanistan, one in Iraq, now he has a mission back home until he serves overseas again with the Ohio Army National Guard. He started the morning as he always does: at a laptop in the back cramped office, racing to secure whatever free or discounted goods Brown's team had found. He leaned over the keyboard, one eye on the clock, the other on the blinking screen. The inventory system had just refreshed. The race was on to fill his mental list. His fingers clicked fast, steady, practiced. He hovered over baby formula. More moms have been showing up lately. Forty cases into the cart. Maybe too many – but if he waited, they'd be gone. "I rely heavily on the free product," he said. "Without it, we'd be hurting really bad." "WATER DAYS" Across town, Shannon Follins checks on her ice supply. It's for what she calls the "water days." Follins, 37, is raising three kids, including 3-year-old twins. One is autistic; he hasn't found his words yet. Until recently, Follins worked third shift at Waffle House for $5.25 an hour, and now she's studying for a degree in social services. Family brings groceries when they can. But it's the pantry at Broad Street Presbyterian Church, stocked by Mid-Ohio, that lets her make meals that feel like more than survival. One recent night, her daughter Essence twirled barefoot across their kitchen floor, dancing to the sounds of boiling pasta and chicken simmering in the pan. When there was nothing else to eat, she filled her kids' bellies with tap water and a mother's promise that tomorrow might be better. "It gives me a sense of security," she said, nodding toward the plastic jugs stacked in her freezer. If the government cuts food aid? She's prepared for more water days.
Politico
9 minutes ago
- Politico
Graham wants to punish Russia with ‘bone-crushing' sanctions. It could backfire.
Sen. Lindsey Graham has pledged that his expansive sanctions bill would be 'bone crushing' for the Russian economy. But if enacted, the South Carolina Republican's proposal to impose 500 percent tariffs on any country that buys Russian energy would effectively cut the U.S. off from some of the world's largest economies — including allies in Europe. 'A 500 percent tariff is essentially a hard decoupling,' said Kevin Book, managing director of Clear View Energy Partners, an energy research firm. Graham appeared to acknowledge as much on Wednesday, when he proposed a broad carve-out for countries that provide aid to Ukraine. This exemption would spare the European Union, which continues to import almost 20 percent of its gas from Russia. But experts remain skeptical that the sky-high tariffs proposed in the Sanctioning Russia Act are in any way feasible. India and China buy roughly 70 percent of Russian energy exports, but several other countries that buy any oil, gas or uranium from Moscow — and aren't included in the carve-out — could also be exposed to tariffs under the bill. The United States, which is still reliant on imports of enriched uranium from Russia to fuel its nuclear reactors, could also run afoul of the bill. Edward Fishman, a senior researcher with the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, said countries in the crosshairs of the bill would struggle to halt their imports of Russian energy overnight. Tariffs of 500 percent on imports of goods made in China would send prices soaring, disrupt supply chains and could drive up U.S. unemployment to recessionary levels. Most likely, it would lead to a screeching halt in U.S. trade with China. 'It would hurt Americans quite a bit,' Fishman said. The legislation's goal, co-sponsored by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), is to starve Russia's war economy, which continues to earn hundreds of billions of dollars from energy exports. There is widespread support for the overall objective, with 82 senators signing on to Graham's bill so far, and growing support for a companion bill in the House. The bill is likely to change significantly as it moves through Congress and in consultations with the Trump administration, said Matt Zweig, senior policy director of FDD Action, a nonprofit advocacy organization affiliated with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. It may also take a long time. 'With sanctions legislation, you're also normally dealing with iterative processes where you would want to go through every nook and cranny,' Zweig said. Still, the widespread bipartisan support for the legislation suggests there is a high degree of support among lawmakers for tougher action on Russia. 'What Congress may be doing is pressuring the executive branch to act,' said Adam Smith, a partner at the law firm Gibson Dunn. 'There is a sense in the Senate that more sanctions on Russia need to be imposed, or ought to be imposed,' added Smith, who was a senior adviser to the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control during the Obama administration. Graham, the bill's most vocal Republican advocate, said as much in a meeting with reporters in Paris over the weekend, where he described the bill as 'one of the most draconian sanctions bills ever written.' 'The Senate is pissed that Russia is playing a game at our expense and the world's expense. And we are willing to do something we haven't been willing to do before — and that is go after people that have been helping Putin,' Graham said. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, dismissed concerns that the bill is too harsh. 'We need to make Putin understand he has to stop screwing around and come to the table. But we also need to follow it up and make clear we will be tough,' she said. Not everyone agrees. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has long been skeptical about the effectiveness of sanctions to change the behavior of U.S. adversaries, bashed the bill on Monday as 'literally the most ill-conceived bill I've ever seen in Washington,' he said. 'It would be a worldwide embargo on 36 countries.' Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine have made little progress on peace talks. Officials from both countries met in Istanbul on Monday and agreed to a further prisoner swap, but failed to achieve any major breakthroughs. Graham and Blumenthal visited Ukraine, France and Germany during last week's congressional recess, where they discussed the sanctions bill, as well as efforts to push Russia to the negotiating table. The proposal has been welcomed by European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen, who met with Graham in Berlin on Monday. 'Pressure works, as the Kremlin understands nothing else,' Von der Leyen said in a statement. 'These steps, taken together with U.S. measures, would sharply increase the joint impact of our sanctions.' Senate Majority Leader John Thune indicated Monday that the chamber could take up the legislation later this month. Republican senators have said they would like to secure the approval of the White House before moving forward. The proposed use of blanket tariffs to target countries that continue to do business with Russia's energy sector is novel and appears to be pitched to Trump's interests. On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump viewed sanctions as 'a tool in his toolbox,' but declined to comment about his position on the bill. Trump appeared to be inching closer toward supporting the bill in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday, which linked to an op-ed in The Washington Post supporting the legislation. Speaking in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump indicated he wanted lawmakers to secure his approval before moving forward with the bill. 'They're waiting for me to decide on what to do,' he said, describing the legislation as a 'harsh bill.' The president has liberally wielded tariffs to advance his foreign policy agenda, but his implementation has been spotty. Wall Street has even adopted a trading strategy referencing Trump's capriciousness called TACO, which stands for 'Trump Always Chickens Out.' Tariffs of 145 percent on China, imposed in April, lasted a month before being dramatically scaled back to make way for trade talks, which have so far failed to secure a breakthrough. As it stands, the bill includes some levers that Trump could pull to forestall the tariffs, requiring the president to make a formal determination that Russia is refusing to negotiate or has violated any future peace agreement. Nahal Toosi, Joshua Berlinger, Phelim Kine and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.
