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Ted Cruz Begs Americans to Stop Being So Nasty to Elon Musk

Ted Cruz Begs Americans to Stop Being So Nasty to Elon Musk

Yahoo2 days ago

Sen. Ted Cruz used a Fox News interview to act as a human shield for Elon Musk, demanding Americans get down and kiss the billionaire's feet for his DOGE work.
Musk has called time on his stint at the Trump administration, with his 130-day 'special government employee' status elapsing on May 30. His time at Trump's side was tumultuous, with Tesla caught up in the pushback against his cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency.
Cruz appears shocked by the backlash, telling Fox News's Sean Hannity on Wednesday evening that Americans should be expressing deep gratitude to Musk and chanting 'Thank you, thank you, thank you!'
The left's reaction, he said, was somewhat different. 'It shows what utter hypocrites they are,' he told the host.
The Texas senator was likely referencing the pushback towards Musk's government position, which inspired claims of a conflict of interests and triggered a backlash that saw violent protests at Tesla dealerships and charging stations, with cars defaced, battered, and even burned.
Cruz said Musk had been 'a hero to the left' through his championing of electric alternatives to gas-guzzling vehicles.
'And then he had the temerity to actually speak the truth, to support Donald Trump, to speak up against the madness of open borders, to speak up against the insanity of men and women's sports, to speak up against the woke mind virus. And the left decided he was Adolf Hitler. He was the embodiment of evil,' he said, branding the attacks on Tesla dealerships 'domestic terrorism.'
'I think the American people ought to be saying to Elon, 'Thank you, thank you, thank you!' He came and spent four months working for the American people free of charge, didn't collect a salary, made nothing. He rooted out massive waste, fraud and abuse, and he did so at enormous cost to himself,' Cruz continued.
'You look at his stock holdings, his stock holdings dropped tens of billions of dollars. It was a personal sacrifice and the death threats that were directed against him were massive. I think Elon is an extraordinary entrepreneur, an extraordinary business leader.'
Hannity emphatically agreed—recounting how he bought a Tesla out of 'solidarity' with Musk.
'It's the best car I've ever driven. The best engineer[ed] car. It is the fastest car, the most fun car. It's really amazing,' he said.

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Pentagon chief says ready to 'fight and win' against China, urges Asian allies to boost defense spending
Pentagon chief says ready to 'fight and win' against China, urges Asian allies to boost defense spending

CNBC

time42 minutes ago

  • CNBC

Pentagon chief says ready to 'fight and win' against China, urges Asian allies to boost defense spending

SINGAPORE — Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth on Saturday warned that the U.S. was prepared to "fight and win" against China if deterrence efforts failed, while urging Asian allies to strengthen military coordination and raise defense spending. Speaking at the annual defense summit Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, U.S. Defense Secretary Hegseth stressed Washington's resolve to bolster defense capabilities at a time when regional warfare has flared up around the world, including Russia's war in Ukraine and the military conflict in Gaza. While playing up the U.S.' commitment to the Indo-Pacific region, Hegseth took swipes at the absence of China's defense minister. "We are here this morning. Somebody else isn't," he said. Hegseth urged political and defense leaders in the audience to act with urgency in pushing back against China's mounting military pressure in the South China Sea and around Taiwan. "China has demonstrated that it wants to fundamentally alter the region's status quo. We cannot look away and we cannot ignore it. China's behavior toward its neighbors and the world is a wake up call and an urgent one," said Hegseth. "We ask, and indeed, we insist that our allies and partners do their part on defense," said Hegseth, adding that "our defense spending must reflect the dangers and threats that we face today, because deterrence doesn't come on the cheap." The sharp rhetoric comes against the backdrop of increasing trade frictions between Washington and Beijing as optimism over a deal following a temporary tariff truce secured earlier this month wanes. U.S.-China trade talks "are a bit stalled," and would warrant the two countries' heads to weigh in Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News Thursday. China's activities in the South China Sea undermine sovereignty and threaten freedom of navigation and overflight while its ongoing military operations near Taiwan signal a clear intent to escalate pressure on the island, the Pentagon leader said. He also vowed to step up security nearer to the U.S., eliminating China's "malign" influence over Panama Canal. "It is key terrain, after all, China did not build that canal. We did, and we will not allow China to weaponize it or control it." China in March said it was prepared to fight "any type of war" with the U.S., as President Donald Trump ratcheted up economic and political pressure on the country. "If war is what the U.S. wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we're ready to fight till the end," the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. said in a post. China's Defense Minister Dong Jun was absent from this year's summit — the first time Beijing's top military official has skipped the event since 2019. Beijing instead sent a lower-ranking delegation, led by Major General Hu Gangfeng, Vice President of National Defense University of People's Liberation Army. Major General Hu is expected to participate in a special session later Saturday on cooperative maritime security in the Asia-Pacific. The absence of China's top military official has cast doubts over whether there will be a bilateral meeting between Chinese and the U.S. defense officials. Last year then-U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Dong held a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the security forum, where both sides agreed to maintain military dialogue. The absence of Beijing's defense minister could be an attempt to avoid engagement and conflict with the U.S. on flashpoints like Taiwan and the South China Sea, experts said. "Beijing always wants to control the narrative and discourse. Shangri-La does not enable that," said Drew Thompson, senior fellow at RSIS Rajaratnam School of International Studies and a former U.S. official at the Defense Department. "When I was at DoD, my PLA counterpart once explained to me what they didn't like. He said, 'we don't like being made out to be gladiators fighting one another for others' entertainment. We want to deal with our differences bilaterally, in channels, not in public forums,'" he added. Beijing sees limited strategic benefits in sending its top defense officials to the annual summit, instead it is focused on deepening ties through alternative forums without U.S. presence, Wu Xinbo, director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University, told CNBC earlier this month. That's according to CNBC's translation of his comments in Mandarin. The U.S. government plans to ramp up weapon sales to Taiwan to a level beyond the $18.3 billion authorized during Trump's first term, surpassing the $8.4 billion approved under President Biden, according to Reuters. The proposed arms packages will focus on cost-effective systems such as missiles, munitions, and drones, as part of an effort to enhance Taiwan's deterrence capabilities as Beijing ramps up pressure on the democratic island. The U.S. has been an important ally and arms supplier to Taiwan for decades, with Beijing calling on Washington to halt such actions and stop creating tensions in the Taiwan Strait. Beijing claims Taiwan as its territory and has vowed to "reunify" with the democratically governed island, by force if necessary. Taiwan's government rejects Beijing's sovereignty claims. For years, China has been steadily ramping up its military pressure to assert its sovereignty claims over Taiwan, regularly sending aircraft and naval vessels near the island. Dong warned at the Shangri-La Dialogue last year that any forces aimed at separating Taiwan from China would face "self-destruction" and stressed the Taiwan issue as "the core of our core interest." Concerns have mounted over Trump's commitment to the island too. On the election campaign trail, Trump had suggested Taiwan should pay for U.S. protection and accused it of siphoning off America's semiconductor industry, raising alarm in Taipei.

People Share The Most Out-Of-Touch Comments Their Parents Made
People Share The Most Out-Of-Touch Comments Their Parents Made

Buzz Feed

timean hour ago

  • Buzz Feed

People Share The Most Out-Of-Touch Comments Their Parents Made

Ever had a parent say something that made you realize just how much the world has changed since they were your age? You're not alone. Between asking members of the BuzzFeed Community to share the exact comments their parents made that made them realize how differently older generations see adulthood today, and u/Roblson240YT asking about the most out-of-touch thing an older person has said, the responses range from painfully relatable to surprisingly eye-opening. Here are some of the most memorable below: "That 'AI art was the same as digital art.' I'm a digital artist, by the way, and I was pretty darn annoyed at that." —anime_otaku66 "When I was a teenager, my parents kept pressuring me to get a summer job. My dad claimed that it was as easy as going door to door and applying. When I was a junior (11th-year student for non-Americans), my dad lost his job and found no one wanted to hire him — in spite of his decades of work experience. He shut up about that soon afterward." "My grandpa's advice was: 'Your grandma probably said no to me 20 times before we went on a date. I made sure I was on her porch every day, knocking to see if she had changed her mind!' Yeah, Pop, I'm pretty sure I'm getting arrested on day two for that." "One that stands out to me right now is when my mom — who is full of these — told me not to 'encourage' my son to be gay. She said that it's 'not natural.' Like my kids listen to me anyway! Not to mention that babies are born that way ... or not!" "I was homeless a while ago, and my great-grandfather found out. He gave me $50 and said to rent a motel for a week. My heart completely broke." "'Why are you renting? Why don't you just buy a house?'" "Had dinner with my grandmother last week, and she genuinely asked why I don't just marry a doctor to solve my student loan problems." "My dad got one of my gay friends blackout drunk one night, hoping (in his words) 'he'd start acting more like a man.' I told him that was BS, and it scared me to think what sort of behavior he wanted to see from my friend." "My grandma (mid-80s) called me greedy and irresponsible for spending $250,000 on a house in 2024 ('affordable' in my area), when she only spent $10,000 on her first house and raised three children in it." "I was a junior in high school. My father and I got into a heated discussion about teen pregnancies, and I was making the case that a teen could choose to have the baby and put it up for adoption. My father blurted, 'Nobody wants someone else's mistake.' I'm adopted." "I was never a girly-girl and could never compete with my cute, flirty older sister. My mother was always sure that I knew my sister was the cute one and I was the smart one. My mother couldn't even let me have that either, going so far as to say that my sister could have done as well academically if she had studied. She also told me when I was 15 that no man would ever want me because I was too strong-willed. Well, I got a PhD, had a slammin' career, and more men than I could count. When I got married at 46 (had a brief marriage in my 20s), my mother then said she was relieved because I wouldn't be an old maid. I rolled my eyes and reminded her that I had been married and had a child, and that an old maid I was not." "Between homes owned after a divorce, I was forced to rent for a year. A single mother, even in a professional job, money was tight in that area of the US. My family had zero empathy that having to pay for a decent apartment ate up almost half my income. I can't remember the comments made 40 years later, but I just remember their smug attitude and cluelessness. Everyone is now gone, and their attitude just became a memory." —visionarybee33 "My daughter was 2 years old, and my marriage had been going downhill for the entirety of her lifetime. I knew I wanted and needed to get a divorce. I went to talk to my mom about it, telling her how miserable I was and how it was negatively affecting my parenting. She was not understanding at all. In fact, she said to me, 'Don't take that little girl away from her father!' She wouldn't listen to anything I had to say. She said if I went through with the divorce, she wouldn't accept it and would continue to treat him as her son-in-law, as would the rest of the family. In other words, they would choose him over me. She even said she wouldn't help me financially or with any childcare since I broke up the family and created my own hardship. I didn't have the courage to leave him after that, knowing I would lose my family as well. It was the biggest mistake of my life." "Them: 'Congrats on your $500 scholarship! That should cover one of your two classes this semester!' Me: 'I appreciate it! won't even cover a credit, which is $900. Each class is three credits.' Them: 'Are you serious!?' Cue the surprised Pikachu face." "I was jumped and assaulted during my junior year of college. While in the hospital, I called my dad, a police officer. His comment to me was, 'Well, what did you do to encourage him?' I still have flashbacks 28 years later." —savorypunk804 "About a year ago, I was being stalked by an ex-boyfriend. When I told my mom about it, she said that back in the day, his refusal to give up would've been seen as endearing. Like, no, Mom — that's harassment." "Not understanding how much childcare costs and thinking you should just have more children." Have your parents ever said something so out-of-touch it stopped you in your tracks? Share your thoughts or story in the comments below.

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