Germany in Limbo as Merz Falls at First Hurdle
Welcome to Balance of Power, bringing you the latest in global politics. If you haven't yet, sign up here.
With hindsight, it was always going to be a liability to put forward a man with a negative popularity rating to become German chancellor.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
News24
29 minutes ago
- News24
'Very disappointed' Trump in stunning live break-up with Musk
Trump says he is 'very disappointed' in Elon Musk after criticism of his tax and spending bill. Musk hits back on X, calling Trump 'ungrateful' and claiming he helped him win the 2024 election. Tesla shares drop 8% as public fallout between the two billionaires rattles markets. Tensions between Donald Trump and Elon Musk exploded into public view on Thursday, as the US president said he was 'very disappointed' by his billionaire former aide's criticisms and Musk hit back in real time on social media. 'Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will anymore,' Trump told reporters in the Oval Office after Musk slammed his tax and spending mega-bill as an 'abomination'. The world's richest man responded by live-tweeting on his X social media platform as Trump spoke on television, saying that the Republican would not have won the 2024 election without him and slamming him for 'ingratitude.' Where is the man who wrote these words? Was he replaced by a body double!? — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 5, 2025 In an extraordinary rant as visiting German Chancellor Friedrich Merz sat mutely beside him, 78-year-old Trump unloaded on SpaceX and Tesla boss Musk in his first comments on the issue. 'I'm very disappointed, because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here... All of a sudden, he had a problem,' Trump said when asked about Musk. The clash comes less than a week since Trump held a grand Oval Office farewell for Musk as he wrapped up his time leading the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). South African-born Musk, 53, hit back minutes later, saying Trump's claims he had advance sight of the bill were 'false.' 'Whatever,' he added above a video of Trump saying Musk was upset about the loss of subsidies for electric vehicles. Whatever. Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil & gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), but ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill. In the entire history of civilization, there has never been legislation that both big and beautiful.… — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 5, 2025 Musk then ratcheted up the public spat even further, saying the Republican would have lost the election without his support. He was the biggest donor to Trump's campaign, to the tune of nearly $300 million. 'Without me, Trump would have lost the election,' Musk said on X. 'Such ingratitude.' Tesla shares fell sharply on Wall Street, down 8%, after his comments, in a sign of the huge stakes for a falling out between the world's richest man and its most powerful. 'A little make-up?' A wistful-sounding Trump took reporters through the break-up with Musk on live television, in what at times sounded more like a therapy session than a meeting with a foreign leader. Trump talked about Musk's farewell appearance in the Oval Office on Friday, when he turned up with a black eye that he said was caused by a punch from his son. Musk, at the time, was also facing reports of drug use on the Trump campaign trail. 'You saw a man who was very happy when he stood behind the Oval desk, and even with the black eye. I said, you want a little makeup? We'll get you a little makeup,' Trump said. 'But he said, 'No, I don't think so,' which is interesting and very nice. He wants to be who he is.' Trump said he could understand why Musk was upset with some of the steps he had taken, including withdrawing a nominee to lead the NASA space agency, which the tech tycoon had backed. Through it all, the visiting German chancellor sat silently. Merz had prepared to avoid a repeat of the ambushes that Trump unleashed on the Ukrainian and South African presidents in the Oval Office - but in the end it was Musk that the US president ambushed. At the center of the bitter row is Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' on tax and spending. The centrepiece of his domestic agenda, it aims to continue tax cuts from his first term - and could define his second term and make or break Republican prospects in the 2026 midterm elections. Musk, however, called it a 'disgusting abomination' on Tuesday on the grounds that it will increase the US deficit. A day later, the magnate called for Republicans to 'kill the bill,' and for an alternative plan that 'doesn't massively grow the deficit.'
New York Times
33 minutes ago
- New York Times
Live Updates: Trump-Musk Alliance Dissolves as They Hurl Personal Attacks
Pinned President Trump and Elon Musk's alliance dissolved into open acrimony on Thursday, as the two men hurled personal attacks at each other after the billionaire had unleashed broadsides against the president's signature domestic policy bill. While meeting with Friedrich Merz, Germany's new chancellor, in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump broke days of uncharacteristic silence and unloaded on Mr. Musk, who until last week was a top presidential adviser. 'I'm very disappointed in Elon,' Mr. Trump said. 'I've helped Elon a lot.' As the president criticized Mr. Musk, the billionaire responded in real time on X, the social media platform he owns. 'Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,' Mr. Musk wrote. 'Such ingratitude,' he added, taking credit for Mr. Trump's election in a way that he never has before. Mr. Musk had been careful in recent days to train his ire on Republicans in Congress, not Mr. Trump himself. But he discarded that caution on Thursday, ridiculing the president in a pattern familiar to the many previous Trump advisers who have fallen by the wayside. What started as simply a fight over the domestic policy bill sharply escalated in just a few hours. Within minutes of one another, Mr. Trump was making fun of Mr. Musk's unwillingness to wear makeup to cover a recent black eye, and Mr. Musk was raising questions about Mr. Trump's competency as president. The public break comes after a remarkable partnership between the two men. Mr. Musk deployed hundreds of millions of dollars to support Mr. Trump's 2024 presidential campaign. After Mr. Trump won, he gave Mr. Musk free rein to slash the federal work force. And just last week, Mr. Trump gave Mr. Musk a personal send-off in the Oval Office. The president praised Mr. Musk as 'one of the greatest business leaders and innovators the world has ever produced' and gave him a golden key emblazoned with the White House insignia. Mr. Musk promised to remain a 'friend and adviser to the president.' But now Mr. Musk, who has left his temporary role, has turned into the most prominent critic of a top presidential priority. Mr. Musk has lashed out against the far-reaching policy bill in numerous posts on X. He has called it a 'disgusting abomination,' argued that the bill would undo all the work he did to cut government spending and hinted that he would target Republican members of Congress who backed the legislation in next year's midterm elections. Mr. Trump on Thursday said Mr. Musk's criticism of the bill was entirely self-interested, saying he only opposed the legislation after Republicans took out the electric vehicle mandate, which would benefit Tesla, Mr. Musk's electric vehicle company. (Mr. Musk has previously called for an end to those subsidies.) The president also downplayed Mr. Musk's financial support for him during the campaign, arguing he would have won Pennsylvania without Mr. Musk, who poured much of his money and time into the critical battleground state. Mr. Musk also on Thursday rebutted Mr. Trump's statement that Mr. Musk 'knew the inner workings of the bill better than anybody sitting here.' 'False, this bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!' Mr. Musk wrote, sharing a video of Mr. Trump saying he was disappointed in Mr. Musk.
CNN
34 minutes ago
- CNN
Trump's autopen fixation, explained
President Donald Trump first focused on Joe Biden's use of the autopen in March, leaning into the idea that the former president's use of the tool to sign documents showed that he wasn't in charge while in the White House and that his actions were 'null and void.' At the time, conservative executive authority scholar John Yoo wagered to CNN that Trump was 'just having fun at Biden's expense.' Trump on Wednesday sought to take this outside the realm of mere 'fun.' He ordered an investigation of Biden's use of the autopen and its supposed links to Biden's 'cognitive decline.' The move is guaranteed to breathe even more life into a story that has proven to be catnip for conservative media eager to keep the focus on the alleged coverup of Biden's decline. And Trump has certainly shown a talent for seeding baseless conspiracy theories for political gain (see: birtherism and the false notion that the 2020 election was rigged, among them.) But it's difficult to see how this leads anywhere, for a few reasons. The first is that there is nothing evidently wrong or unlawful about using the autopen. In 2005, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (under Republican President George W. Bush) conducted an extensive review of the legality of a president using the autopen. It found that 'the President need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill to sign it within the meaning of Article I, Section 7.' Trump has most often focused his autopen theory on Biden's pardons. (The idea that these are invalid would ostensibly allow Trump's Justice Department to investigate and charge the people Biden preemptively pardoned.) But there too, established legal advice from past administrations undermines the claim. A 1929 memo from the US solicitor general noted that the Constitution didn't even prescribe a method for issuing pardons. That means they don't necessarily even need to be publicly documented. (You might have heard in recent years about the prospect of 'secret' pardons.) And the memo explicitly says that pardons 'need not have the president's autograph.' The other key point is that many presidents have used this practice in one form or another. Thomas Jefferson bought and used such a machine back when it was first patented in 1803, according to the Shapell Manuscript Foundation. And even Trump himself has acknowledged using the autopen for certain things. Trump said back in March he has used it but 'only for very unimportant papers.' He specifically cited responding to people's letters. But in another case, Trump rather curiously seemed to indicate that he hadn't signed a major proclamation that bore his signature – the one at issue in his attempt to rapidly deport migrants using the Alien Enemies Act. That proclamation is a major issue in litigation that has already reached all the way to the Supreme Court. 'I don't know when it was signed, because I didn't sign it,' Trump said, adding: 'Other people handled it, but (Secretary of State) Marco Rubio has done a great job and he wanted them out and we go along with that.' Given the proclamation bore Trump's signature, that seemed to raise the possibility that the administration might have used the autopen for it. The White House later claimed Trump had in fact signed the proclamation and that he was instead referring to not having signed the original Alien Enemies Act. (But that argument strained credulity, given Trump cited how 'other people handled it' and the fact that the Alien Enemies Act dates to 1798. That means there is no way anyone could ever believe Trump might have signed it. The question Trump responded to also specifically referenced the proclamation, not the 1798 law.) In another way, Trump's Wednesday night memorandum isn't really about the autopen. It's about using that as a shorthand for something else entirely: what the memo calls Biden's 'cognitive decline.' Trump's order isn't just about reviewing whether any autopen signatures used by Biden were lawful; it also cites the idea that people used it as part of an effort to 'unconstitutionally exercise the authorities and responsibilities of the President.' 'I'm sure that he didn't know many of the things – look, he was never for open borders, he was never for transgender for everybody, he was never for men playing in women's sports. All of these things that changed so radically, I don't think he had any idea … what was going on,' Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday. 'Essentially, whoever used the autopen was the president.' This theory – if ever somehow proven – would actually matter. The 2005 Bush Justice Department memo, for instance, made clear that while presidents could outsource the signing of documents, that doesn't mean they could necessarily outsource the decisions to sign the documents. The OLC memo emphasizes that 'we do not question the substantial authority supporting the view that the President must personally decide whether to approve and sign bills.' But however compelling the evidence that Biden administration officials covered up his decline, there remains no evidence that he wasn't actually making decisions to sign things. That's taking things to an entirely different level. Biden's advisers have denied any coordinated effort to conceal from the public his deteriorating condition during the final years of his presidency. And the 2005 DOJ memo suggests it would have to prove more than just that Biden wasn't particularly engaged, but that he didn't make the final decisions. Trump was asked Thursday if he had uncovered 'anything specific' that was signed without Biden's knowledge or by people in his administration who acted illegally. Trump said, 'No.' Biden, for his part, issued some strong statements late Wednesday. 'I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations,' the former president said. 'Any suggestion that I didn't is ridiculous and false.' The former president also called this 'nothing more than a distraction' to obscure Republicans' push for a dicey Trump agenda bill, which features Medicaid cuts in the House-passed version. The Congressional Budget Office estimated Wednesday that this could lead to millions of people losing their health insurance. Indeed, the political utility of the theory underlying Trump's memo is readily apparent. It's wildly popular in conservative media, with Fox News already devoting dozens of stories and extensive coverage to it. That includes this week when other outlets were focused on a decidedly less helpful story for the Trump administration: Elon Musk bashing the president's domestic policy bill. It's also nearly impossible to disprove it. History suggests that arriving at actual proof of Trump's theory is often besides the point for Trump. It's about repetition and seeding doubt. And Wednesday's action is clearly in line with that history.
