Thursday, June 5 | By Jonathan Easley |
© Alex Brandon, Associated Press |
Trump, Musk feud takes personal turn
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A DISAGREEMENT OVER PUBLIC POLICY between President Trump and Elon Musk took a personal and nasty turn on Thursday, as their once-friendly working relationship imploded in spectacular fashion. The recriminations started off mild, but escalated dramatically by the end of the day, with Trump threatening to cut Musk's government contracts and Musk alleging that Trump has ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Early in the day, while taking questions from reporters in the Oval Office, Trump weighed in on Musk's sharp criticism of the GOP's spending bill, which faces a tough path through the Senate over concerns it will add trillions to the national deficit. Trump said he was "very surprised" and "very disappointed" to hear Musk's remarks after the two had exchanged glowing praise for one another less than one week ago, when Musk finished his work as a special government employee assigned with eliminating wasteful spending. "Elon and I had a great relationship, I don't know if we will anymore," Trump said. "He's not the first," Trump added. "People leave my administration and they love us, and then at some point they miss it so badly, and some of them embrace it and some of them become hostile. It's Trump Derangement Syndrome." Musk, who has fired off dozens of posts on social media over the past few days calling on Republicans to kill Trump's agenda bill, responded almost immediately on X: "Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate," Musk wrote. "Such ingratitude." Later, Musk pondered a third party. "Is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle," Musk wrote in a post on X to his more than 200 million followers. And then Musk went nuclear, alleging that Trump is implicated in the Epstein files. "That is the real reason they have not been made public," Musk posted on X. "Have a nice day, DJT!" Trump said he believes Musk's gripes aren't actually about the level of spending in the "big, beautiful bill," but rather about its elimination of electric vehicle (EV) subsidies, which are utilized by Tesla. "Elon was 'wearing thin,' I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!" Trump posted on Truth Social. Trump then threatened to cut Musk's government contracts as a means of addressing the deficit. "The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts," Trump said. "I was always surprised that Biden didn't do it!" Tesla shares fell 14 percent on Thursday. |
TRUMP AGENDA BILL LOSES MOMENTUM |
The disagreement between Trump and Musk over spending and debt comes at a fraught time for Trump's agenda bill, with at least two GOP senators saying they won't vote for the legislation unless it addresses the deficit. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) can only afford three defections for the bill to pass, with Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) looking like hard no votes. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) has also criticized spending levels. Trump and GOP leaders argue that Congressional Budget Office projections about the deficit fail to account for the growth that will come from the bill's tax cuts and deregulatory measures. But the bill raises the debt ceiling by several trillion dollars, which is a nonstarter for the fiscal hawks. Musk on Thursday reposted a tweet from 2013 in which Trump announced his opposition to raising the debt ceiling. "Wise words," Musk said of Trump's old remarks. Now, Trump is calling to abolish the debt ceiling all together. GOP tensions aren't only running hot between Trump and Musk. Paul on Thursday said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, wants to "secretly explode" the military budget. Johnson, the Wisconsin senator, predicted the Trump agenda bill won't pass by the GOP's self-imposed July 4 deadline. "It won't happen," he said. The next potential flashpoint? Senate Republicans are talking about reviewing Medicare for waste, fraud and abuse, which is certain to lead to accusations from Democrats that the GOP is looking to gut the popular entitlement program for seniors. "Some people are afraid of the topics. I'm not," said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.). "In my view, this is our moment as Republicans in control of all three branches, and we ought to be going after more fiscal responsibility." |
The Supreme Court unanimously revived a straight woman's "reverse discrimination" case against her former employer, lowering the legal hurdle for white and straight employees to bring such lawsuits. The high court also threw out Mexico's lawsuit against the U.S. gun industry and sided with Catholic charities in their tax exemption bid. A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to restore AmeriCorps-funded programs in Washington, D.C., and 24 Democratic-led states as their lawsuit proceeds over recent cuts. The Federal Trade Commission is investigating media credibility firms about their industry ties over concerns about the alleged suppression of right-wing content.
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Trump, Xi reignite trade talks | President Trump spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday, reigniting trade talks amid global tensions over global tariffs. Trump said senior officials from the U.S. and China "will be meeting shortly at a location to be determined." The U.S. will be represented by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. The U.S. and China agreed last month to temporarily lower tariffs to provide time for a deal, although Trump has accused China of violating the agreement. Trump said he and Xi discussed "some of the intricacies" of the temporary trade truce over the course of their 90-minute discussion, which included invitations from both men for state visits. "It's pretty complex stuff and we straightened it out," Trump said Thursday. The White House sent a letter to U.S. trade partners this week urging them to cut new trade deals during Trump's pause on reciprocal tariffs, although the president slapped new tariffs on steel imports this week. New data from the Commerce Department found the U.S. trade deficit plunged in April, with imports down from $138 billion in March to $61 billion in April. U.S. exports rose by 3 percent in April. The European Central Bank cut its benchmark interest rate for the eight time on Thursday over fears the tariffs would dampen economic growth. Trump has raged at Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell for not following suit, pointing to this week's ADP jobs data, which found payrolls increasing by less than expected. MORE ECONOMIC NEWS... • Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble says it will cut up to 7,000 jobs over the next two years. • The average 401(k) balance fell by 3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to Fidelity Investments. |
💡Perspectives: • Washington Monthly: The secret to reindustrializing America. • The Economist: America's tax on foreign investors more damaging than tariffs. • Foreign Affairs: America and Israel follow the same old script. • The Hill: Ukraine takes the war to Russia — have the nukes launched yet? • Tablet: How the media covers "genocides." |
Merz pressures Trump to crack down on Russia
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German Chancellor Friedrich Merz urged President Trump to crack down on Russia during their Oval Office meeting on Thursday. "America is again in a very strong position to do something on this war and ending this war…we are ready to do what we can, we are looking for more pressure on Russia," Merz said. "[Trump] is the key president in the world and can really do that now by putting pressure on Russia," he added. Trump spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday. The president said Putin informed him that Russia would retaliate against Ukraine over a string of recent surprise attacks. "It's probably not going to be pretty," Trump said. The U.S. has so far been unable to broker a peace deal between the two countries. Trump on Thursday likened the situation to children fighting in a schoolyard that need to expel some energy before being separated. "Sometimes you're better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them off," he said. Trump was asked if there's a deadline for which he'd impose new sanctions on Russia if the fighting doesn't end. "Yeah it's in my brain," Trump said. "When I see the moment when it's not going to stop, we'll be very tough, and it could be on both countries." |
New Trump travel ban gets muted response
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President Trump's proclamation banning travel into the United States for individuals from a dozen countries has scarcely caused a ripple in Washington, a far cry from the response to Trump's first term travel ban. Trump announced Wednesday a full restriction of nationals from Afghanistan, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. The order partially restricts entry into the U.S. for nationals coming from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela. "We want to keep bad people out of our country," Trump said Thursday. "The Biden administration allowed some horrendous people, and we're getting them out one by one." The response to the travel ban has been muted, in contrast to the outrage, massive protests and allegations of racism that followed Trump's first term ban. A revised and scaled-back version of that ban was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said the new travel ban is an effort by Trump to "distract" from what he described as "super unpopular" aspects of the GOP's spending bill in Congress. Here's everything you need to know about the new travel ban. MORE IMMIGRATION MOVES… • The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to crack down on individuals that have overstayed their visas following the attack on the Jewish community in Boulder, Colo., over the weekend. The suspect in the attack, Mohamed Soliman, came to the U.S. from Egypt on a visa that expired in 2023. "There is NO room in the United States for the rest of the world's terrorist sympathizers. Anyone who thinks they can come to America and advocate for antisemitic violence and terrorism — think again," DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement. Trump said Thursday that Egypt was not included in his travel ban because "they have things under control." U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were preparing to deport Soliman's wife and five children, but a judge temporary blocked the effort and instead scheduled a hearing for June 13. Noem said Soliman's family members were detained in connection with the investigation and would face questioning over whether they had any prior knowledge of the attack. • Trump will restrict foreign student visas at Harvard University, which comes amid a broad range of actions from the administration to cut off government funding to the Ivy League school. "We want to have foreign students but we want them to be checked," Trump said Thursday. |
Trump orders probe into Biden actions, autopen
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President Trump ordered an investigation into actions taken by former President Biden while in office, citing questions about Biden's cognitive state toward the end of his White House term. Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to probe "whether certain individuals conspired to deceive the public about Biden's mental state and unconstitutionally exercise the authorities and responsibilities of the President." The investigation will focus on actions Biden signed using the "autopen," including judicial appointments and pardons. "The biggest scandal of the last many years is the autopen and who's using it," Trump said Thursday. "We can't ever allow that to happen to our country," he added. Biden responded in a statement: "Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn't is ridiculous and false." Republicans in Congress have begun investigating Biden's inner circle over allegations, many of them detailed in the new book "Original Sin," that the former president's top advisers carefully orchestrated his actions to hide his decline from the public. • Democrats are swiftly rebuking Biden's former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre after she announced she'd become an independent ahead of the release of her new book. The Hill's Amie Parnes writes: "[Democrats] not only see it as a form of a betrayal, but as an instance in which one of their own again stuck the knife in the collective party's back, preventing it from moving forward after a terrible election." |
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