Elon musk

With Donald Trump moving so rapidly on so many fronts, it is hard to grasp the big picture. What are his overriding goals, politically and electorally? What has he already accomplished?  Here is a summary in case you are keeping score. Trump has done more in a few weeks than any president in history. He took office with a coherent, detailed program and control of Congress (though a very narrow majority in the House). He is acting swiftly before his political capital dissipates.  Trump hopes to sustain his winning electoral coalition beyond his time in office. That’s why he chose a young populist, J.D. Vance, as his vice president and presumptive successor.

Washington, DC has been struck with DoGE (Department of Government Efficiency) fever — just as everyone started getting over the bugs they all caught at from Trump’s inauguration. Elon Musk and his gang of twenty-something whiz kids are making their mark across the federal government, starting with USAID, which Musk has repeatedly criticized in strident terms as being the core of the corruption he’s seeking to root out.

Elon Musk claims that President Trump and DoGE are shutting down USAID.He made his claim on X Spaces last night following the administrative leave of two senior security officials at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) after they denied the newly established Department of Government Efficiency (DoGE) the ability to receive sensitive data from the agency, the Guardian reports.DoGE was created on Trump’s first day to “maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” Headed by Musk, the department has already taken action to bring to light extensive federal spending and has been granted access to the US Treasury’s federal payment system.Musk said that USAID is beyond repair.

There were high hopes when Donald Trump announced plans for a Department of Government Efficiency (DoGE) in mid-November. Led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, DoGE was portrayed as a gift to smaller, more efficient government advocates through fewer regulations and a restructured government. “It will become, potentially, the Manhattan Project of our time,” boasted Trump at the time. “Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of DoGE for a very long time.” Trump seemed to picture Musk and Ramaswamy as a two-headed monster, ripping to shreds bureaucracy through “advice and guidance” along with an “entrepreneurial approach to government.

Elon Musk’s influence on the federal government has reached new heights, with a memo going out to millions of federal employees with a simple message: get on board or take a permanent, (and expensive!) paid vacation.The Trump administration just sent a DoGE-infused ultimatum to much of the federal workforce: opt in to working in your office or take our buyout. According to the White House, “We’re five years past Covid and just 6 percent of federal employees work full-time in office.” President Donald Trump and Musk have made it clear that a return to in-person work is nonnegotiable. The ultimatum, described in a post as “a fork in the road,” would bring the federal government in-line with where the private sector has been moving in recent months and years: back to the office.

The British royals are coming after American free speech, just days before Donald Trump is set to take office as president for the second time. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle expressed outrage that Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, changed policy to rely on community notes versus a dedicated fact-checking department. Ironically, the pair suggested Meta’s policy change “directly undermines free speech.” How exactly? Because, according to Harry and Meghan, Mark Zuckerberg is, allegedly, prioritizing those using social media “to spread hate, lies and division.

Donald Trump doesn’t take office for another week, but the Trump show starts in earnest this week with a confirmation hearing for Pete Hegseth, followed shortly by Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, Doug Burgum, Doug Collins and others. While some drama is to be expected, Trump’s current nominees have mostly run the gauntlet unscathed. Not all were so lucky, however. Former congressman Matt Gaetz quickly withdrew his name from consideration to be attorney general once he felt that he no longer had a foreseeable path forward; another Florida man, Hillsborough County sheriff Chad Chronister, withdrew his name from consideration due to concerns from the right about his record during Covid-era lockdowns.

The nasty fight between Elon Musk and Steve Bannon over H-1B visas, meant for high-skilled workers, is the Ghost of Christmas Future. That’s not because the visas themselves will be a perennial problem. It’s because of three larger implications, foreshadowed by the visa dispute. One is the battle between populist nationalists (represented, in this case, by Steve Bannon) and growth-oriented American companies with extensive foreign markets. Those are led by hi-tech industries, represented here by Elon Musk, which benefit from bringing in foreign engineers, programmers and others. The second implication is that, in a country with only two major parties, there are bound to be major cleavages within each party on a wide range of issues.

It turns out that the campaign was the easy part. For Donald Trump, winning the election was just securing the beachhead. Now the real work begins. Cities must be retaken. The enemy’s fortifications stormed. Subject populations must be liberated. As I write, Trump is still trying to assemble his cabinet. You will probably know at least the major dramatis personae by the time you read this. Matt Gaetz, Trump’s embattled pick for attorney general, has bowed out of the confirmation process to avoid “becoming a distraction” for the Trump/Vance transition. How about RFK Jr.? Will he be confirmed as secretary of the sprawling Department of Health and Human Services? Will Tulsi Gabbard make it as director of national intelligence? Will Pete Hegseth become secretary of defense?

President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday gave his first rally speech since winning the 2024 presidential election, delivering the keynote address at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest conference for young conservatives. The former and future president spoke for more than an hour and made plenty of headlines with his suggestion that the United States take back control of the Panama Canal, a rejection of the Democrat attack that he is a shadow puppet of billionaire Elon Musk, and a renewed promise of his second-term priorities.

Congress is once again trying to avoid a holiday-eve government shutdown by ramming through a last-minute continuing resolution to fund the government through the new year. The process, per usual, is angering various factions within the House of Representatives as Democrats, budget-hawk Republicans and the establishment GOP are at odds over how much to spend and what to spend it on and whether or not to raise the debt ceiling.Johnson’s “Plan A,” which was a 1,500-page boondoggle negotiated primarily with Democrats, would have funded the government until March.

Mike Johnson's status as an accidental speaker, thrust into his role in part because it was so undesirable or impossible for other longer-tenured members to achieve, was always going to be tested once there was a Republican in the White House again. And since that Republican turns out to be Donald Trump, currently the acting president in everything but title, Johnson's decision-making was going to become all the more controversial, subject to the whims and leanings of Trump's political instincts.  It turns out we didn't even have to wait until the inauguration to find out what that looks like.