Trump+Musk: Folie à Deux - Trump thread #137

[Spandauer]

The clock is already ticking and he's an old man. Mid-terms: November 3, 2026

Thanks to @AcrossThePond55 for the thread title.

Previous thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5206120-the-grown-ups-have-left-the-building-trump-thread-136

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/04/fbi-agents-jan-6-cases-lawsuit-00202376

FBI agents who worked on cases stemming from the Jan. 6 attack — or the Trump criminal investigations — have filed a class action lawsuit to block DOJ leadership from assembling lists of agents they say will be used as part of a retaliation campaign.

Trump signs Executive Order withdrawing the US from the UN Human Rights Council.

https://news.sky.com/story/trump-latest-president-tariffs-trade-war-canada-live-news-13209921?postid=9057835#liveblog-body

...and continues the halt of funding for the UN relief agency in Gaza

It's like how everyone in leadership in North Korea has to have the same haircut as Kim Jong-un. I look forward to seeing all the cabinet appointees turning orange.

@AcrossthePond55
I'd like to tell you, bracingly, that you're being paranoid, but I can't. It's obviously unlikely, but I wouldn't put anything past them right now (assuming they can be organised enough to pull anything off).

Surely Musk is the very epitome of hubris at this point?. As shitty as this show is, given Trump’s extreme narcissism and spite , he’s surely going to throw him under a bus sooner rather than later.

And Musk has no immunity to hide behind when that happens 🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞

I am sure he could afford a presidential pardon. They're one thing going down in value.

The Trump White House is preparing an executive order to eliminate the Department of Education.

Abolishing the Department is a goal of Project 2025.

BUT: Trump cannot unilaterally abolish a federal agency without the approval of Congress

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/white-house-preparing-executive-order-abolish-department-education-rcna190205

From what I understand, doesn't contributions from richer states go to other states to help support them e.g. federal support for education

[on TV] There are times when we're fifty states and there are times when
we're one country, and have national needs. And the way I know this is that Florida didn't fight Germany in World War II or establish civil rights. You think states should do the governing wall-to-wall. That's a perfectly valid opinion. But your state of Florida got $12.6 billion in federal money last year-- from Nebraskans, and Virginians, and New Yorkers, and Alaskans, with their Eskimo poetry. 12.6 out of a state budget of $50 billion, and I'm supposed to be using this time for a question, so here it is: Can we have it back, please?

Fuck me watching Trump and Netanyahu it’s absolutely terrifying.

USAID is an interesting one. The gravy train, lack of transparency does need sorting.

President Bartlett - if only 😔

I'm curious as to where you get your news @justasking111? Because it seems to mostly be Musk talking points

I’ve literally just watched that ep of The West Wing (again) and the election night one this evening. Oh, if only.

That New York Times article @Spandauer linked above quoted an explicit part of Trumpist Voight's strategy, viz to constantly smear government employees and departments to establish them as the villiain in the minds of the public, and also to make civil servants dread going to work.

Musk's Twitter was to be a particularly useful vehicle for this.

The article is long but well worth reading.

The Americans that I have spoken to are very scared. They say that since Musk wields so much financial power, he’s not going anywhere whether Trump tired of him or not because America has become an oligarchy.

Working in the charity sector for many years.

Authoritarian leaders of oligarchies have ways of disposing of oligarchs who step out of line or are no longer useful. Putin is very good at this – but of course history is replete with examples.

Disfavour, jail, and where necessary, nasty accidents.

Musk is Trump's Prigozhin. That won't give Musk pause – but it should.

[Edited for punctuation.]

It is actually crazy that this is going on. Where will it end?

Was it on here, or on another site, that someone pointed out that once Musk took over Twitter, he would have been able to access Trump's DMs and therefore have some excellent Kompromat (blackmail leverage) over him

Goodness. This didn’t even occur to me.

So what's your source for this?

USAID is an interesting one. The gravy train, lack of transparency does need sorting.

Because I know a lot of people in the charity sector, and this doesn't seem to be the prevailing belief among them. What specific departments/projects/portions of USAID? Can you elaborate?

Well it's always possible to talk about waste, bureaucracy, etc in any large organisation.

So whatever the organisation there will always be issues to sort out.

The choice between sorting them out by hiring the CEO's daughter on a nice retainer, or by burning the organisation to the ground, is a detail Trump would perhaps not like us to explore.

Charities do crash and burn. But normally quietly and discreetly. the president of Brazil Luiz Lula has done similar. He's cutting and burning away dead wood.

Well, my sibling, who's a doctor, who has spent the last 20 years making very little money, keeping people from dying of AIDS in Africa instead of sitting in a cushy private practice has just been told, along with all their colleagues, they have 30 days to get to Washington to be fired. They have families and kids in school.

And Luiz Lulu is not the corrupt autocrat. He's taken over from a corrupt autocrat.

So if you're defending this, fuck right off @justasking111

Oh, and still waiting for your specifics (not from X), since you know so much about the organisation based on your experience with... what, exactly?

This isn't the evidence or source we would hope for. It's the equivalent of my next door neighbour's dog told me.

Whilst I might be derailing the USAID discussion where the situation is dire - Trump has literally proposed the US take over Gaza. I can't keep up with his madness.
Saudi have rejected this proposal- won't accept a solution without Gazans on their Gaza soil. It comes to something when I hope ME countries can contain US/Trump madness.
I don't know what he'll do next - I don't even know why he wants this, unless on behalf of Netanyahu - makes a mockery of his brag he's the reason for peace a couple of weeks ago.