Trump Held His First Cabinet Meeting--with Elon Musk in Attendance

Co-Presidents Donald Trump and Elon Musk held their first cabinet meeting yesterday. Guess who dominated it. (Hint: He is not a member of the cabinet.)

Oh, and some "members" present haven't been confirmed, but legalities like the Senate's power of advice and consent are so 20th-century.

Musk talked for a long time about how DOGE is eliminating fraud and waste. And he was not talking about the Army paying $400 for hammers. He was talking about getting rid of entire departments and programs that Congress authorized but which he didn't happen to like. Some of the secretaries were not amused about an unelected businessman who has not been confirmed to anything basically giving them marching orders, but they didn't complain. In fact, the secretaries said almost nothing. Musk and Trump did all the talking. This is very different than in previous administrations, when the secretaries at Cabinet meetings talked about difficult issues in their departments, especially issues that cut across department boundaries. Yesterday, the secretaries were more like the audience at a theater than participants in the governing process.

The rubber hasn't really hit the road yet, but when Musk directly orders some cabinet secretary to fire [X] thousand workers or cut his or her department's budget by $[Y] billion, it could get testy. It probably won't take long, as Musk aims to cut $1 trillion from the $6.7 trillion federal budget. In some cases, the hit won't be noticed for a while. For example, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said he could reduce head count by 65%. What that would mean is that companies could pollute the air and water at will without anyone watching them. Cancer rates might go up in a few years, but it would be hard to pin that on Musk.

Will Musk's cuts actually reduce the deficit, as some House members want? It is unlikely, because Trump wants major tax cuts, which together may exceed the amounts Musk can cut.

Trump also made an announcement during the meeting. He said that he was going to impose a 25% tariff on imports from the European Union. He said the decision has already been made and would be announced very soon. The E.U. was expecting this and has already prepared a list of retaliatory tariffs, specifically designed to cause the maximum pain to Trump's supporters. In Trump v1.0, when this happened, Trump simply asked Congress for $28 billion in free money for his supporters (farmers, etc.) so they wouldn't get angry at him. He could do that again, although with such a small margin in the House, the deficit hawks might be able to kill it.

Toward the end of the meeting, Trump said: "Is anybody unhappy? I think everyone's not only happy, they're thrilled." We are less sure. Once the Cabinet secretaries realize that they have little to no actual power other than to decide which programs to strangle, we could hear some squealing, possibly followed by resignations. (V)

The Blackhats Are Coming

As you might have noticed, Elon Musk often wears a black MAGA hat, rather than the standard red one. What gives? Is Musk color-blind or does he have bad fashion sense? Look:

In a recent column at The Bulwark, Jonathan V. Last argues that this is not an accident at all. In fact, it is very subversive. Musk is trying to split the MAGA movement and take control of one part of it.

Branding and iconography have always been very important to Donald Trump. Think of the golden escalator, the famous mug shot, and the red hat. Other politicians use the American flag as their symbol, not some dumb hat. The red MAGA hat is very special. Anyone wearing it can be (proudly) identified as a Trump supporter 100 yards away. Trump knows this.

Flags are also important as icons. Trump has his own flag. It was so important that when Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) challenged Trump in 2024, he made his own flag that was sort of based on Trump's but not quite. It was meant to send the message that DeSantis is like Trump, but not quite:

According to Last, the Black MAGA hat is sort of like DeSantis' flag. It tries to be like Trump, but also different. Musk wants to create his own faction of MAGA, Dark MAGA, and become its leader. The hat declares that Musk is not a foot soldier in Trump's army, but the leader of an alternative faction that could challenge Trump some day. Musk can't be elected president (because he was born in South Africa) but he could still lead a powerful movement and perhaps some day run for the Senate or governor of a big state, or maybe just exert power by leading a big movement.

Dark MAGA would be different from original MAGA, which attempted to be a populist movement. It wanted to bring back manufacturing jobs, stop immigration, and punish elites. Musk's Dark MAGA wants to turn the country over to billionaire tech bros for their own benefit and to hell with everyone else.

Could Musk pull this off? For one thing, he is far wealthier than Trump, probably 100x wealthier. He also has his own power base among tech billionaires. He is not dependent on Trump in any way. He is also not the least bit interested in grift or nickel-and-diming his supporters the way Trump does. He doesn't need to please Fox, as he owns his own media platform. This makes him Trump's peer, not his subject.

If Musk is serious about this, expect him to begin with getting podcasters, tech bros, and other influencers to start wearing his hat rather than Trump's. That could quietly signal allegiance to him. He will try to grow his movement. Trump may eventually come to see Musk as a threat and fire him, but that won't make Musk disappear because he has an unspeakably large amount of money, his own power base, his own media outlet, and the ability to command a vast amount of attention whenever he wants to. It could be quite a showdown. (V)

Supreme Court Heard a Key Discrimination Case Yesterday

Marlean Ames is a straight white woman who worked for the state of Ohio for 30 years, receiving solid job reviews and salary increases along the way. She was an administrator in an Ohio state agency overseeing juvenile prisons and no one complained about the quality of her work. In 2017, she began reporting to a gay woman, Ginine Trim, who demoted her, gave her a $40,000 pay cut, and replaced her with a young gay man Ames claims was unqualified for the job. Then Ames applied for a management position and was turned down. It remained open for several months and was eventually filled by a gay woman who didn't even apply for it. Ames then sued, claiming the state was discriminating against straight people. Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard oral hearings on the case. If she wins, this could upend years of practice concerning employment discrimination.

The case is complicated because any one (or more than one) of the following could be true:

1. She was demoted due to poor performance in her job.
2. She was demoted because she is straight.
3. She was demoted because she is a woman.
4. She was demoted because she is too old (55).

The last two are definitely illegal. The second might be illegal—this is what the case is about. The first one would definitely be legal.

The core issue in the case is a judicial precedent that requires members of majority groups to jump over a higher bar than members of minority groups when claiming discrimination. Ames' lawyer is claiming that forcing white people or straight people to provide more proof of discrimination than Black people or gay people is itself discriminatory and thus forbidden by the Fourteen Amendment.

Ames' demotion was defended by the Ohio solicitor general, T. Elliot Gaiser. Both the conservative and liberal justices peppered Gaiser with questions forcing him to try to defend the different standards. In the end, he had to admit that members of majority groups and minority groups should be treated equally. Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that Ames' years of experience with only positive performance reviews suggested that something was amiss with her getting passed over for a promotion.

From the questioning, the ruling could ultimately be 9-0 for Ames and against Ohio. If that happens, the case will be sent back to the lower court to be reheard using a new standard not requiring Ames to provide as much proof as in Round 1.

If the Court rules for Ames, it might affect many workplace discrimination cases going forward. In particular, it could enable white people to sue in a workplace where DEI was in effect and a minority candidate was selected above a white candidate. Similarly, if a company promotes a gay person over a more experienced straight person, the straight person would then have a stronger case in court. Although race was not an issue here, Chief Justice John Roberts once famously said: "The way to end racial discrimination is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." He is likely to use the same logic here.

On the other hand, the effect might not be so great, since some circuit courts don't use different standards for majority plaintiffs and minority plaintiffs while others do. This case would then only affect the half of the circuit courts that have two standards and not the others. Also, proving workplace discrimination is always tough, so it might not lead to a flood of new cases since they are so hard to prove. Still, a 9-0 decision for Ames will give Donald Trump cover for trying to kill off all DEI programs everywhere. He would likely (but not accurately) summarize a decision for Ames as: The Supreme Court has ruled that DEI is unconstitutional. (V)

Some Republican Senators Are Starting to Rediscover Where They Put Their Spines

It has been slow coming, but a few Republican senators are starting to give Donald Trump some pushback. One issue that is peeling them off is the war in Ukraine. Trump has (falsely) claimed that Ukraine started the war and that Russia is a victim of Ukrainian aggression. Republican senators aren't buying it. After the U.S. voted with Russia, Belarus, and North Korea against a resolution in the U.N. blaming Russia for the war, some previously cowardly Republican senators began speaking out. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) called it "shameful." That is one notch above being "concerned." Outgoing Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) stuck his neck out of his shell and said refusing to blame Russia "as the undeniable and unprovoked aggressor reflects a gross misunderstanding of the nature of negotiations and leverage." New Sen. John Curtis (R-UT) said he was "deeply troubled" by the U.S.' vote on the resolution. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) talked about Russia's "unprovoked war on Ukraine." Sen Thom Tillis (R-NC) said: "Putin is a murderer who's ordered the systematic capture, kidnapping, rape and torture of countless numbers of Ukrainians." Sen. Bill Cassidy said "Russia's clearly the aggressor." All this criticism is something we haven't seen before. Trump may finally have gone too far.

In addition, Murkowski also spoke up about what Trump, Elon Musk, and others in the administration are doing on the domestic front. She said: "It requires speaking out. It requires saying, 'That violates the law. That violates the authorities of the executive.'" In a town hall, she called out Trump repeatedly for violating the law and saying that his actions (such as impounding funds) "cannot be allowed to stand." Other Republicans aren't clamoring to follow her just yet, but it might just be a matter of time for them to find their spines. (V)

Trump's Vision of Gaza

Tuesday evening, on his boutique social media site, Donald Trump reposted a bizarre AI-generated video that ostensibly expresses his vision for Gaza. The creator of the video is unknown, but Trump liked it enough to repost it. Does it depict Gaza rebuilt (using Saudi money) as part of a peaceful Palestinian state? Well, no. More like "ethnic cleansing can be beautiful!" In case you have forgotten, ethnic cleansing is a war crime. Here is the video; it is only 33 seconds. But first look closely at the three still images below before starting the video, which moves very fast from scene to scene.

The fake video starts with scenes of the current destruction, then morphs into something that could be a mix of Miami Beach and Qatar except the shot of the scantily clad woman in the night club might not be a good fit for Qatar. The video depicts Teslas driving though the streets of Gaza, Elon Musk eating what appears to be a cupcake and a bowl of hummus, bearded Hamas militants belly dancing in bikinis, a child with a golden Trump balloon, Trump awkwardly dancing (?) with a woman, dressed in just her underwear, with very long hair, Musk throwing money in the air for little kids to grab, the Trump Gaza hotel, a giant golden statue of Trump, the hotel gift shop (naturally) and finally, a clip of Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu lounging topless at the hotel pool. In case you've never dropped acid, now you have an idea what it's like.

Our first take was: "Omigod. AI has gotten very good at producing fake videos." This one was so over the top that the fact that it is fake is pretty obvious. However, a more plausible fake—say, Hunter Biden accepting a white envelope (presumably of cash) from Chinese President Xi Jinping—could fool a lot of people.

The first take from Arab and European countries was not marveling at how good AI technology has become. It was more that displacing civilian populations violates international law and would bring even more instability to the region. Egypt's Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty spoke about the "inalienable rights of the Palestinian people." Germany's Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called it "unacceptable." U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the Palestinians "must be allowed home."

Is Trump serious here, or is he just trolling everyone? It's hard to say with him, but the logistics of moving almost 2 million people would be nearly impossible without the full strength of the U.S. Army, which would probably refuse an illegal order. And where would they go? No Arab country wants them. The political blowback in the U.S. would be dramatic. Still, Trump loves anything that gives him attention and this video certainly does. (V)

Trump Wants to Allow Wealthy Foreigners to Buy U.S. Citizenship

Donald Trump (and Republicans generally) are strongly against allowing anyone who came to the U.S. illegally to become a citizen. This also applies to people brought in as infants, who went to school and college in the U.S. and who served in and were honorably discharged from the U.S. Armed Forces and who now have a good job and are paying taxes.

However, Trump just thought of a new scam. Rich foreigners who have never set foot in the country, who don't speak English, and who know nothing about the country or its history are now welcome to buy a gold card for $5 million, which will let them in legally and will lead to citizenship in a few years. This appears to apply even to people from "sh**hole" countries. When asked if Russian oligarchs were eligible, Trump said: "Yeah, possibly. I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people."

The idea of letting in wealthy foreigners is not entirely new. In 1992, Congress created a program (the EB-5 visa) in which immigrants who invested $1 million to create jobs for American workers could get a green card. If the money was invested in a distressed area, then $800,000 was enough. Trump's companies made heavy use of this program to raise capital for real estate projects. In 2018, Eric Trump let the cat out of the bag when he bragged: "We don't rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia." It has been reported that a group of 63 Russian billionaires invested $100 million in Trump's properties. The oligarchs pouring money into Trump's projects all got green cards, of course. Under the new program, the need for investing and creating jobs is gone. Oligarchs can just straight up buy green cards and then get citizenship without the inconvenience of actually having to make an investment. Probably Trump has so much foreign money now that he simply has no use for any more.

For oligarchs in many countries, not just Russia, having a green card is like an insurance policy. For example, if the dictator who runs their country dies or gets overthrown and they suddenly need to get out of the country within an hour, before the new one can round up all the friends of the old one, a green card is ideal. And at $5 million, with no fuss or muss, it is one of the world's great bargains. (V)

Goodbye Deep State, Hello Patrimonialism

Donald Trump has started his second term acting what appears to be irrationally. He wants to buy Greenland, conquer the Panama canal, run the Kennedy Center, and has dispatched Elon Musk to fire federal workers willy-nilly. He also alternates daily between wanting Ukraine to give the U.S. its mineral wealth and letting Russia seize it. It is hard to discern a pattern here.

Jonathan Rauch at The Atlantic notes that what Trump is doing is not classic autocracy, authoritarianism, monarchy, or oligarchy. It is something else—what some scholars call "patrimonialism." This is an ancient form of government that sees the ruler and the state as the same. Some French guy, we forget who, a while back expressed it in three words: "L'État, c'est moi." The scholars called this system patrimonialism because the ruler claimed to be the symbolic father and protector of the country. The idea is what is good for the ruler is thus automatically good for the country.

The opposite of patrimonialism is not democracy, it is bureaucracy—or, in Trump's words, the deep state. Bureaucracies operate with detailed rules and procedures that the bureaucrats are expected to follow. Many dictatorships are very bureaucratic. The ruler controls the parliament (if there is one) and passes detailed laws and procedures governing life in the country and insists that the bureaucrats follow them exactly. Nazi Germany was like that. Hitler got laws passed that he wanted and then insisted that the bureaucrats vigorously enforce them. With Trump, he doesn't give a hoot if Elon Musk ignores all the laws and simply zeroes out entire federal agencies that Congress created. In fact, Trump wants to destroy the civil service precisely so they can't obey the laws. He wants them to obey his (ever-changing) whims, the laws be damned.

Some patrimonial leaders were democratically elected with substantial popular support. Only later do they weaken the bureaucracy so it can't oppose them. This has happened in Hungary and India, among other countries. Nevertheless, the leaders like to claim they are carrying out the people's will.

One of the biggest problems with patrimonialism is that the best people in the bureaucracy get discouraged by the whims of the leader, and the lack of respect for the law, and they quit. This leaves a hollowed out and demoralized bureaucracy that is not able to oppose the leader. Trump is not a true dictator and probably won't become one because he doesn't have a clear vision of anything and doesn't have the attention span to become one. What he understands is that he has "friends" who worship him and "enemies" who don't and there isn't much ideological consistency in what he is doing. For example, why is he being nice to the Democratic mayor of New York City? It is because the mayor, Eric Adams, could be useful to him for a few months. But he is not being nice to any other Democratic mayors.

Patrimonialism has a couple of weak spots, though. In the short run, the boss is invariably corrupt—because he can be. The public understands garden-variety corruption and doesn't like it. If the Democrats can catch Trump doing something that makes him or some crony a lot of money but doesn't have much value for the country, it will hurt his approval. If Trump orders the government to buy $400 million worth of cybertrucks that Elon Musk can't sell to anyone else, Trump could end up with well more than $8 worth of eggs on his face.

In the long run, the problem with a patrimonial regime is that it can't compete with a country that values bureaucracy and has highly qualified people running the show at all levels. For 1,300 years, China was run by bureaucrats, mandarins, who were rigorously selected based on their abilities. The system was formally abolished in 1905, but even now, the Chinese bureaucracy is highly competent and capable of carrying out the leader's policies. Having a bunch of nitwits trying to carry out the leader's ever-changing whims is going to be a losing proposition in the long run. (V)

Byron Donalds Is Running for Governor of Florida with Trump's Blessing

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) is now officially running for governor of Florida in 2026. He consulted God, and after many thoughts and prayers, God told him to go for it, so now he (Donalds, not God) is in. He made the announcement on Sean Hannity's show. That should give you an idea of where his campaign is heading.

Donald Trump somehow sussed this out in advance and endorsed Donalds last week. Normally, that would be enough for a candidate to win, but maybe not this time. There are a couple of problems. First, Donalds is Black and no Black person has ever been elected governor of Florida. Unlike many other southern states, Florida does not have a very large Black population. It is about 15% (vs. 32% for Georgia and 27% for Alabama). This means that Donalds is going to need many white voters.

Second, there will be serious competition in the Republican primary. Former representative Matt Gaetz is considering a run. He has the wacko vote locked up and could pull in many Trump supporters, even without Trump's endorsement. In addition, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) would love a third term, despite the minor inconvenience of a state law imposing term limits on him. So what's a governor to do? Use the run-your-wife strategy. Jill "Casey" DeSantis could legally file to run, but make no mistake, it would be Ron's third term. They should just start calling themselves Ma and Pa DeSantis right now.

This sort of thing has happened in that neck of the woods before. When then-governor George Wallace was term limited in 1966, he put Mrs. George C. Wallace (also known as Lurleen Wallace) on the ballot, even though she was undergoing treatment for cancer at the time. Lurleen was shy and totally uninterested in politics. An Alabama newspaper editor wrote: "It is as difficult to picture her in politics as to envision Helen Hayes butchering a hog." She won with 63% of the vote.

One difference between Lurleen and Casey is that the latter is only slightly less shy and retiring than Lady Macbeth. She might actually be a co-governor with her husband, rather than someone who was only called to govern when her signature was needed on some official document.

If Casey jumps in, it would be a bloody primary, with or without Gaetz and others. A bitter primary could help the Democrats if the supporters of the loser stayed home to sulk in November. The problem is that the Democratic bench in Florida is nearly empty. Nikki Fried ran for governor in 2022 and lost the primary to former governor Charlie Crist, who went on to be crushed by 20 points by DeSantis in the general election. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell ran for the Senate against Rick Scott in 2024 and lost by only 13 points. Maybe she could try for governor this time. She is at least well known. Beating someone with no one doesn't have a great track record. Hm, maybe Dan Marino is a Democrat. (V)

The Washington Post Sinks Even Further

Yesterday, Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos took to eX-Twitter to share some "exciting" news:

I shared this note with the Washington Post team this morning:

I'm writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages.

We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We'll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others...

I'm confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion. I'm excited for us together to fill that void.

The editor of the Post's opinion section was so excited by this news when he heard it that he... promptly resigned. Former executive editor of the Post Marty Barron, who is a legend in journalistic circles, was so excited by this news that he sniffed:

Bezos argues for personal liberties. But his news organization now will forbid views other than his own in its opinion section. It was only weeks ago that The Post described itself as providing coverage for "all of America." Now its opinion pages will be open to only some of America, those who think exactly as he does.

Bezos himself has done personal liberties a disservice by cravenly yielding to a president who shows no respect for liberty—one who aims to use the power of government to bully, threaten, punish and crush anyone who is not in his camp, especially the press.

It presumably goes without saying that one can hardly take the Post's opinion section seriously going forward. What Bezos describes in his letter is not actually an opinion section, it's advocacy. Other than the underlying politics, there won't be anything substantially different between the WaPo opinion section and, say, MIM Notes (Marxists), Fox "News" (right-wingers), The Good Citizen (racists), WND (evangelicals), or High Times (pot users).

And this assumes that Bezos is telling the truth about his plans, which we suspect is not the case. The point of view he proposes is basically libertarianism which, despite his claims to the contrary, is already well-served (relative to demand) by publications like Reason magazine, Liberty and The American Conservative. And nobody can really believe that there is some giant, untapped demand among the Post's subscriber base for this kind of content.

What we suspect is that this "battle plan" is just a smokescreen for a more aggressive rightward turn. Maybe not "we're going MAGA," but very possibly something like "we're going MAGA lite." That's not something Bezos could say, in those words, but it is certainly something he could do. Certainly, a real, legitimate libertarian turn makes absolutely no sense if the goal is to avoid angering Donald Trump. Trump most certainly does not believe in free markets (ahem, tariffs) nor in personal liberty (ahem, cracking down on LGBTQ Americans).

Undoubtedly, the actual journalists in the newsroom will try to fight the good fight, and will try to keep putting out a legitimate newspaper. But we just do not see how these dictums do not eventually bleed into the news coverage. Maybe people who don't toe the party line get fired, or pushed into retirement. Maybe stories get killed because it's just not worth it to piss off the boss. Maybe Bezos himself starts mucking around in the news coverage.

There were a bunch of items yesterday, like this one, wondering how Bezos could possibly think that this makes business sense. That is to say, how could he possibly believe that some sort of weird "middle" course will appeal to both left- and right-leaning readers, and will somehow bolster the newspaper's bottom line, which is already drenched in red ink.

We would say this is a pretty easy question to answer. Bezos may be a jerk, and a phony, but he's not stupid, and he's not a poor businessman. He certainly does not think that this new direction makes sense from a business perspective. At least, not from the business perspective of the Post. However, if he views the transformation of the Post into a Trumpy propaganda mill as an investment in his other business interests, then it starts to add up. Elon Musk dumped something like $250 million into Trump, and has been rewarded handsomely for his investment, both in terms of powers and in terms of benefits to his business portfolio. Well, how much did Bezos pay for the Post? $250 million.

The other possibility, which could certainly co-exist with the first, is that Bezos is using Trump as cover to remake the Post into a megaphone for his own politics. Historically, the Amazon founder has largely kept his politics on the down-low, but it's certainly possible he was always MAGA/MAGA-lite at heart. It's also possible that he's made a recent MAGA-ward veer, the way Musk did.

In any event, it's sad to see the decline of a once-great newspaper. (Z)

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