Would you buy a new or used car from this man?

We've survived two turbulent weeks of Trump Two. And, amid all the chaos, there's no doubt who's in charge. He's the man of the hour. He's everywhere: giving orders, making demands, blasting what he doesn't like, and seizing the role of spokesman for the United States around the world. And, of course, I'm talking about - not Donald Trump, but - Elon Musk.

Musk, you must admit, is the most controversial man on the planet today. He's possibly the most talented. He's maybe the most dangerous, more so than Donald Trump. And he's definitely the most difficult to define.

On the one hand, TESLA alone earns Musk recognition as one of history's most brilliant innovators and businessmen. When nobody was taking electric cars seriously, Musk launched the first successful EV, designed the most beautiful car on the road, captured the market, and spurred production of a host of rival EV's by American car manufacturers.

In 2002, Musk also created SpaceX, which quickly excelled in rocket propulsion, reusable launch vehicles, and human spaceflight. Today, SpaceX stands as the world's dominant space launch provider, surpassing all other private companies, NASA, and the Chinese space agency.

That's the good Musk. If only he'd stopped there, he'd be a hero. Instead, he started going crazy. In 2018, he launched a line of $800 blow torches, which served no useful purpose other than, maybe, roasting marshmallows. At the same time, he created the Boring Company, whose stated goal is still to relieve traffic on I-95 by building an underground transit tunnel linking New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. To date, not one shovel of dirt has been turned, and AMTRAK, not Elon, provides the link between New York and Washington for all those who don't want to drive.

Then Elon Musk discovered politics. And that's where he really went nuts. First, by buying Twitter, the world's biggest social network, with 330 million followers, and quickly destroying it: renaming it "X," welcoming Donald Trump back on the platform, and removing any guidelines for truthful content. Today, "X" is nothing but an extreme right-wing, MAGA, Trump propaganda platform. It's the home of zany conspiracies, most of them spread by its owner. People looking for an honest exchange of views are flocking to BlueSky and other alternative sites.

Musk not only converted Twitter into a Trump tabloid, he pumped at least $277 million (chump change for the richest man on the planet) into Trump's 2024 campaign - for which he's been richly rewarded. Ever worshipful of people who, unlike him, have "real" money, Trump embraced Musk as his new BFF, made him a top adviser, and has now created a whole new government agency just for him. Musk, in return, seldom leaves Trump's side. It's hard to get a photo of Trump without Elon leering over his shoulder. Musk flew into Washington for Trump's Inaugural and hasn't left since.

And he didn't waste any time showing who was in charge. Late last year, when Speaker Mike Johnson made a deal to keep the government running, it was Musk, not Trump, who spoke out and killed the deal. Last week, the day after Trump announced a $500 billion-dollar private-sector partnership to build infrastructure for AI, Musk, not Trump, trashed it. And this week, without consulting top White House aides, Musk, not Trump, sent out an email to 2.3 million federal employees - with no regard for what their jobs were or how well they were performing - encouraging them to resign en masse by September 30.

Musk has also enthusiastically endorsed Trump's plan to deport millions of people who entered the country illegally, even though, as the Washington Post reported, Musk himself violated the law as an immigrant from South Africa by enrolling as a student and never attending any classes - a violation for which he himself would have been deported under Trump's new plan.

Most alarmingly, Musk - again, a top adviser to the president of the United States - addressed a rally of Germany's anti-semitic, right-wing political party, the Alternative for Germany, whose co-founder has dismissed the Holocaust as nothing but "a speck of bird poop" in the history of Germany. Musk, in turn, encouraged Germans to "get over" the Holocaust and forget about any "past guilt."

Elon Musk's exalted status in the Trump White House should concern anyone who loves democracy. The oligarchy is here. We're not only stuck with a president totally unfit for office, we're saddled with a powerful co-president who wasn't elected to anything.

(C)2025 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

One thing Donald Trump can never be accused of: getting off to a slow start. After the most divisive inaugural address in history - delivered on the "scene of the crime" - he hurried to sign 26 executive orders, 12 memos and four proclamations which, among other abuses of power, revoked 78 of former President Biden's executive actions and, most shockingly, issued "full, complete, and unconditional pardons" to some 1,500 MAGA supporters who, at his urging, had rampaged through that same Capitol Rotunda four years ago.

Of course, Trump had made his promise to pardon the Jan. 6 criminals, whom he called "patriots," a central plank of his campaign. Yet nobody (but Trump) expected it to be so wholesale. Just eight days before the inauguration, vice president-elect J.D. Vance told Fox News that nobody who assaulted police officers would get clemency. "If you committed violence that day, obviously you shouldn't be pardoned," he said. In her confirmation hearing, attorney general nominee Pam Bondi assured senators she'd consider Jan. 6 pardons on a "case by case" basis, vowing no tolerance for anyone guilty of "violence on any law enforcement officer."

But Trump made no such distinction. "F-k it, release 'em all," he ordered, as one adviser reported to Axios. And, on Jan. 20, in one of the most shameful moments ever seen in American politics, cowardly Republican Senators lustily applauded Trump as he announced pardons for the armed thugs who sent them running for their lives just four years ago. There's not one backbone in the whole bunch.

Now, here's the problem. It's the same problem reporters had a hard time dealing with in 2017. We call it the "fire-hose" problem. Trump tells so many lies and does so many crazy things at the same time, it's impossible to track them all and report on them in depth. No matter how outrageous his Jan. 6 pardons, for example, they were quickly buried by news, the next day, that he was sending American troops to the southern border.

But, this time around, the media needs to slow down and give each outrage the attention it deserves - starting with the wholesale Jan. 6 pardons. Just saying "Trump pardoned 1,500 people" doesn't do the job. To tell the whole story, you have to look into who they are and what they were charged with. Here are just four examples.

David Dempsey. California. According to prosecutors, he assaulted police officers by "swinging pole-like weapons more than 20 times, spraying chemical agents at least three times, hurling objects at officers at least 10 times, stomping on the heads of police officers as he perched above them five times, attempting to steal a riot shield and baton, and incessantly hurling threats and insults at police while rallying other rioters to join his onslaught." Sentenced to prison for 20 years.

Shane Jenkins. Texas. Charged with using a metal tomahawk to shatter a Capitol window and, once inside, hurling "nine different objects at police, including a solid wooden desk drawer, a flagpole, a metal walking stick and a broken wooden pole with a spear-like point, which he launched like a javelin." Sentenced to seven years.

Julian Khater. Pennsylvania. Pleaded guilty to assaulting police with a deadly weapon and aiming pepper spray at several officers, including Brian Sicknick, who suffered a stroke and died the next day. Sentenced to 80 months.

Thomas Webster. Retired New York police officer. Convicted of assaulting a DC police officer with a metal flagpole, then throwing him to the ground and attempting to rip off his gas mask as other rioters kicked the downed officer. Sentenced to 10 years in prison.

More than 150 police officers were injured on Jan. 6. Six died shortly thereafter. But, thanks to Donald Trump, nobody will ever be held accountable. Today all four of the above, along with 596 others charged with "assaulting, resisting, or impeding law enforcement" - 200 of whom were additionally charged with using a "deadly or dangerous weapon" against police officers - are free. Why? Because Donald Trump believes that he and his supporters are above the law.

The message Trump's J6 pardons send could not be more clear. The Republican Party's creed is now: Political violence, as long as it's done by our side, is good. It's even OK to assault police officers. In the future, don't hesitate to destroy, burn, attack, or kill - because we've got your back.

That's Donald Trump's America. But that's not the America I believe in. I don't think most Americans believe in it, either.

(C)2025 Tribune Content Agency, LLC. 

One of the great joys of living in Washington is access to the great Smithsonian museums, all free to the public. But no matter where you go in Washington, you can't escape politics. As I realized again this week, visiting one of the greatest art exhibitions I've ever seen, "The Impressionist Moment," at the National Gallery.

Over five years, the National Gallery, under the leadership of Curator Mary Morton, assembled an amazing selection of paintings first shown at two competing art shows in Paris in 1874: classical, established artists at the government-sponsored Salon de Paris; and younger, renegade artists at the first gathering of Impressionists.

A longtime fan of Impressionism, it was nevertheless a painting from the Salon that caught my attention: "The Good Samaritan" by Jean-Jacques Henner. Yet, while admiring that powerful portrayal of a passer-by stopping to help the victim of a robbery left lying beaten and half-dead by the side of the road, I couldn't help but wonder: What if that had been Donald Trump, just passing by?

No doubt how Trump would have handled it. Before offering any assistance, his first question would have been: not "How can I help?" but "Whom did you vote for in the last election?" Which is exactly how Trump is treating victims of the Los Angeles wildfires.

This is nothing new for Trump. In his first term, he turned disaster relief upside down. He showed no empathy for victims of earthquakes, floods, or fires. For him, every natural disaster was simply one more opportunity for him to play politics by telling lies, attacking state and local leaders and withholding aid from parts of the country that didn't vote for him.

As reported by The Guardian, former Trump administration officials admit that the former president initially refused to release federal disaster aid for wildfires in California in 2018, withheld wildfire assistance for Washington state in 2020, and severely restricted emergency relief to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria in 2017 - only because he felt these places were not sufficiently supportive of him. But months later, according to Gov. Ron DeSanti s' memoir, Trump promised to pay 100 percent of Florida's costs after Hurricane Michael because "They love me in the Panhandle."

Last October, in the wake of Hurricane Helene, Trump falsely accused the Biden administration of withholding relief from Republican areas of North Carolina and, again falsely, accused FEMA of redirecting its funds to help undocumented immigrants.

That same pattern's now playing out in the deadly Los Angeles wildfires. While outgoing president Joe Biden pledged to pay all costs of relocating victims and cleaning up debris for 180 days, incoming president Donald Trump - ignoring the evidence of record 100-mph winds and near-zero rainfall in Southern California since last summer - is using the wildfires as an opportunity for political payback. He smeared Gov. Gavin Newsom as "Newscum." He blamed Newsom for causing the wildfires. "This is all his fault," he declared on Truth Social - for not signing a "water restoration document" in 2019 - a document state officials say simply did not exist. He accused Californians of "not maintaining" their forests.

True to form, Trump has also renewed his threat to withhold any additional disaster assistance to Southern California. Demanding that Newsom send more water south (Has he ever heard of the California Water Project?). Trump told a rally in Coachella, California, last fall: "Gavin, if you don't do it, we're not giving you any of that money that we send you all the time for the fire, forest fires, you have."

And now, ever-ready to bend the knee, House Speaker "Maga Mike" Johnson has vowed that any congressional relief to California will only come with "strings attached," demanding changes in the state's water policy and management of natural resources - conditions notably lacking in aid Trump sent to GOP-controlled states hammered by hurricanes.

Trump is holding victims of California's devastating wildfires hostage. He first spread disinformation about reservoirs being empty (they were not) and FEMA running out of money (it had not). Next he ignored the contributing factors of historic winds, months-long drought and climate change. Then, in effect, he told fire victims: "I don't care how badly you're suffering. If you don't change your policies and politics, you're not going to get any help from me."

It's a cruel and heartless perversion of disaster relief, which, as every first-responder knows, is first and foremost to help people in trouble. Period. Republican or Democrat. No questions asked, no politics involved. Somebody should tell Donald Trump.

(C)2025 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Two presidents in Washington: one welcome, one not

Here's how I'd sum up this week in Washington: I wouldn't walk across the street to say hello to Donald Trump. But I waited in line for two and a half hours, most of it outside in 29-degree cold and snow, to say goodbye to Jimmy Carter.

And I was hardly alone. Washington's dignitaries celebrated Carter's life on Tuesday afternoon. But then doors were open to the public. And Tuesday, Wednesday, and early Thursday morning, thousands braved the winter cold to walk by Carter's flag-draped casket in the Capitol Rotunda.

I must admit, I was blown away by the public response. Not only by the size of the crowd, but by its make-up. These were no big-shots, just average, working- class Americans of all stripes and sizes: older, younger, Black, white, Asian, families with kids, members of the military, current and former federal employees, a group of Dominican seminarians, many people who weren't even born yet when Jimmy Carter was president, some sporting "Carter/Mondale" campaign buttons, locals from the D.C. area and some who traveled from far away.

From those I talked to and conversations I overheard while standing in line, they were all there for one reason: out of respect and love for the man Jimmy Carter and the values he brought to the White House. "He was such an inspiration to me when I was just 17," one man told me. "He was what I thought every president should be like." "I don't understand this rap that he wasn't a good president," another man argued. "Look at all he got done in four years."

Capitol Hill reporters reflected comments shared by everyone they interviewed. They said they came to honor Jimmy Carter because he was "a humble man," "a leader," "a man of faith," "a fine person," "a good, decent man," "a man known for his civility and humility." Ironically, those same sentiments were echoed in eulogies delivered by Republican leaders of Congress. Speaker Mike Johnson praised Carter as "a man who modeled the virtues of service and citizenship." Senate Republican Leader John Thune noted that, unlike other politicians, in coming to Washington, Carter  "did not come to be served, but to serve."

One thing for sure: None of those phrases will ever be uttered to describe Donald Trump, dead or alive. The contrast between the revered former president and the disgraced president-elect could not be greater. Donald Trump is the antithesis of Jimmy Carter: a pathological liar, a convicted felon, a serial sexual abuser, an egomaniac and a man who cares about nobody but himself.

Which he proved once again this week. Trump was so furious that Carter was stealing all the media attention that, at the very moment President Carter's casket was arriving in the Capitol for the historic trip up Pennsylvania Avenue to the U.S. Capitol, he suddenly staged a news conference at Mar-a-Lago where he condemned Carter for making a historic treaty with Panama over control of the Panama Canal.

Then, the very next day, Trump had the audacity to show up in the Rotunda to walk by Carter's casket. And Thursday, uninvited by the family, he planted himself in the front pew for Carter's state funeral in the National Cathedral. For Trump, hypocrisy has no bounds. Just when you think he can sink no lower, he does.

But not even Trump's unwelcome presence in Washington this week could destroy the air of good feelings about Jimmy Carter. People turned out to honor Carter because he was a president they could relate to. As president, he often ate out at local restaurants (not only at the one restaurant that had his name on it). He sent his daughter to a local public school. He carried his own bags at the airport. He helped build houses on Benning Road in Southeast Washington, still lived in by low-income families. He joined First Baptist Church, just a couple of blocks from the White House, where he and Rosalyn attended services 70 times and where he taught Sunday School for four years as president.

It's comforting to believe, if only for this moment, that these are values the majority of Americans still believe in. Still the question remains: Why did so many Americans vote for just the opposite?

As I heard more than one person remark about Jimmy Carter, "He's the type of president we don't see anymore." No, and we won't see one like it for the next four years, either. Sigh!

(C)2025 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
 

The media's disgraceful surrender to Donald Trump

Despite the gloom and doom surrounding the results of November 5, it would be nice to end the year with a glimmer of hope: the certainty that at least one guardrail against a Trump dictatorship was still in place. Alas, that's not the case.

Two other guardrails, the courts and the Congress, were already lost. The Roberts' Supreme Court has already signaled that Trump can do anything he wants, and they'll do nothing to stop him. And today's feckless Republican senators and representatives are so afraid of Trump, they'll vote for anything and anybody he wants, even an alleged alcoholic and sexual abuser for Secretary of Defense and a vaccine and fluoride denier for Secretary of Health and Human Services.

But not all was lost, we thought momentarily. We still had the media. We had our watchdogs in the press. They'd still be on the job, telling the truth, informing the American people and holding Donald Trump accountable.

Nope! Forget about that third guardrail. As we move closer to the autocracy Trump has threatened, there will be no leaders in the media to stand up for democracy. Why? Not because Trump shut them down. He didn't have to. Because, in a disgraceful, colossal act of "anticipatory obedience," media owners have thrown in the towel. One by one, some of the biggest names in the media have waved the white flag of surrender.

The Washington Post. Before November 5, owner Jeff Bezos killed an editorial endorsing Kamala Harris. Shortly after Trump's election, Bezos said he was "actually very optimistic" about Trump's second term. This week, he made the obligatory trek to Mar-a-Lago to kiss Trump's ring (?) and donate $1 million to the Trump Inauguration Fund.

Meta. Once one of Trump's biggest critics - who even kicked Trump off Facebook - Meta owner Mark Zuckerberg also made the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago, kissed Trump's ring (?), and kicked $1 million into the Inaugural Fund.

MSNBC. Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, hosts of "Morning Joe" and outspoken Trump critics, were the first to rush to Mar-a-Lago to embrace Trump - and later aired an on-air apology to comments critical of Trump's defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth made by guest David Frum.

The Los Angeles Times. Owner Patrick Soon-Shiong also killed his paper's planned endorsement of Kamala Harris. Since the election, he's announced plans to apply a "media bias test" to the paper's future political reporting. Last week, he nixed an editorial opposing the Senate's use of recess appointments, instead of the constitutional confirmation process, to consider Trump Cabinet nominations - unless the paper also ran another editorial expressing the opposite point of view.

ABC News. In the most shocking display of media cowardice, ABC News suddenly announced it was caving in, settling Trump's defamation lawsuit against the network and donating $15 million to a future Trump presidential museum. ABC surrendered without a fight, even though most legal scholars said there was no way Trump would win the case. Host George Stephanopoulos did not defame Trump when he said he'd been found "liable of rape" by a New York jury - because that's exactly what the judge in the case said on the record.

And what did these media moguls expect to get from Trump in return for their slobbering kiss on the cheek? Respect? Cooperation? Support? No more accusations of "fake news?"

Fuhgeddaboudit! At a news conference this week, Trump again charged that "Our press is very corrupt, almost as corrupt as our elections" - and then proceeded to file a lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and pollster Ann Selzer for releasing a pre-election poll showing Kamala Harris ahead in Iowa by three points. She was wrong. Trump won Iowa. But Trump still accuses the Register and Selzer of "election interference." He's also promised to sue CBS News, Politico and the Washington Post's Bob Woodward.

Watching this embarrassing parade of media moguls bending the knee, it was chilling to see this headline in The Hill: "Trump Settlement with ABC Alarms Democrats." What? Alarms Democrats? No! ABC's surrender should alarm us all. And so should the efforts of Bezos, Zuckerberg, Soon-Shiong and others to cozy up to Trump.

Why? Because it means, out of fear of Trump, that many in the media will be prevented from doing their job: providing transparency, telling the truth and holding politicians accountable. And without a fearless free press, we're lost. As Walter Cronkite warned: "Freedom of the press is not just important to democracy, it is democracy." You can bet he wouldn't be crawling to Mar-a-Lago.

(C)2024 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

No defending this wannabe secretary of defense

It's a ritual as old as America. A new president is elected. He then selects the leaders of his team, who are subject to confirmation by the Senate based on their experience and qualifications for the office to which they were nominated.

There's only one thing lacking today: a laugh-out loud test, whereby some nominees would never be seriously considered because they're so manifestly unfit for office. Instead, they'd be immediately dismissed by leaders of both parties as some kind of sick joke.

Too bad it doesn't exist today, because there are several of Donald Trump's nominees who wouldn't pass the laugh test. Like Tulsi Gabbard, who couldn't even qualify for a national security clearance, as director of National Intelligence. Like Kash Patel, who vows to shut down FBI Headquarters, as the agency's new director. Like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who vows to wipe all protection against measles, polio, Covid and other infectious diseases, as secretary of Health and Human Services.

But nobody embodies the laugh test more than Pete Hegseth, Trump's nominee to be the next secretary of Defense, whose only real job was as a second-rate, weekend Fox News host. It's hard to imagine a less qualified candidate.

The Department of Defense is America's largest government agency, with almost 3 million employees, including 1.4 million active-duty personnel. Hegseth has no executive or senior command experience, and has no background in the defense industry, Congress or federal government - traditional training grounds for defense secretary. Not only that, he's called for firing the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for being too "woke," has insisted "we should not have women in combat zones," vocally supported soldiers accused of war crimes and said that having gay people serve in the military is part of a "Marxist" agenda.

Hegseth also has a history of serious behavioral problems with alcohol and sexual abuse. As reported by the New Yorker and CBS News, he was "pushed out" as head of Concerned Veterans of America because of "being "repeatedly intoxicated while acting in his official capacity -- to the point of needing to be carried out of the organization's events." NBC News aired reports by 10 Fox News staffers about Hegseth's alcohol abuse, including smelling alcohol on his breath before his going on the air, being called on the carpet by Fox management for alcohol-induced misbehavior at a Fox Christmas party and getting so drunk at a producer's wedding he had trouble standing in the men's bathroom and friends arranged a ride home so he could make it to the studio the next morning. As Atlantic columnist David Frum joked on "Morning Joe," "If you're too drunk for Fox News, you're very, very drunk indeed."

And, of course, Hegseth also faces multiple accusations of serial extramarital affairs and sexual abuse: at Concerned Veterans of America, at Fox News, and, most notably, in a 2017 Monterey, California, incident where he was accused of raping a local Republican political leader. No charges were filed, and Hegseth denies doing anything wrong. Rapists always do. Just ask DJT.

But Hegseth's serial sexual abuse was bad enough for his mother to tell him via email: "You are an abuser of women - that is the ugly truth and I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego."

OK, you can understand why Donald Trump would appoint someone like Hegseth. Birds of a feather! But how can Republican senators even consider taking him seriously? It doesn't pass the laugh test!

Our men and women in the military are required to adhere to a high standard of moral behavior. It's drilled into every recruit. The Pentagon has very severe penalties for anyone caught intoxicated while on duty - and very strong rules, although not always strictly enforced, against sexual misconduct. Because of his history of alcohol and sexual abuse, Pete Hegseth would never be considered for a senior military command, or would be stripped of his rank, if already an officer. Yet spineless Senate Republicans, who used to brag about supporting the military, now appear willing to ignore Hegseth's alarming personal behavior and force him on the Pentagon - because that's what their "dear leader" wants.

Hegseth's nomination is an insult to anyone who's ever worn the uniform and to every brave man and woman wearing it today. They are patriots. They are heroes. They deserve better: a leader who sets an example, not one they'll be embarrassed by.

(C)2024 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.