Trump has promised Musk major role in overseeing government spending in any future Trump administration
Donald Trump’s estranged niece is accusing the former president of having a “new owner” because of his increasingly close relationship with tech billionaire Elon Musk.
“Donald Trump has always been for sale,” Mary Trump wrote in a Substack post on Saturday.
“Given this decades-long pattern, it’s not surprising that the world’s richest fascist, South African jumping bean Elon Musk, would also be interested in purchasing a few shares in a man who is willing to sell whatever he can get his hands on —whether it’s steaks or American national security — because he values money more than anything,” she added.
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That alone should disqualify him from office. If you can’t hold a security clearance, you shouldn’t be able to run for any office, let alone POTUS.
They letchya do it when ur (pretend) rich
Even when the wealth is literally from foreign “investments” (bonus if obvious enemies) and criminal activity (tax avoidance, money laundering, fraud stocks, crypto, etc).
SCROTUS absolutely fucked us with Citizens United. “MoNeY = SpEeCh!?” Congress failed us by not passing campaign finance reform or any relevant laws. Americans failed us by being easily influenced by political ads and generally brain dead.
If they did this, Trump could just rescind clearance from all Dems. Unfortunately, this is up to the voters.
All compromised Dems? Sounds like a good idea. And I assume he would need to do it by proxy since he currently has only citizen powers.
I meant obviously while he was in office for the 2020 election. Just because it’s too late now doesn’t mean it’s a good idea for the future.
Potentially letting a political rival decide who is compromised is obviously not a good idea no matter who is in charge to make that decision.
Well someone is already deciding based on the ability to get a security clearance. And if being “Don citizen” and not able to get a security clearance at all, how should that person be allowed an office that needs a Top Secret clearance level?
Also it shouldn’t be up to Trump, or anyone he appoints (or that any president appoints).
So the question becomes who should that person be and how should they be assigned/appointed to that position and who has authority over them if they become corrupted?
Ultimately, that has to come down to the Executive (under the President), Legislative (confirmed like judges and subject to filibuster and the whole legislative process), maybe the Judiciary if you can find a way to wrangle that, which would put them under the authority of the Supreme Court, or appointed by direct election (which would 99% likely mean it just swings whichever way the President swings anyway).
That is the way our government works and none of these solve the problem of politicizing who gets clearances and who doesn’t.
Traditionally, this is under the authority of the President and he doesn’t ever get involved because why the fuck should he? But just like the Postmaster bullshit with DeJoy, the President can decide he’s going to take direct control (by firing the old person and appointing someone amenable to his wishes).
The only protection we have is for the American people to look at their own candidate and say, “No, he’s up to some bullshit and I will not support that.” And far too many of us simply won’t do that. Yeah, that skews right which means Republicans get away with more shit than Democrats do.
There is not a political solution to human nature.
There’s no such thing as an impartial procews that includes humans. Biases will come out either consciously or subconsciously.
Why/ how? There is an application process and disqualifying criteria for a security clearance. The suggestion is that if you can’t pass that process you should not be let in on any confidential information.
You think it is simple because Trump is so obviously not a good faith actor, but let’s pretend he gets elected again (possibility). He declared everyone against him (not just Dems) enemies of the state and ineligible to hold office. This reminds me of Russia, oh wait he would like that.
Unfortunately our democracy hinges on whether or not we can convince our fellow citizens that freedom matters and to over vote. Winning by 51% isn’t enough. In order to make effective change, the Dems would need to win and get a supermajority in the house and Senate. And THEN DECIDE to give up power to change our government to a STAR vote or ranked choice style. Some form of representation democracy so that our politians would have to negotiate properly. Citizens United needs to go along with the part of the judicial that was installed because of the fascist movement of the heritage foundation.
I just doubt this will happen. It is possible, but I’m not sure how. The left never has enough resources to play the decades long game. They(conservatives) were manipulating the media in the early 1900 to stop progressive movements. They delayed Teddy Roosevelt getting into office. After he did get in and people saw how effective and popular progressive movements were, they decide to work against it. They still are. They just bought all the media empires now, so it is easier.
The people ultimately in charge of that work serve at the pleasure of the President. He could simply fire people until someone does what he wants. Same thing he did with the Justice department. It also could be as simple as an executive order, but I really don’t know that much about that level of the process.
And a lot of the criteria are determined by regulation IIRC.
Meaning that the president can order the agencies to update the regulations, and say that in addition to communist party membership being disqualifying, Democrat party membership is now also disqualifying. (More likely a more plausible sounding reason would be picked but the result would be the same - exploiting a loophole to prevent your opponents from running against you.)
Sadly, it doesn’t work that way. The President has absolute authority over the process. In fact, someone can fail the security check and be refused security clearance and the president can wave his hand and give that person full clearance. How do I know? It’s been done.
The sources say the CIA has not granted Kushner clearance to review SCI material. That would mean Kushner lacks access to key intelligence unless President Donald Trump decides to override the rules, which is the president’s’ prerogative.
Which, by the way, he did. Intelligence agencies said Kushner should not have any level of clearance but Trump gave him clearance to everything.
If you can’t hold a security clearance, you shouldn’t be able to run for any office, let alone POTUS.
It’s 2019. Biden is running against Trump. Trump arranges for Biden’s security clearance to be revoked. Trump is now running unopposed.
There’s no way Musk owns Trump … Putin would never sell him.
No, Putin has a controlling interest in the stock (and is unlikely to sell enough to lose that controlling percentage), but he did sell Elon a significant interest in Trump.
It’s a time share
I hope his ROI on this is worse than his Twitter purchase.
The value of twitter was what he is using it for… the money is irrelevant.
It’s un/believable the man isn’t in prison yet. The head spinning part are the people that that still believe in him.
My very conservative parent and step are disgusted with djt and one has said they’re voting Harris, the other hasn’t expressed a candidate. Their good friend down the street actively encouraged me to not trust the lawyer.
I’m seeing that too. Moderate conservatives who want normal back are voting for Harris.
And remember that thing with McCain? As much as some people liked him, some of them didn’t vote for him because they couldn’t stand Palin. A bit of that happening now, the disgust with Vance is pushing people over to vote Harris. One stated Trump would probably die of unhealthy old age in office and they couldn’t risk “that bearded turd” becoming President.
Trump’s niece doesn’t know anything more than the rest of us. And, even if Trump did “promise” Musk a key government role, we all know how likely he is to keep his promises.
But, what Musk is doing is clever, though evil. He’s ingratiating himself to Trump. If Trump is elected, he won’t consider Musk an enemy which is absolutely key, and might throw Musk a bone. If Harris is elected, she’ll govern using traditional norms and values, which means not vindictively prosecuting people who helped her political opponent, even a guy who went right up to the line of what’s legal in trying to get Trump elected.
Heads Musk wins. Tails he doesn’t lose.
If Harris is elected, she’ll govern using traditional norms and values
You’re right, but it probably also means she’ll keep FTC chair Lina Khan as chair of the FTC. As chair she’s been aggressive, in a good way. Musk and the FTC haven’t gotten along much over the past few years and I expect with more time the FTC with Khan in charge will cause problems for Musk, who continues to violate obvious laws and regulations.
So tails probably isn’t just doesn’t lose, it’s probably a real loss.
You’re right, but it probably also means she’ll keep FTC chair Lina Khan as chair of the FTC
I really hope so, but we’ll see. There has been a lot of pressure from rich democratic donors to dump her.
I admit it is a hope and not a guarantee. However I also learned that unless the President takes an active role and nominates someone (and they are confirmed), then the current member can just continue in their role as an acting member/chair.
So depending on the political climate, Khan may be able to just quietly continue her work.
The best thing about Khan is that there’s nothing quiet about her work.
Oh I agree. By quietly I just mean without undue political interference.
Ms. Khan has been chair of the FTC since 2021. When did she start aggressively pursuing big business illegal activities, and why are we only hearing about them this year?
- From Dec 2022, https://www.npr.org/2022/12/08/1141613281/ftc-microsoft-activision-blizzard
- From July 2023, https://apnews.com/article/republicans-ftc-khan-technology-companies-41610756160e10732f7ded6c587cec0e
- From Jan 2024, https://apnews.com/article/ftc-antitrust-inquiry-openai-chatgpt-microsoft-anthropic-google-amazon-67feef411ef311f0be543f546ef34b3d
As a few quick examples of the work (not necessarily success).
Wikipedia probably has a better outline, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Trade_Commission#Biden_administration
I’m assuming we’re hearing about it more since it’s an election year.
I admit I’m far from an expert on the subject and position. I didn’t follow much until I saw her interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, https://youtu.be/oaDTiWaYfcM
Thank you, I look forward to reading those sources.
I upvoted because you’re probably right but I hate both you and myself for it.
What a fugly couple of mugs. Why do popular bad people look like that as they obviously obsessed with their own image? I remember Zuckerberg had something for a particular roman politician thus maintaining this weird hair thing, but then we have OpenAI guy who looks like he’s one of Dexter’s villains, and also these guys. Are they intentionally working on their Dr Evil persona or what? It’s not that they should be visually pleasuring to me, like no one, but with my small sample size and bias it seems to me that it’s some trend.
Sam Bankman Fried wanted FTX headquarters to look like his hair.
I’ve got hair like his.
Just not on my head.
What. I need some time to process it.
A tech billionaire responsible for creating the laws his own companies run under? What could go wrong.
Has musk even paid anything?
There was that time he said he’d donate to a pac, and then didn’t.
Is this just because he owns Twitter and has a bunch of the same followers as trump? If so, does trump really think people would pick musk over him?
Genuinely this dynamic is really confusing to me.
I guess the only explanation I can think of is that Trump was always a stooge for the billionaires, and Elon has appointed himself their representative
Musk is a liar. He said he wasn’t going to donate to Trump in July when news leaked about his 45mil/month promise, but he was already donating, and is still donating now.
This week, there was more proof that Musk has put his money where his mouth has been. According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, Musk poured tens of millions of dollars into Republican campaigns and conservative groups even before he publicly endorsed Donald Trump in July. Conservatives helped conceal Musk’s contributions through so-called social welfare or “dark money” groups that do not have to disclose their donors and can raise unlimited funds. (Musk did not respond to the Journal’s request for comment.)
One piece of reporting stood out. The newspaper found that the tech billionaire donated more than $50 million in 2022 for campaign advertisements by Citizens for Sanity, a group connected to former Trump aide Stephen Miller and his non-profit America First Legal, which bills itself as “the long-awaited answer to the ACLU.”
Musk has also directly aligned himself with Trump, founding a super PAC called America PAC to get 800,000 people to vote for the former president in key battleground states. According to the Guardian, Trump’s ground operation in swing states are now mostly outsourced to America PAC, and Business Insider said that Musk is now shelling out millions to Republicans in 15 competitive House races. Yesterday, Politico reported that America PAC was teaming up with Turning Point Action, the political advocacy division of Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA, to fund hundreds of “ballot chasers” in Wisconsin.
Hes also dumped at least 300k in to general GOP races directly:
The National Republican Congressional Committee reported receiving $289,100 from Musk in August, according to its report filed with the Federal Election Commission Friday.
Alright, that’s what I’m looking for, thanks!
America™©® brought to you by Elon Musk™
Fucking disgusting…
You have forgotten about the currency that Trump usually deals in, something called “quid pro quo.”
Sure, but what’s the quid?
Genuinely, they don’t really seem to have much in common beyond being ideologically fascist, and if that’s what it is, that’s what should be discussed
There’s actually quite a lot that’s blatantly out in the open right now. Here’s Trump virtually saying outright that he trades government positions for political support.
That’s just what the public knows. There’s surely a lot more sinister quid pro quo behind the scenes.
I think because Elon can let him run whatever he wants on Twitter unchecked (disinformation or whatever), and because Elon is all in on grifting crypto bros that Trump is hoping to pull in for their votes before they notice the con.
Not only their votes, but also their tech. Musk has numerous working schemes to put up some new grifts like TrumpCoins to support Donald’s shady businesses with these if they are not looked into - that he would guarantee. Elon looks like a guy who knows how to handle weird transactions, at least to him, and Twitter purchase showed that.
I’m a Republican who KNOWS the Deep State is out to Get Me and THAT’S why I’m Voting for the Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein Friend who’s Bankrolled by the RICHEST MAN IN THE WORLD! Because they OBVIOUSLY will Drain The Swamp!
Start referring to trump as President Musk. That’ll sour the milk fast.
lol, that picture can’t be real. Look at that https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/10/09/20/GettyImages-2176083179.jpg?quality=75&width=640&auto=webp
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Government contractor to set spending of government. Nothing wrong with that at face value at…all…
