Trump Changes the Subject

Playbook: “Elon Musk’s row with the GOP — and by extension, with Trump himself — had escalated through the day. Musk had continued his relentless attacks on Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill,’ dropping another 32 hostile posts in the hours before Trump took to the stage. Speaker Mike Johnson admitted publicly what Playbook had already told you — that Trump was not impressed. The WSJ had just dropped a buzzy follow-up about the anger in the White House. Almost every major news site was leading on the Musk story for a second-consecutive day.”

“And then, everything changed. At the push of a button just before 7:45 p.m. Trump delivered a blizzard of headline-grabbing announcements which sent even the world’s richest man tumbling down the news agenda. There was something for everyone — a major policy shift on immigration; a vindictive attack on a world-famous U.S. institution; a conspiracy-fueling inquiry into an old political foe. All three were red meat for the MAGA right. And no one was talking about Musk any more.”

“Elon has quite the platform — 220 million followers on one of the world’s most-influential social media platforms. But even Musk cannot compete with the bully pulpit of the American presidency. Musk can only tweet. Trump can pull the levers of power, and with brutal force.”