Steve Bannon suggested deporting Elon Musk out of the country, the New York Times reports.
Said Bannon: “They should initiate a formal investigation of his immigration status because I am of the strong belief that he is an illegal alien, and he should be deported from the country immediately,”
New York Times: “If there’s one core similarity between Elon Musk and President Trump, it’s that they share many of their immediate, fleeting thoughts unfiltered online.”
“For years, the two men have built huge followings sharing their perspectives online. Now, on different sides of a monumental breakup, Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump are dealing with it as they always have: by posting through it.”
“Mike Johnson has spent his 19 months as speaker forging a close relationship with President Donald Trump — in part to avoid the social-media bombshells that derailed so many Republican priorities during Trump’s first term,” Politico reports.
“Now he has to deal with another, perhaps even more unpredictable online bomb-thrower.”
“Elon Musk’s decision to launch a sudden scorched-earth campaign against the GOP’s domestic-policy megabill has forced Johnson into a sudden scramble to save the centerpiece of the Republican legislative agenda.”
Elon Musk ratcheted up his feud with President Trump and said SpaceX will ground Dragon, the spacecraft NASA uses to service the International Space Station.
Said Musk: “In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.”
“Israel has reassured the White House that it won’t launch an attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities unless President Trump signals negotiations with Iran have failed,” Axios reports.
David Graham: “From the moment Elon Musk bounded onstage, midriff bared, to campaign for Donald Trump, cynics predicted that the two men’s egos were too large to allow for a lasting alliance. Improbably, however, the bond persisted, despite the rocky rollout of the U.S. DOGE Service, disagreements over legislation, and even covers of The New Yorker and Time that seemed designed to troll Trump and drive a wedge between the men.”
“Now it seems the cynics weren’t wrong—just premature in their predictions. A feud that simmered all week broke into outright hostility this afternoon, with Trump appearing to threaten to cancel all of the contracts and tax subsidies Musk’s companies have with the government, and Musk alleging that Trump hasn’t released files related to Jeffrey Epstein because he’s implicated in them. The falling-out feels both inevitable and still shocking.”
Reuters: “The feud, which exploded in spectacular fashion over the course of a few hours, pushed shares of electric vehicle maker Tesla down dramatically. The company, where Musk serves as CEO, closed down 14.3% for the day and lost about $150 billion in value after Trump and Musk began their war of words.”
“Billionaire Elon Musk targeted congressional Republican leaders Thursday, attacking Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Minority Leader John Thune on social media over the cost of Donald Trump’s domestic agenda after openly breaking with the president,” Politico reports.
“Musk shared two previous social media posts from Johnson and Thune where the GOP leaders had voiced concern about the budget deficit and national debt and added: ‘Where is the Mike Johnson of 2023!?’ and ‘Where is the John Thune of 2020??'”
Elon Musk on X:
“Time to drop the really big bomb: Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!”
President Trump on Truth Social:
“The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”
Elon Musk seemed to suggest support of a third political party as he escalated a growing fight with President Trump that boiled over on Thursday, The Hill reports.
He asked his 200 million followers on X: “Is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle?”
“The inexperienced 22-year-old reportedly tasked by Donald Trump with tackling U.S. extremism was working as a neighborhood gardener just five years ago and in a grocery store as recently as August 2023,” the Daily Beast reports.
“Long-simmering tensions between President Trump and Elon Musk burst into the open on Thursday, as the two men traded barbs and insults, signaling the rupturing of a relationship that had been one of the most consequential in modern American politics,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“For months, Trump and Musk had enjoyed a marriage of convenience, and the White House granted the billionaire a long leash to express his opinions publicly as he worked to cut spending through his Department of Government Efficiency. They publicly praised each other, even as frustrations festered behind the scenes.”
“When Musk aired his initial criticisms of the tax and spending package, Trump held his tongue, hoping to maintain a strong relationship with the billionaire. But Musk’s decision in recent days to ratchet up his attacks on the bill in recent days made their uneasy alliance unsustainable.”
Mediaite: “Cable news hasn’t been quite wall-to-wall with its coverage, but it’s been a big story on Fox News and CNN. One cable network, however, has deemed it not newsworthy and decided to ignore it entirely: MSNBC.”
“According to transcript searches for her name (and its many iterations), MSNBC has not mentioned Jean-Pierre’s name once on air since news of her political conversation broke Wednesday. By comparison, Fox News has mentioned her name 72 times in that period, and CNN has cited her name 44 times. Again: MSNBC? Zero.”
President Trump was making comments in the Oval Office and Elon Musk was responding in real time:
TRUMP: I would have won Pennsylvania regardless of Elon.
MUSK: Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate. Such ingratitude.
“Senate Republicans are eyeing possible Medicare provisions to help offset the cost of their megabill as they try to appease budget hawks who want more spending cuts embedded in the legislation,” Politico reports.
“Making changes to Medicare, the federal health insurance program primarily serving seniors, would be a political longshot: It would face fierce backlash from some corners of the Senate GOP, not to mention across the Capitol, where Medicare proposals were floated but didn’t gain traction.”
“But Senate Republicans are now seriously considering it as they race to pass their party-line tax and spending package before a self-imposed July 4 deadline. The idea came up in closed-door meetings this week and, crucially, some Republicans believe President Donald Trump is on board with touching the program as long as it’s limited to ‘waste, fraud and abuse.'”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
