From massive protests to a puny parade, America really let Donald Trump down | Opinion

 

All he wanted was to celebrate his birthday with a massive military parade that made him look powerful and beloved. Instead he got a derpy, dull parade overshadowed by massive nationwide protests.

(Gazette Blog editor's note: Thanks to USA Today for publishing this column and in doing so reminding us of the importance of a free press.) 

Rex Huppke

USA TODAY

 

Well, Americans, I hope you’re happy with yourselves. You really let President Donald Trump down June 14.

All he wanted was to celebrate his 79th birthday with a massive military parade that made him look powerful, scary and beloved. Instead, thanks to millions of Americans and their stupid First Amendment rights, he got a derpy, dull parade overshadowed by massive nationwide protests denouncing him.

People from Virginia to California and everywhere in between were hoisting signs that said mean things about President Trump like “IF MELANIA DOESN’T HAVE TO LIVE WITH HIM…WHY DO WE?” and “You sucked in Home Alone 2,” referring to the 1992 movie in which Trump had a cameo.

The American Civil Liberties Union, one of the organizers of the "No Kings" protests, said in a statement, “More than five million people nationwide rallied at over 2,100 events across the country, condemning President Trump’s escalating abuses of power.”

Way to go, America. You ruined Trump's parade and made him sad

Nice job, guys. Do you know how hurtful that was for a man who just wanted to have a cool birthday parade that would make him feel like a powerful dictator?

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

While those protests were massive and made a clear and peaceful point that Americans, only six months into the Trump administration, are fed up, they completely took the shine off the parade in Washington, DC.

Opinion: Trump's military show of force in LA and DC camouflage his failing presidency

The weather there was cloudy with a little rain, the crowd was thin and, while an announcer gave an interesting history of the U.S. Army on its 250th anniversary, the dull pace of tanks and other military vehicles made the event drag.

Troops marched past the VIP section where Trump and administration officials were seated, but they weren’t marching in carefully choreographed lockstep like troops have done in past military parades for notorious authoritarians.

Trump was bored and angry during the parade, while protesters had fun

 

It all felt a bit phoned in and drab. A New York Times reporter noted: “The energy level at the military parade here is a bit desultory.”

And Trump? He looked like a kid who wanted a Nintendo Switch 2 for his birthday and instead got a desultory military parade.

He sulked. He slouched. At one point, the band played an instrumental version of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son,” a famous anti-war song that decried wealthy families able to keep their kids out of the draft during the Vietnam War. That probably made Trump’s bone spurs hurt.

How dare Americans protest instead of bolstering the president's ego

Through it all, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sat next to the president, looking like a guy about to be held accountable for not making the parade “strong” and “huge” enough.

But it wasn’t all Hegseth’s fault. This was the fault of all the Americans who chose to take our president’s special day and make it about America. You meanies decided that standing up against government-sponsored cruelty against immigrants and vast federal overreach was more important than letting the guy behind the government-sponsored cruelty and the overreaching have a glorious parade that would make everyone think he’s awesome.

For shame, Americans. President Trump has been working tirelessly to enrich himself and not do any of the things he said he would do, other than the be-cruel-to-immigrants thing, and this is how you repay him? By making his parade seem puny and sad while making your own grievances seem widespread and legitimate?

A bad weekend led to Trump going off on liberal cities

Trump was so mad about how the weekend went that on the night of June 15 he announced on social media that “we must expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America’s largest Cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, where Millions upon Millions of Illegal Aliens reside. These, and other such Cities, are the core of the Democrat Power Center, where they use Illegal Aliens to expand their Voter Base, cheat in Elections, and grow the Welfare State, robbing good-paying Jobs and Benefits from Hardworking American Citizens. These Radical Left Democrats are sick of mind, hate our Country, and actually want to destroy our Inner Cities.”

Look what you all did! You made the poor man completely lose his mind and start babbling like a maniac who capitalizes words For No reason!

I hope you’re happy with yourselves.

I certainly am. 😈

Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on Bluesky at @rexhuppke.bsky.social and on Facebook at facebook.com/RexIsAJerk

One of Largest Days of Protest in American History

Indivisible Team <info@indivisible.org>

Sat, Jun 14, 7:40 PM (17 hours ago)

"Protesters were peaceful, organized, and above all -- they were brave"

With a few rallies and marches still ongoing, we can already say that No Kings Day is one of the largest days of protest in American history.  From deep red small towns to our largest cities, millions of people turned out to make clear that the American people will not bow to fascism.  The protesters were peaceful, organized, and above all -- they were brave.  Trump has made no secret of his willingness to use force to crush dissent. He’s got tanks rolling through DC and marines in Los Angeles where we’ve all seen (and continue to see) police respond aggressively to peaceful protests. And on top of those authoritarian images, we awoke this morning to the news of horrific political violence in Minnesota, where Democratic Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband were slain and Democratic Sen. John Hoffman and his wife were wounded.  It is a frightening time in our history. But in spite of that reality -- or rather, in response to that reality -- over five million people here in the US, along with allies in cities from London to Tokyo, stood united today in the belief that democracy is worth fighting for.  Please join us on Monday 8pm ET/5pm PT for a national call with No Kings partners on how we continue that fight in the months ahead and build off the energy and momentum of today’s protests.  The scale of today’s mobilization cannot be overstated.  Philadelphia, PA

San Diego, CA

Louisville, KY

Chicago, IL

Hattiesburg, MS

Lambertville, NJ

To get a sense of how much today’s protests eclipsed Trump’s birthday parade, just do a search of virtually any US city on social media. The top results are likely No Kings protests, with videos that show crowd sizes that photos just can’t do justice. 

We’ve said that a massive, nationwide mobilization like today can change the narrative, grow our movement, build our organizing muscles, and deliver a jolt of courage -- something much needed after Trump’s recent attempts to quash dissent with violence.

But a single day of protest -- even historically large protests like today -- will not alone defeat the fascist takeover of our government. 

We need to ensure that the incredible organizing and inspiring courage of today’s protests continue to spread. We need to do the hard work of organizing those who turned out today and those who were watching into a sustained, broad-based movement that’s prepared for the hard work that comes ahead.

"True power comes from the people, and on June 14 we must prove it"

"The aura of inevitability is a lie. It’s all a blatant lie." "Trump will only succeed if everyone agrees to believe the lie." Leah Greenberg Co-Executive Director Indivisible  Over the last six weeks, we’ve gotten the occasional question about why Indivisible, together with our coalition of incredible partners, called for No Kings Day on June 14. Why another protest? What is it going to accomplish? Shouldn’t we be [insert alternate tactic] instead? These are good-faith questions, and they stem from very reasonable concerns. The speed, scope, and scale of the MAGA assault -- on our rights, our neighbors, our democracy -- is staggering. The stakes are enormous. There are days when nothing we’re doing feels sufficient to the magnitude of the horrors we face. Protest is a tactic. And with any tactic, there’s a danger of tactical freeze, of it getting stale, of deploying it without a real strategy in mind. And it’s easy to look at any single protest and ask, “what did that even accomplish? What was the point?” So I want to take a step back and talk about the role of a peaceful mass mobilization like No Kings in the context of our strategic analysis. If you’ve been listening to us over the last few months, you’ve heard us talk about the idea of autocratic breakthrough -- a period when a would-be dictator basically sprints to consolidate their power, crush the institutions and people who could push back, and create a chilling climate for everyone else.  For the would-be dictator, success depends on projecting power and creating an aura of inevitability. They need you to believe that Trump is the new normal, that the MAGA movement will be in power for the long haul, that the only rational move is to go along, keep your head down, and protect your own interests.  We’ve seen over the last six months what happens when this aura of inevitability goes unchallenged. Institutions -- from state governments to businesses to civil society to higher education to media -- start to fall in line, do what Trump tells them, and/or go silent. Here’s the thing: The aura of inevitability is a lie. It’s all a lie. Power in American society doesn’t derive from the top down. Trump’s grasp is brittle, and he’s overreaching dramatically. He will only succeed if everyone agrees to believe the lie. Or, as our friend Reverend Barber says: A king is only a king if we bow down. Countering the aura of inevitability requires a hundred different tactics and strategies. It looks like making an example of Target for obeying in advance and getting rid of its DEI policies. It looks like protesting and toxifying Elon Musk until he bows out of government. It looks like students at Georgetown making a list of Big Law collaborators and organizing their peers to steer clear. It looks like federal workers refusing to obey illegal or unethical orders. It looks like building the muscles and the relationships for collective action. In short, it requires a countless number of people in a countless number of places to do something that the Trump regime doesn’t want them to do, or to NOT do something the Trump regime wants them to do. That’s how we shake off the aura of inevitability and halt the autocratic breakthrough. For that to happen, people need to feel like we’re part of something bigger. We need to understand that we’re part of a movement. We need to feel like we will win. That’s where No Kings comes in. With 1,800 events nationwide, in every state, this will be the single largest protest of this Trump administration. A single mobilization won’t turn this ship around. But it can do a few very important things: Change the narrative. A massive show of popular opposition everywhere in the country can disrupt Trump’s effort to project strength. It shows that resistance is big, powerful, growing, and everywhere. Bring in new people. A mobilization of this scale and scope reaches people who aren’t yet engaged, and -- if done right -- helps to draw them into a cycle of action and relationships on the ground. Foster community. When you show up, you realize that not only are you not alone -- you’re actually part of something enormous. And that helps to build the shared sense of identity we’ll need for the path ahead. Spread courage. After Hands Off!, we heard from people in positions of power within institutions -- law firms, universities (one big university, in fact), and elsewhere -- who told us they were emboldened by the protests to push back on pressure from the Trump regime. As we often say, courage is contagious.  And No Kings comes at an absolutely crucial moment.  Trump and Stephen Miller’s vicious anti-immigrant crackdown has been escalating over the last few months. The scale of the cruelty and terror they’ve created is almost impossible to put into words. And they have been cynically, intentionally sending their masked, unaccountable ICE forces into blue cities and states, communities where no one wants them. They’ve been working overtime to manufacture chaos, so that they have a pretext to deploy military forces to crack down on dissent for all of us. Trump’s birthday parade and his attack on LA are all part of the same agenda of fascist theatrics, divide and conquer politics, and the consolidation of power. Trump wants to look strong. What he doesn’t understand is that true power comes from the people. And on June 14th, we’re going to prove it. If you haven’t found your closest No Kings protest, please check out our map, register, and then help us get out the word by sharing with friends and family.

HISTORY LESSON: We Are Witnessing the First Stages of a Trump Police State

An unarmed protester signals his disdain as he walks through tear gas from Trump stormtroopers.

 

The national guard’s deployment in Los Angeles sets the US on a familiar authoritarian pathway. History shows the results.

 

Robert Reich / Guardian UK

 

Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich. (photo: Steve Russell/Toronto Star)

 

10 June 25

Now that Donald Trump’s tariffs have been halted, his big, beautiful bill has been stymied, and his multi-billionaire tech bro has turned on him, how does he demonstrate his power?

On Friday morning, federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the FBI, and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) conducted raids across Los Angeles – including at two Home Depots and a clothing wholesaler – in search of workers who they suspected of being undocumented immigrants.

Though figures vary, they reportedly arrested 121 people.

They were met with protesters who chanted and threw eggs before being dispersed by police wearing riot gear, holding shields, and using batons, guns that shoot pepper balls, rubber bullets, teargas, and flash-bang grenades.

On Saturday, Trump escalated the confrontations, ordering at least 2,000 national guard troops to be deployed in Los Angeles county to help quell the protests.

He said that any demonstration that got in the way of immigration officials would be considered a “form of rebellion.” Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, called the protests an “insurrection”.

On Saturday evening, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, threatened to deploy active-duty marines, saying: “The violent mob assaults on ICE and Federal Law Enforcement are designed to prevent the removal of Criminal Illegal Aliens from our soil. A dangerous invasion facilitated by criminal cartels (aka Foreign Terrorist Organizations) and a huge NATIONAL SECURITY RISK. Under President Trump, violence and destruction against federal agents and federal facilities will NOT be tolerated.”

We are witnessing the first stages of a Trump police state.

Last week, raids in San Diego, in Martha’s Vineyard and in the Berkshires led to standoffs as bystanders angrily confronted federal agents who were taking workers into custody.

Trump’s dragnet also includes federal courthouses. Ice officers are mobilizing outside courtrooms across the US and immediately arresting people – including migrants whose cases have been dismissed by judges.

History shows that once an authoritarian ruler establishes the infrastructure of a police state, that same infrastructure can be turned on anyone.

Trump and his regime are rapidly creating such an infrastructure, in five steps:

(1) declaring an emergency on the basis of a so-called “rebellion”, “insurrection”, or “invasion”;

(2) using that “emergency” to justify bringing in federal agents with a monopoly on the use of force (Ice, the FBI, DEA, and the national guard) against civilians inside the country;

(3) allowing those militarized agents to make dragnet abductions and warrantless arrests, and detain people without due process;

(4) creating additional prison space and detention camps for those detained, and

(5) eventually, as the situation escalates, declaring martial law.

We are not at martial law yet, thankfully. But once in place, the infrastructure of a police state can build on itself.

Those who are given authority over aspects of it – the internal militia, dragnets, detention camps, and martial law – seek other opportunities to invoke their authority.

As civilian control gives way to military control, the nation splits into those who are most vulnerable to it and those who support it. The dictatorship entrenches itself by fomenting fear and anger on both sides.

Right now, our major bulwarks against Trump’s police state are the federal courts and broad-based peaceful protests – such as the one that many of us will engage in this coming Saturday 14 June, on the No Kings Day of Action.

It is imperative that we remain peaceful, that we demonstrate our resolve to combat this tyranny but do so non-violently, and that we let America know about the emerging infrastructure of Trump’s police state and the importance of resisting it.

These are frightening and depressing times. But remember: although it takes one authoritarian to establish a police state, it takes just 3.5% of a population to topple him and end it.

A diapered Donnie soars over the result of his scorched earth military assault on Los Angeles protestors. It's hell's version of Disney Land.

Trump tries to turn California into a war zone as protesters fight back

Protesters confront a line of U.S. National Guard in the metropolitan detention center of downtown Los Angeles, on June 8, followingFriday's immigration raid protest.

President spoiling for a fight in California 

 

By Oliver Willis 

Daily Kos Staff 

Monday, June 09, 2025 at 9:45:06a MDT 

 

REPUBLISHED BY: 

Blue Country Gazette Blog

Over the weekend, protests against immigration raids carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Los Angeles intensified as Trump demanded a military response to people exercising their right to protest. The protests follow a push by the Trump team for more immigration raids, disrupting local communities and lives, with ICE bragging on social media that they had arrested 118 people during a June 6 raid.

Protesters gather at the U.S. Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Prisons after federal 

Los Angeles area residents organized protests against ICE beginning Friday, after the agency swept up migrants at Home Depot locations. The situation escalated after Trump wrote “bring in the troops” on his social media account and signed a memo Sunday night authorizing the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops to the area.

 

Trump’s actions were slammed by LA Mayor Karen Bass, who said in a message to residents, “What we’re seeing in our city is chaos provoked by the Trump Administration.” Bass specifically noted, “When you raid Home Depots and workplaces, when you tear parents and children apart, and when you run armored caravans through our streets, you cause fear and panic.”

“This is exactly what Donald Trump wanted. He flamed the fires and illegally acted to federalize the National Guard. The order he signed doesn’t just apply to CA. It will allow him to go into ANY STATE and do the same thing. We’re suing him,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote on Monday.

Police have used flash bang grenades, rubber bullets, and other weapons against protesters and journalists in the ensuing chaos.

The escalation follows a reported push at the highest levels of the Trump administration for more visible immigration enforcement after early efforts have fizzled.

A May 30 report in the conservative Washington Examiner revealed that ICE agents are feeling pressured to inflate deportation and arrest numbers. Multiple immigration officials told the outlet that Stephen Miller, senior Trump aide and the architect of Trump’s anti-immigrant policies in both of his administrations, has spearheaded the effort.

“They’ve been threatened, told they’re watching their emails and texts and Signals,” an official told the Examiner, referencing the intensified focus from higher-ups. Miller reportedly held a meeting with ICE officers, directors, and special agents and told them, “You guys aren’t doing a good job. You’re horrible leaders.”

“Stephen Miller wants everybody arrested. ‘Why aren’t you at Home Depot? Why aren’t you at 7-Eleven?'” an official told the Examiner.

Within days, operations began in Los Angeles, triggering a response in the community.

During the 2024 presidential election, Trump routinely lied about the criminal danger posed by undocumented immigrants. Trump regularly exaggerated the overall number and rates of crime purportedly committed by migrants—returning to his longtime racist obsession with blaming this mostly Latino segment of the population.

In office, Trump and his team are finding out that there aren’t the numbers to justify his dangerous rhetoric and so they have instead done things like abducting dissenters and deporting people who haven’t been convicted of any crime.

California officials like Newsom and Bass have made it clear to Trump that they do not want the National Guard operating in their state and city. The state of California is planning to file a lawsuit on Monday challenging President Trump’s order federalizing its National Guard forces, according to The New York Times.

Trump wants an excuse to attack the left and continue to justify his anti-immigrant bigotry, so he will continue to escalate. And while things seem to finally be calming down in downtown LA, protests are expected in more than a dozen cities nationwide.

CA Gov. Gavin Newsom responds to Trump's military call-up: 

Last night, President Trump ordered the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops in Los Angeles, using the excuse of protests against his immigration raids.

Let me be totally clear about what is happening here.

We have been working closely with law enforcement. There is no unmet need. The President is attempting to inflame passions and provoke a response.

He would like nothing more than for this provocative show of force -- and Pete Hegseth's absurd threat to deploy United States Marines on American soil – to escalate tensions and incite violence.

These are not people who have some deep conviction about protecting law enforcement. This is a President who failed to call up the National Guard when it was actually needed -- on January 6th -- and then pardoned the participants as one of his first acts as president.

They want a spectacle. They want the violence.

They think this is good for them politically.

That is why White House aides were posting pictures of Trump getting popcorn last night.

This is not the way a civilized country behaves. It is completely deranged behavior.

To the people of Los Angeles and across the country who are protesting these immigration raids:

Don't give them the spectacle they want. Never use violence. Speak out peacefully and in large numbers.

I know many of you have been watching the news about this, so I thought it important to reach out.

Thank you for reading,

Gavin Newsom

ALL THAT GLITTERS: The Fool’s Gold in Trump’s White House Is Already Looking Tarnished

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty

As Trump’s presidency implodes, it seems inevitable that his White House will show similar wear and tear.

Jill Filipovic

Published Jun. 7 2025 9:00AM EDT

The Daily Beast 

Donald Trump is back in the White House, and this time around, he’s done some major renovations. A home, any decent designer will tell you, should in its aesthetic reflect its inhabitants: Their lifestyles and their values. And Trump has certainly remade the White House in his image. It’s tacky, showy, and narcissistic—but luckily his changes don’t seem built to last.

The Trump White House also appears to have more gold in it than the Federal Reserve. It’s as if Liberace joined forces with Scrooge McDuck. Trump has added copious amounts of gold to every conceivable surface: More paintings with thick gold frames, more gold vases and urns and tchotchkes, even gold paint on the crown molding. There’s even a gold-framed New York Post cover with Trump’s mug shot on it.

President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney are pictured in the Oval Office at the White House on May 6, 2025 in Washington, D.C. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

The golden doorknobs are polished to maximum gleam; when shadow President Elon Musk showed up to his farewell event in the Oval Office (with a black eye), Trump handed him a golden key. He probably wants that back now but still. There are no reports of golden toilets—yet—but virtually no other surface seems untouched. 

“A gilded rococo hellscape” is how one photo editor and creative consultant described it in The New York Times. The president who purports to want to make America great again seems to actually want to make the American capitol Versailles.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told The Wall Street Journal that, “It’s the Golden Office for the Golden Age.” Really though, it’s more of a gilded office for a new gilded age: A time when the rich swill champagne in their mansions and members-only clubs while the masses suffer through profound political polarization and extreme inequality. Today, the world’s uber-wealthy can buy a Trump Gold Card—of course—visa to get into the US; immigrants who aren’t flush, on the other hand, see the doors slam shut.

President Donald Trump holds the $5 million dollar Gold Card as he speaks to reporters on board Air Force One on April 3, 2025. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

Donald Trump has always loved the ostentatious and ornate. His apartments are notoriously gaudy, as are the buildings he slaps his name on (typically in huge gold letters). He first announced his presidential run a decade ago by descending down a golden escalator.

But it all seems to quickly lose its sheen. The Trump name is so deeply associated with grift and chintz that many once-affluent buyers have fled his building. When the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino imploded in Atlantic City after years of neglect, crowds gathered to cheer. This is not a man who builds things that last. This is a man who makes things shiny for as long as it takes him to cash his checks.

Trump Called in His ‘Gold Guy’ for White House MakeoverGILT TRIP

Yasmeen Hamadeh

For all his new-money fixation on expensive, shiny things, Trump’s economic policies have badly tarnished his presidency. The president has managed to repeatedly roil global markets, earn a downgrade of America’s credit, raise consumer prices and make it impossible for businesses to adequately plan for anything; various tariffs have been removed and revised, put back and removed again, threatened and teased and so on. The back-and-forth has been so endless that Wall Streeters have a nickname for it: TACO, or Trump Always Chickens Out.

The president seems to now be saying he will negotiate individual trade deals with countries the world over, an endeavor that will at least keep him too busy to hang up any more gold-framed paintings of himself. (He has thusfar been unable to make very few such deals, instead telling Americans they should simply expect to buy fewer toys for their children.)

As Golden Ages Go, This One SucksALL THAT GLITTERS...

David Rothkopf

But what else is Trump himself busy with? Cashing in. He’s started a small crypto empire, enjoying the spoils of those foolish enough to buy into his schemes, or canny enough to know buying in can get them access. A state-owned Emirati company has invested some $2 billion in one of the Trump family’s enterprises. He’s accepting a free luxury jet from Qatar. 

Unlike previous presidents, he has not put his own assets in a blind trust. He has used his position to extract free work from some of the country’s top law firms, who he has intimidated out of challenging him or his agenda. As his administration is cutting basic services for Americans, he’s trimming the White House with gold, and sitting on a growing pile of it.

The question now is what will come first: The flaking of the White House gold leaf, or the falling-apart of Trump’s presidency itself.

Breaking up is hard to do: Trump and Musk are over and it's getting ugly

Back to back.  'First buddy' no more: Things will be awkward if Donald Trump and Elon Musk are ever in the same room again.

Elon goes rogue with attack on Dear Leader 

 

By Emily Singer 

Daily Kos Staff 

Thursday, June 05, 2025 at 11:30:07a MDT 

 

REPUBLISHED BY:

Blue Country Gazette Blog

Rim Country Gazette Blog 

By Emily Singer Daily Kos Staff REPUBLISHED BY Donald Trump and his co-President Elon Musk were inseparable during Trump's first 100 days in office.

Trump heaped praise on Musk during uncomfortable Cabinet meetings, even as public opinion soured on the multibillionaire and his destructive Department of Government Efficiency; dined with Musk at his trashy Mar-a-Lago club; hawked Musk's failing Tesla cars in a wildly unethical event on the White House lawn; and overlooked Musk's rampant drug use to give his biggest donor a glowing send-off after he announced he was leaving the administration.

But now that Musk is trashing the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" that House Republicans passed in May and Senate Republicans are now working to get to Trump's desk, Trump says their special friendship may be no more.

"Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will anymore," Trump told reporters Thursday in the Oval Office.

The president added that he was "surprised" to see Musk hammering what is intended to be Trump's signature piece of legislation.

“You were here, everybody in this room practically was here as we had a wonderful send-off, he said wonderful things about me, couldn’t have nicer, said the best thing,” Trump said. “He’s worn the hat, ‘Trump was right about everything,’ and I am right about the Great Big Beautiful Bill.” 

Trump also accused Musk of turning on the “Big Beautiful Bill”—which slashes Medicaid and food stamps, cuts green energy subsidies, extends tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the rich, and explodes the deficit—because it ends electric vehicle subsidies.

"I'm very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here,” Trump said. “All of a sudden he had a problem and he only developed the problem when he found out that we're going to have to cut the EV mandate.”

Musk has already responded to Trump’s attack.

“False, this bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!” Musk wrote in a post on X. 

Trump and Republicans had enthusiastically embraced Musk—largely due to the fact that the richest man in the world spent hundreds of millions to help Trump get elected, and they worried that if they criticized him they'd be hit with an onslaught of Musk-financed primary attacks.

---

Related | 7 of Elon Musk's worst co-president moments as he exits White House

---

But now that Musk has gone rogue and done the unforgivable—i.e. criticize Dear Leader—it's unclear what will happen next.

After Trump’s Oval Office diss, Musk argued in a post on X that “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,” Musk added.

When announcing his exit from the Trump administration, Musk said he was taking his money and getting out of politics. But if he's instigated by Republican attacks, he could easily flip on that decision.

Whatever happens next, we have our popcorn ready to watch the Republican infighting play out.

It's a bird.  It's a plane.  It's a flying muskrat.  Our dynamic duo in happier times.