*Any* so-called "feud" between Trump and his longtime friend Thomas Barrack is ultimately about insulating Trump from what's going to happen to Barrack.
*Period*.
There's no feud otherwise. This is damage control. In 2016 and before, Trump and Barrack couldn't have been closer.
1/ When you read the piece, you learn that claims of a "feud" are coming *from the White House*. When Barrack's team was asked, they denied there'd been *any* change in the relationship. What I'd like to know is what actual story Politico traded this favor to the White House for.
2/ The piece is sourced to an anonymous "senior administration official"; Politico then does the solid of writing "the White House declined to comment"—giving the impression it had *no idea* its own team was claiming Trump and his self-described best friend had had a falling out.
3/ That the "senior administration official" has access to information about Trump's private communication habits, which are so guarded even some senior staff don't know who he's talking to with his unregulated third phone, confirms the White House was the original source, here.
4/ Moreover, if you've done a deep dive on who Trump communicates with (and when and how and with what safeguards against anyone finding out, research I had to do for Proof of Conspiracy), you know the only person who could confirm/deny any (non-speaking) "feud" is Trump himself.
5/ I'm trying to imagine the gall it'd take for a senior administration official to speak *out of turn* about one of the president's two closest friendships (the other being with Howard Lorber) and the truth is I can't imagine it. DC will assume Trump approved this [cover] story.
6/ Remember when Don Jr. lied to Congress re: knowing if his dad calls him from a blocked number, to avoid disclosing who he spoke to while negotiating the June '16 Trump-Russia meeting? Then we found he was speaking to [someone at the number of] Trump's best friend Lorber? I do.
7/ The lengths the Trumps go to to hide who they've spoken to includes criminal conduct. The lengths Trump goes to to maintain an unregulated extra phone are unprecedented. Politico shouldn't run any story on Trump's private calling habits unless it has Trump on the record, too.
8/ Tom Barrack (and Roger Stone) have long been two of Trump's most common private-adviser phone calls, and both were top advisers during the presidential election and in 2017. And Barrack says "nothing has changed." So the real story here is Trump's fear Barrack will be charged.
9/ One of the things readers of Proof of Conspiracy will learn is how *closely* Trump monitored the inaugural committee. The claim he didn't know where the money was going is false. Even the Wolkoff money secretly went in the direction of a man whose silence Trump wanted to buy.
10/ I mean, how do you write a story saying "current and former White House officials say" (as to a "feud") and then say, "the White House refused to comment"? It's outrageous. Frame it as "news" the White House wants out but that one of the two chief figures in the story denies.
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If you understand that the world Trump and Musk aim to create is one in which the Democratic Party doesn't exist—indeed democracy doesn't exist—but an American Empire (with vassal states) allied with a Russian Empire, Indian Empire, Chinese Empire and Saudi Caliphate, you get it.
Musk isn't just an enemy of America.
It no longer suffices to call him that.
He's an enemy of Western democracy, and indeed democracy everywhere.
Read up on his guru—Curtis Yarvin—and on far-right techno-optimist transhumanism, and you will understand the evil the world faces.
What America saw yesterday in DC was a Democratic Party that supports democracy and our democratic allies in Europe while opposing the would-be Russian Empire. Every time Trump and Musk attack Europe and weaken our democracy—and democracy abroad—they reveal exactly what they are.
(📢) NATSEC COMMUNITY NOTE: Musk is confessing to beginning to blame Ukraine for a war Putin started—thus working to aid Putin—at exactly the moment he began having clandestine business and geopolitical negotiations with Putin.
1/ I used to be a federal criminal investigator. I'm now a Musk biographer who recently published a book about Musk, PROOF OF DESTRUCTION. Not a single federal criminal investigator who has researched Musk as I have would doubt that he's coordinated aiding the Kremlin since 2022.
2/ The beginning of the Musk-Putin conspiracy came shortly after Musk made associates aware he wanted to expand Tesla factories to Russia, suggesting he'd received the same business-related entreaties from Kremlin agents Trump got in 2013, 2015, and 2016. cnn.com/2021/05/21/bus…
This is one of the most shameful days in US history.
A weak, corrupt, compromised Kremlinist US president recruited his Yarvinist VP to gang up on a heroic ally on live TV. It devolved into a shouting match. Why?
I mean it: that was one of the most distressing videos I’ve ever watched as an American.
Zelenskyy is the George Washington of Ukraine and one of the most heroic men alive. He sat through a shouted (televised) lecture by two of the _worst_ men alive.
A real-life *horror film*.
What happened today was a character litmus test.
If you watched those two weak-willed Kremlinists (Trump and Vance) and thought they were great, you’re a person of low moral character.
If it wasn’t *clear* to you who the hero in that room was—and how he was abused—shame on you.
I only went to Harvard Law and have three terminal graduate degrees, including a PhD, so I apologize if this is a question a drooling moron would ask, @yhbryankimiq, but is there a reason you do not list his accomplishments?
Is it because none are his—but those of his employees?
I know this is a difficult concept for Elongelicals, so let me use their favorite form of argument: anecdote.
I have 5 higher-ed degrees; I earned them all personally and in the shortest possible period of time.
Elon flamed out at three colleges and was *not* admitted to a PhD.
I’ve founded 4 startups: a consulting company and three media outlets, one a multimillion-dollar operation. I had no seed money for my startups but the little in my bank account.
Musk had money from his dad’s emerald mines and $300 million via Zip2—the idea for which wasn’t his.
As an Elon Musk biographer, I would peg his IQ as between 100 and 110. There’s zero evidence in his biography of anything higher.
And I want to repeat that now, lest you think it a typo.
There’s zero evidence, from his life history, of Musk having anything higher than a 110 IQ.
Stepped away from Twitter for a number of hours—on the basis of this not being a platform worth spending time on—and came back to find this tweet went viral because Nate Silver thinks Carlyle's 1800s theory of history, the Great Man Theory, is still relevant to historians in 2025
I understand the MAGAsphere runs on dudes who stayed at a Holiday Inn last night and are now expert astrophysicists, but another possibility is Musk's biographers know him better than fanboys do, and historians know more than pollsters about history.
I mean I'm just an American lawyer, so what do I know compared to a nepo baby whose money initially came from Zambian emerald mines, but under the United States Constitution and the thousands of Supreme Court decisions interpreting it for 250 years, free speech is *not* absolute
And I guess I would add to that, @ElonMusk, that if you don't know what I just said already, while you do not *have* to shut the f*** up under the First Amendment, you absolutely *should* shut the f*** up until you know what the f*** you're talking about, you *petulant man-child*
@elonmusk MAGAism is feelings over facts
All I ever hear Trump voters say is not what is true by law but what they think *should* be true, not actually how anything works but how they *wish* it would work
When you are poorly educated and know nothing, all you have is your Big Feelings