Summary
In a Fox News interview, Elon Musk and Sean Hannity repeatedly talked over Donald Trump, sidelining him in a discussion about government efficiency.
Musk dominated the conversation, warning of national bankruptcy and presenting himself as a savior.
Hannity largely directed questions to Musk, while Trump struggled to interject.
The awkward exchange fueled speculation about Musk’s influence, with some questioning who is really in charge.
Just goes to show, Trump is not the cause of the disease, he’s a symptom. Trump could be Luigied tomorrow and the problems with the Republican party wouldn’t disappear. They are completely owned by billionaires.
The billionaires own establishment Democrats as well. See Bernie 2016. MSNBC treated Bernie worse than Trump 2024.
Yeah solving this problem is going to take somewhere between a hundred and a thousand Luigis…
Be the Luigi you want to see in the world
Trump is still important. He’s the person at the center of the cult they’ve built their power on.
Trump is waxing and waning. The man is 80 and looking quite unhealthy. When geriatrics start to wax and wane there are recognizable patterns but it can vary a bit by personality. Biden and Trump are the same in that respect.
What waxing and waning means is you can have a perfectly normal exchange with Biden on day 1 and on day 2 get the debate performance and on day 3 get perfectly normal again. Inertia and habit carries people a lot further and longer than you think, depending on what they spent most of their lives doing. It’s not uncommon to have career domination in this inertia.
I suspect Trump will look much more odd and awkward than Biden going forward.
High odds it’s one reason Elon is with him and the interview isn’t solo, so Elon can be a handler of sorts and talk over him rather than having Trumps Biden moments on full, singular focus. One of the other reasons, ofc, is to maintain this idea that they are the same person in power, to keep that tight association going.
My personal theory with zero hard evidence to back it is that Trump does his disengagement thing when his internal pacemaker with defibrillator zaps him. And that he’d be dead already without it.
I like that defibrillator theory, though usually I’ve seen patients react with pain when it goes off. Maybe the disengagement is him going into v-tach and his blood pressure tanking before it pops him.
As for Musk covering for the dementia, I doubt it. If you look at Trump’s transcripts over the years, he’s had a propensity for dementia soup when he speaks for a while now, but his supporters just dismiss it, hear what they want, and say it’s fake news. I don’t see why they’d suddenly be worried about it now. No, this is Musk just plain old taking the driver’s seat.
People with dementia have increasing difficulty following conversations, especially with multiple people, as the dementia gets worse.
It could be that Trump just can’t follow the conversation well. They’re not covering so much as Trump can’t handle so many people talking.
This fits that YMCA dance party he had in lieu of a town hall.
Honestly where the fuck is JD Vance? Isn’t he the vice president? Musk is always next to Trump, I haven’t seen Vance one time
He’s on a world tour, convincing our allies they need to band together against the US
What the fuck :(
Yeah he went to Munich and gave a speech where he scolded our European allies for criminalizing or de-legitimizing Nazi political parties. Europe immediately started leaning into the EU Army concept.
Great job JD.
Did you see the clapping? Vance’s support team were clapping for him, while all the European delegates just stared stone faced.
So bad it’s got its own wiki page https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_JD_Vance_speech_at_the_Munich_Security_Conference
Especially this part, which he apparently intended as a “joke”:
(…) if American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk
Thunberg is an activist from Sweden who owns a social media account. Musk is a billionaire from Apartheid South Africa who owns a social media company and actively interferes in German elections.
Needless to say, the joke didn’t land.
Cause we think he’s a fuckwit.
Nonono, he is a fuckwit. You guys just recognize it.
History being written before our eyes
JD really trying to show the world what to avoid. Reminds me of my dad. See him and do the opposite.
Laying low so as not to take as much heat for all this as Musk, so that when Trump is done Vance can be boosted as a more moderate alternative to Trump and Musk’s extreme measures, even though Vance would be just as bad, if not worse. But if they can keep heat off him in this cycle, it will be better especially when things reach the breaking point and people want heads (but still want to vote republican.)
Vance would be worse. He is an actual politician and a believer in the Project 2025 bull shit. Trump probably would not have even run if he had not been staring down 100 barrels of jail time.
I don’t doubt the notion that 2016 Trump ran as a grift and wasn’t really hoping or expecting to win, but 2020 and 2024 Trump had tasted power and definitely wanted it back, in addition to staring down 100 barrels of jail time.
It’s weird how a person so seemingly unimportant hasn’t been converted into a scarecrow, made to vouch for key positions in their plan, etc. This man is either sleaky enough to avoid much of responsibility for what happens or everyone in the HQ forgot about him. His position doesn’t mean much power in the US, but it’s really interesting that he doesn’t get much coverage as a legally second in chief and seemingly abstain from everything while, before Musk got the wheel I thought he would play a key role in advocating for everythng techbros are up for.
There are actually powerful interests that like Vance, maybe more than Trump. Vance is a long term prospect for the moment, I think. Trumps admin likes to stir shit up over here, while building power and planning long term over there. I think historically Trump himself was a barrier to this kind of planning, but it seems like he’s gotten with the program this time around.
I doubt we’ve seen the last of Vance, in all the worst ways imaginable.
This is an interesting take. I always figured if it got to the point where Vance was their number 1 guy, he wouldn’t have the cult leader charisma to keep MAGA together and it would all fall apart. Wishful thinking I suppose. But maybe that’s why they are installing musk to begin with.
He is very unlikeable, but for a lot of people the cruelty a politician is capable of is a big part of the appeal. Won’t make him popular with the masses necessarily, but we can be tricked.
But yeah bringing out Vance early in such a high profile way will probably have the effect of making him look better down the road when the stakes are higher. All that couch-fucker stuff, his history of pro choice comments, they knew it would come out so its better to get it out now than later, when he’s already become part of the “establishment” of the right. No halfway career conscious editor is going to publish old news like that. And then a little more consent is purchased, not as the result of some widespread conspiracy but as the result of a system of incentives and disincentives that generate the kind of irrational self interest that is the only discernable political project of any kind on the right, maybe in the american political system as a whole, though I’m sure that would be taking the point too far.
Trump was being honest when he said Vance didn’t matter and wasn’t going to do anything in office anyway.
Hell, where the fuck is Trump?
Granted, I am absolutely not seeking him out, but it felt like he was everywhere in his first term with his stupid idiot rambling speeches.
But this round it’s all DOGE and Musk and maybe, something more vague about what the “Trump Administration” is doing, but it feels like Trump isn’t even around.
Hell, the other day I was wondering if he had died of a heart attack or something but they were just keeping the body locked up and pretending he was alive while Musk destroys the country.
Oh, he’s everywhere… He’s been giving almost daily speeches or interviews. This week he went to the Daytona 500, gave an unhinged speech full of Russian talking points about Ukraine, grimaced through a very weird pair interview with president Musk where he kissed Musk’s ass through gritted teeth, went golfing, and did a press event about how only he can interpret the law now. Today he said he’s going to fort Knox to “make sure the gold is there”
He’s on the camera so much so that it’s obvious he’s a puppet at this point - he doesn’t have the unaccounted for time to be getting briefs and making day to day decisions. They put him at the kiddie table and are keeping him occupied with events
If you’re not seeing it, it’s probably censorship. They’re having trouble editing together coherent sound bites, it seems like he’s regressing. He keeps talking about real estate - he’s going to make Gaza a resort, he’s talking about what they can rebuild in Ukraine, he’s talking about how he needs Musk because contractors give him a mock up and then get caught up in securing financing or something…
He’s pulling a Pence. Be close enough to reap the benefits but far enough to not go down with the ship.
He’s in Europe supporting fascists and Nazi’s.
I haven’t even heard his name since the election besides Colbert making couch jokes.
JD Vance’s job is to not overshadow Trump. Trump doesn’t seem to mind if Musk does, though.
“National bankruptcy”. We literally print the fucking money ex nihilo.
Careful, using fancy Latin words might get you labeled as one of those “intellectuals,” or an “illegal” from Latin America.
“Did you see that high-scoring basketball game last night? The referee gave out so many points, he had to declare bankruptcy!”
Man, I never knew that the price to make Trump your bitch was so low.
Like the public could just GoFundMe $400M and have him as a public servant once again.
Except he has this thing where he acts like the unseen person in high school who was just noticed by the popular crowd when people he perceived as important or popular notice him: Elon, Saudi Arabian princes, Putin, etc
We The People hold no such sway.
I don’t think it’s just the money. He is deeply insecure, and I think that, in many ways, he actually craves the approval of what he sees as “the popular kids” (in his mind, the wealthiest man in the world is the #1 popular kid. Like the homecoming king in an 80s movie)
No, unless an individual controls the money, it would just be added to Trump’s pile and nobody else would get anything out of it.
When the fallout happens between Trump and Musk, Trump may find it difficult to get rid of him since he has handed so much power to Musk (via write access to government databases).
There will come a point where he literally won’t be able to get rid of him once control of the law enforcement arm goes to Musk.
If we’re lucky they’ll destroy each other entirely.
I promise you, they would take America with them. Willingly, out of spite, if nothing else.
We’re already going down. Better that they do with the rest of us.
I’m willing to let them take exactly half of America down with them.
I don’t think this is true. I think there are multiple avenues for which Musk could be prosecuted if Trump wants him gone. All he has to do is say the word and Musk will be in jail on the same day.
So when Harris has Walz do a sit down interview with her, people lost their mind - but this is okay?
Transcribed as…
Leader of the free world: -“Right” -“Europe” -“Europe” -“There could be nothing bigger. There’s nothing —” -“That’s peanuts compared to what we’re talking about,” -“Including his ships. Including his ships going up.” -“Sean, you’re a… ”
Hannity: *dismissively - “This is important,” *continues to talk to Musk.
*Trump utterly humiliated rambles under his breath.
Who is the alpha here? What a joke not to mention Elon’s talking points are 100% contradictory.
Wow - that was indeed a lot more awkward that i would have thought he’d accept
He’s a senile geriatric, he has no clue what decade it is, let alone what the fuck is being talked about. He was told to sit there and shut up so he wouldn’t ramble or say some stupid nazi shit and let the big boys talk. So he did, and we get to see who the real boss is.
Hannity knows who his boss is now.
So…
Time to musk impregnating ivanka or needing to buy her a horse?
Pretty sure she’s already cucked him more than once, and at least once with him in the room. Hell, he probably serves her up like an hors-d’oeuvre and his daughter like dessert.
Anyone have a direct link to the video? I can’t get it to play on the page.
King Trump, indeed.
He’s gotta keep telling himself he’s in charge so he feels good
Musk is president why would Hannity bother with that other guy
paywalled
