Elon Musk is becoming a political liability for Republicans, according to MSNBC's Jonathan Lemire, but Donald Trump isn't inclined to send him packing anytime soon.
The tech billionaire's is tasked with reducing the federal budget and the government workforce, but a majority of Americans believe Trump is making changes too hastily and say the job cuts are doing more harm than good, while Musk himself remains deeply unpopular – even before he proposed cutting Social Security and Medicare.
"That's the whole ball game, you're right," Lemire said. "The question now being asked is at what point does Elon Musk become more trouble than he's worth? The two men do like each other. I've been told reliably that Trump is really flattered that Musk, the world's richest man, paid so much to help him get elected, and now he's working for him. You know, we saw over the weekend, after that fiery cabinet meeting, his efforts to sort of patch things up. Musk went with Trump to Mar-a-Lago. They had dinner with Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio. Rubio and Musk were sending, you know, valentines to each other on X yesterday, before X crashed. Mind you, it was down most of the day, which Musk then blamed without evidence on a Ukrainian cyber attack."
"But right now there are Republicans who are getting antsy about the damage that Musk is doing to federal agencies that provide services to their voters, Republican voters," Lemire added. "Hence, that's why they've canceled all the town halls, and now, yesterday, as he flat-out said he'd be willing to touch the third rail of American politics."
Americans are also nervous about air safety following a deadly collision just after Inauguration Day between a passenger jet and a military helicopter, as well as a series of smaller crashes and near-misses since then, and some are blaming Musk's cuts.
"What's so fascinating here is, again, the dynamic of Donald Trump and Elon Musk and how long that's going to stay," said "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough. "Most people that know the two say, 'Oh, well, that relationship is going to last a very long time,' and who knows, maybe it will. But it's interesting that this interview with [Fox Business host Larry] Kudlow comes on the heels of Donald Trump sort of clipping Elon's wings last week and siding with Marco Rubio and [transportation secretary Sean] Duffy and these other people saying, you know, like Sean Duffy, [saying], 'Dude, you can't fire air traffic controllers, your people are coming in trying to fire air traffic controllers while planes are crashing,' right, and so Donald Trump sort of clipped his wings last week, saying, 'We're going to let the department heads do this.'"
"Then this morning they're having to deal with Elon Musk saying something, and let's just say right here, completely opposite of what Donald Trump has promised in both campaigns," Scarborough added, "where he's not going to cut Social Security, he's not going to cut Medicare, he will not cut those entitlement programs, and yet, here's Elon Musk saying the entitlement programs, they're the big ones, so they're the big ones to eliminate, and then again, I will say again, for those in Trump-adjacent media circles, and I will say it slowly for you, Elon Musk used the number $700 billion – $700 billion is not waste, fraud and abuse, $700 billion is the entire budget of Medicare every year for the benefits that are paid out."
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