Today in Politics, Bulletin 86. 3/7/25

… NYT reported on a tense argument between members of Trump’s Cabinet and Elon Musk during their recent meeting to hash things out. The report says that Marco Rubio was “privately furious with Musk for weeks, ever since his DOGE team effectively shuttered an entire agency that was supposedly under Mr. Rubio’s control: USAID,” and was ready to air his grievances against Musk along with others.

… Musk was criticizing members of the Cabinet in the meeting for not firing enough employees - then singled out Rubio, scornfully sneering that he hadn’t fired anybody yet. Rubio reportedly snapped and noted that 1,500 people in his Dept accepted Musk’s buyouts and left. He then asked Musk if he wanted him to hire them back so he could make a show out of publicly firing them.

… Musk responded that wasn’t good enough, and said Rubio was only useful to do TV appearances and was terrible at his job. Trump sat back and watched “as if he was watching a tennis match.” After a while, Trump finally interrupted the argument and defended Rubio, saying that he was doing a great job with a lot of traveling and has a lot on his plate.

… Musk also went at it with Transportation Sec Sean Duffy on why he hadn’t fired enough people. Commerce Sec. Howard Lutnick chimed in to back Musk. Duffy complained that young staffers with DOGE wanted him to fire air traffic controllers: “What am I supposed to do? I have multiple plane crashes to deal with now, and your people want me to fire air traffic controllers?”

… An NBC reporter in the Oval Office today tried to ask Trump about this report of conflict between Musk and Rubio. Trump snapped: “No one clashed. I was there. You’re just a troublemaker, and you’re not supposed to ask that question. We are supposed to be talking about the World Cup.” Then he angrily ended the press conference and walked out.

… Mike Johnson was asked on Fox: What do you say to people who work for the VA who can't man the suicide hotline now because Musk has fired them? Johnson: “Look, in Elon's defense, there is no playbook for what he's doing. So there are gonna be some mishaps and mistakes along the way. But we will do course correction immediately.”

… Course correction won’t help the suicidal vet who couldn’t reach a counselor because they were all fired.

… Politico reports that Republican Reps have been making panicked calls to the WH complaining they were blindsided by Musk’s massive cuts to the VA. Lindsey Graham: “It’s political malpractice not to consult Congress if that’s what you intend to do. Maybe you’ve got a good reason to do it. I like VA Sec Doug Collins - he’s a great guy. But we don’t need to be reading memos in the paper about a 20% cut at the VA.”

… Rep. Michael McCaul was asked about the cuts: “Jeez. I worry because our veterans are hurting after Afghanistan; PTSD has gone way up. Suicide rates gone way up, and morale has gone way down. So I worry in the sense that I don’t want that to be a signal that we don’t care about our veterans.”

… Trump doesn’t. Neither does Musk. They never have.

… Johnson was also asked about his members getting yelled at in their town halls: "The problem is they're being ambushed by right now by, in many cases, paid protesters. You've got George Soros-funded groups. They are very well organized - the actual constituents of these Republican members can't actually make it into the arenas."

… This Soros guy is everywhere.

… Trump was asked how long people could expect to see prices could go up because of his tariffs: “There could be some disturbance. A little bit of disturbance.”

… The jobs report came out this morning, and it came in lower than expected. The Dow is down 1,500 over the past 30 days, and negative economic growth is now being projected for 1Q. Trump officials and their free press agency Fox were desperately trying to spin the bad news like crazy.

… Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent came up with a new way to describe what they are doing to the economy: "Could we be seeing this economy that we inherited starting to roll a bit? Sure, there's gonna be a detox period."

… When Bessent said tariffs aren’t big deal because lower prices aren’t a key part of achieving the American dream, Dark Pence resurfaced to call him out. Mike Pence: “Actually Sec. Bessent, it is. Free trade lowers the costs of goods and improves the quality of life for every American. Let’s Pursue Free Trade with Free Nations and Revive the American Dream.”

… Fox Business analyst Charles Payne: "A couple days ago, Bank of America came out with their credit card data, and it was scary. I mean, shocking declines in restaurants, airlines, lodging. Just look at the most recent poll on people who said they're going go traveling in the next few months. It has plunged. I think the boom times are over."

… Fox host Maria Baritromo: “We could see a recession. But it would be Biden’s recession.”

… AG Pam Bondi claimed that the release of the full Jeffrey Epstein report is delayed because it has to be redacted “for national security reasons.” I wonder what those could be?

… Kviv Independent reports that the US satellite imagery company Maxar has cut off Ukraine from receiving its imagery: “Kyiv has relied on high-resolution satellite images for defense and strategic planning, tracking Russian troop movements, assessing battlefield conditions, and monitoring Russian infrastructure. The restriction was imposed under an order from the Trump's admin, with the State Dept prohibiting US companies from providing satellite data to Ukraine.”

… Norway-based EU defense analyst Fabian Hoffmann: “Ukraine being cut off from US-supplied commercial products is bad news. Unless private interests in the US, including defense manufacturers, push back, it is very likely that Ukraine will be entirely cut off from US supply chains and products, including for maintenance. EU decision-makers must 100% operate under the baseline assumption that direct and indirect US assistance will shrink to zero in the coming months.”

… Sir William Browder: “This looks like a well orchestrated conspiracy by the US govt to destroy Ukraine’s ability to defend themselves. Of all my pessimistic scenarios about how this war would develop, this wasn’t one of them.”

… But Trump posted on Truth Social this morning that he was getting upset that Putin has ramped up missile attacks, so he is starting to consider maybe putting together concepts of a plan to possibly do something about it eventually: “Based on the fact that Russia is absolutely ‘pounding’ Ukraine on the battlefield right now, I am strongly considering large scale Banking Sanctions, Sanctions, and Tariffs on Russia until a Cease Fire and FINAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT ON PEACE IS REACHED.”

… First, Ukraine is pounding Russia “on the battlefield”, not the other way around. Russia is pounding CIVILIAN targets indiscriminately in Ukraine. And Trump is stripping them of the tools they used for the last three years from the Biden Admin to protect their people. So he is handing Putin all the leverage by causing more pain and death for Ukrainians who continue to resist.

… Trump was asked about his post today in the Oval Office: "You said Russia is pounding Ukraine. Why not provide Ukraine with air defenses? Trump: Because I have to know that they want to settle. I don’t know that they want to settle. If they don’t want to settle, we’re out of there.”

… Trump was also asked if Putin is taking advantage of the US withholding intelligence to launch major strikes: “I think he’s doing what anybody else would do. I think he wants to get it stopped and so I think he’s hitting him harder than he’s been hitting them. And I think probably anybody in his position would be doing that right now.”

… Somebody in his position. Meaning someone who has just had the greatest ally of his adversary switch sides so he can take maximum advantage and cause more death and destruction. Trump already has blood on his hands from the last few days, not that he cares.

… Sen. Chris Murphy: “It’s still amazing to me how the media accepts what Trump says as truth and reports it straight. Despite daily evidence that he is always lying. There is no evidence he is restraining Musk. I understand it is hard to cover someone who lies. But maybe that means it’s not news when Trump says it (like this case or his constant tariff talk that never actually comes to fruition). Maybe it’s only news when something is actually implemented.”

… Exactly. His words mean nothing - watch what he does, not what he says he is going to do.

… Geopolitical Economy Report: “Trump has repeatedly paused his tariffs on Canada and Mexico, but he keeps hitting China with more. The average effective US tariff rate on Chinese goods is already 33%, and steadily growing. China is the actual target of Trump's aggressive trade war.”

… Somebody posted this last night as a reply to one of my social media comments. I thought it sums things up pretty well.

A bit of a shorter Bulletin today because my car was in the shop and I decided to stay with it since they told me it would only be an hour and it ended up being four. But it was a long week with some super lengthy Bulletins every day. If you missed yesterday, you can read it here. Thank you again to all the paid subscribers who support my work and the free subscribers who read it and pass it along to others.

… The Atlantic reports that Trump has alarmed his closest aides with a request to have the original Declaration of Independence moved from the rotunda in National Archives Bldg into the Oval Office so he can show it to people each day. This is the most treasured single document owned by the govt and is kept behind heavy glass in