Donald Trump the Megathread part II - Mod Warning added to OP 10/1/26

While it's been known for decades not that a lot of Senators and Congresspersons never read the finance bills through from start to finish, due to the size of the document, and it's additions, it's good to hear that one voter, Marjorie Taylor Greene admit [full transparency] that after voting for the bill she realised there is a section in it on pages 278/279 that strips rights from the individual states from enacting bills to regulate AI for 10 years and if she'd known, she'd have voted against the bill. More likely that she'd have argues for the deletion of the section in return for her vote.

Hurricanes!

Picked this up from a comments section,

Donald wants a hurricane named after him.

"If Jimmy Carter had Hurricane Carter named after him,
it's only fair that I get one too!", he whined.

I guess it'll be interesting to see where any fallout goes. In the UK there was a somewhat similar dynamic between Dominic Cummings and de Pfeffel 'Boris' Johnson. And when they fell out it got nasty with DC devoting a lot of time to leaking the dirt on Johnson. Which in truth was relatively meagre dirt, - but DC played it quite cleverly by unsourced leaks, getting Johnson to deny on the record, then releasing the actual evidence, then rinsing and repeating.
For those of us who hated both, it became a 'the enemy of my enemy' situation.

If the rumours about Trump are true, then there are major stories out there. If anyone has access to them it's Elon Musk.

Some key differences at the moment though.
Musk and Trump may not have had a full falling out, Musk's issues may be more with the people around Trump as both still seemed cordial up to last week.
When DC was sidelined he had nothing to do but wallow in self-pity and dedicate himself to bringing down Johnson. Musk has a business empire to run.
DC had absolutely nothing to lose and also it appears had no skeletons of his own that he wished to keep secret. Musk won't want to risk the business, and may not want the full force of MAGA, the DOJ and the IRS to descend upon him if he is not squeaky clean himself.

So potential for lots of fun if they have seriously fallen out, but also might be stalemate situation.

Trump next week: "Elon Musk? Never heard of him".

You'd think but he was attacking Bezos a few weeks back and he's equally capable of harming him. Plus Trump can harm Musk too IMHO, Tesla is a meme stock and if Trump turns on Musk that could harm that value.

Indeed but Trump has the MAGA cult behind him and could gut Tesla, SpaceX and Musk with the stroke of a pen by putting Tariffs on raw materials that Musk's firms import or just by gutting subsidies. Bezos by contrast is probably smart enough to keep his head down.

If Trump pulls the governemnt contracts in any of Musks businesses they're screwed, especially Tesla. All of his businesses are only viable once the government contracts keep rolling.

Reuters: US HOUSE REPUBLICAN TAX-CUT AND BUDGET BILL WOULD ADD $2.4 TRILLION TO NATIONAL DEBT, CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE ESTIMATES

I remember reading one guy polled said he voted for Trump because of his "business acumen".

Well, Trump did bankrupt companies, so I guess if that's what you voted for, mission accomplished!

How much debt has been added already?

AFAIK, Trump posted something to the effect that the senate had until July 4th to debate and decide on how to vote on the bill. He's in talks with John Thune, the GOP senate leader, on the [contents of] bill so they can get it passed by the senate and sent to him for signature. There's some more horse trading to do between Trump and the senate which will [possibly] irritate Musk and d his dislike for pork-barrel deals.

Is Trump stupid enough to vent the anger he has at other untouchables, like the Fed Chairman, on Musk's employees and sink Musk's Co's and all the jobs and revenue because of a passing blip in politics? We know Trump's tantrum-prone but he has to know the employees and the boards and shareholders are canny enough to know who pushed the button and target him in return. Some-one, like Bessent, would have to get to him and advise him to back off from stupidity or face a Wall Street revolt.

More ignominy brought on the US Presidency too (if it can take any more) - now reduced to a kind of gopher role, Trump's mouth delivering Putin's threats against Ukraine second hand.