Bannon Is Right About One Thing: "Musk Is A Parasitic Illegal Immigrant Who Wants To Play-Act As God"

Midterms Should Be About Tying Musk & His Cuts To GOP Incumbents

In an interview with James Billot, Steve Bannon stoked his war with the man he’s fighting for control over GOP ideological dominance: “Musk,” he told Billot, “is a parasitic illegal immigrant. He wants to impose his freak experiments and play-act as God without any respect for the country’s history, values, or traditions.” Billot acknowledges that he’s “emerged as the counterpole to Elon Musk, whose ultra-libertarian agenda has come to dominate the President’s second term. To Bannon, the billionaire Twitter owner is more forceful and, perhaps, more dangerous than any figure on the Left. ‘Musk is the one with power at the moment,’ he says. ‘The Democrats are nowhere to be seen.’”

And yet, the White House admitted in a court filing that “Musk is not the administrator of DOGE nor is he an employee of the department that's overseeing massive cuts to the federal workforce and agencies, per a Monday night White House court filing… ‘"Like other senior White House advisors, Mr Musk has no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself,’ per the filing, signed by Joshua Fisher, director of the Office of Administration at the White House, and filed in D.C. federal court. Musk is a ’Special Government Employee and in that job he's a senior adviser to the president, said Fisher, per the declaration in the case, which the state of New Mexico brought against the SpaceX owner and others. The Tesla CEO ‘has no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself,’ Fisher said.

What would Milanese partisans do?

No doubt more than a few congressional Republicans wish Fisher was actually speaking sincerely for Trump. Just yesterday, in fact, Lisa Kashinsky and Mia McCarthy reported that “Republicans are increasingly uncomfortable with Trump and Musk’s  strategy to slash the federal government. Sen Jerry Moran warned the White House that dismantling USAID could hurt Kansans who sell their crops to a government program that fights hunger abroad… Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson’s staff wants answers about how an OMB-directed hiring freeze could affect the National Park Service. Some GOP lawmakers are privately expressing alarm as they pass around a letter the administration sent to fire USDA microbiologists working to stop the bird flu and other animal diseases… Several Republican senators have also voiced concerns about how NIH cuts could hurt universities back home. Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who earlier this month praised Musk for ‘draining the swamp,’ on Saturday criticized the potential firing of probationary FBI agents as counterproductive to law enforcement efforts in his state. And Sen. Lisa Murkowski warned that the administration’s civil-servant culling could hurt energy projects and wildlife management in Alaska. They’re all early signs of the difficult task Republican lawmakers will face over the next four years: figuring out how to stand up for their constituents without appearing disloyal to the president.”

And it’s highlighting a significant GOP divide. While some more centrist members are nervous about the pace and scale of the spending cuts, House conservatives want Trump and Musk to slash even more— especially if they don’t get their desired level of spending cuts in the party-line bill to enact the president’s sweeping domestic agenda.

[Relatively] Centrist Republicans could withhold key support if the budget reconciliation measure guts safety-net programs for lower-income Americans. House Republican leaders already think they’ll need to scale back some of those proposed cuts to pass any bill through the Senate.

The Trump administration is offering Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency as an alternative vehicle for slashing funding without relying on Congress… and some hard-liners are signaling they’re open to that approach.

Fresh test: Expect Republican senators to face questions this week about DOGE seeking access to an IRS system that holds detailed financial information about millions of taxpayers.

Democrats are already starting to message and even advertising around Musk by name, DOGE and specific cuts that freak out voters, especially Medicare. “House Majority PAC,” reported Max Cohn, “is drawing the early battle lines for the 2026 campaign around the popular health care program, which helps provide coverage for tens of millions of Americans, especially children. Democrats are likening the House GOP budget resolution— the Energy and Commerce Committee has been directed to find $880 billion in spending cuts, much of which could come from Medicaid— to unpopular Republican politicians from the 2010s. ‘While Donald Trump and House Republicans promised to love and cherish Medicaid, House Republicans have gone full Matt Bevin, and are planning to make deep cuts to fund $4.5 trillion in tax cuts for Elon Musk and other billionaires,’ the HMP memo reads.” Not bad, except that no one outside of DC or Kentucky— where there are no vulnerable seats— ever heard of Matt Bevin, something that would make them instantly stop paying attention to the ad… but that has always been what’s wrong with the DCCC and House Majority PAC sorry attempts to message.

Cohn wrote that “In the memo, HMP identifies how many constituents of 27 at-risk House Republicans rely on Medicaid. There’s a fascinating table that shows the percentage of child Medicaid enrollees in these districts too. 

The Democratic super PAC also cites from nationwide polling from Hart Research that shows Medicaid cuts are deeply unpopular, even among President Donald Trump’s voters. The survey from the Democratic firm shows:

• Americans place a high degree of importance on healthcare as a voting issue (86% to 3% who say they don’t)

• Most voters want to increase funding for healthcare, and very few think healthcare spending should be cut (54% compared to 9% who want it cut)

• There is broad opposition across party lines to major elements of the Republican healthcare agenda, including among Trump voters

• Across party lines, voters want to expand Medicare price negotiations (63%), and hardly anyone (4%) wants to repeal

• A large majority of voters say it is important for Congress to take action to extend tax credits to keep ACA premiums low and oppose GOP policies that would cause premiums rise

• A large majority of voters (76%) have a favorable opinion of Medicaid and see it as an important source of health coverage rather than as a wasteful welfare program (14%) 

• Like voters overall, Trump voters are favorable to Medicaid (67%) and see it as an important source of health coverage rather than as a wasteful welfare program (21%)

• Before any messaging, 66% say a push for large Medicaid cuts would make them feel unfavorable about Republicans

And maybe this is a good time to think about Dan Pfeiffer’s latest essay, How To Make Trump Unpopular Again, especially because “One, vulnerable members of the president’s party are more likely to take tough votes when the president is popular. Two, party performance in the midterms is historically correlated with the incumbent president’s approval rating. Finally, the media narrative around a president is based on their poll numbers. When the numbers are good, the president is portrayed as strong and successful; and when the numbers go down they are seen as weak and feckless. In the first six months of Joe Biden’s presidency, he was treated as a transformational figure akin to FDR or LBJ. Once his poll numbers took a dive after Afghanistan, his press coverage turned. While legacy media coverage matters less these days, it can still set the tone and tenor for larger online conversations. The less popular Trump is, the more challenging it will be for him to pass his agenda in a narrowly divided Congress; and the more likely it will be that Democrats win the majority in 2026; and the sooner members of Trump’s coalition will abandon him. While Trump is less popular than any recent newly elected president, he is more popular than he has ever been before. Democrats need to make Trump unpopular again.”

In the first month of Trump’s presidency, Democrats struggled to find a balance between cooperation and opposition. Senate Democrats helped pass the Laken Riley Act, a right-wing border security bill. Many voted for Trump’s less controversial nominees, like Marco Rubio and Scott Bessent. The impulse to cooperate came from a desire to respond to the Trump voters who abandoned us. This is a profoundly naive understanding of politics.

Trump won the smallest popular vote victory since Al Gore in 2000. He only won the Electoral College by about 100,000 votes. When accounting for population growth, he didn’t win any more votes than he did in 2020. In 2008, Obama won a comparatively massive victory. Did Republicans feel some sort of compunction to cooperate with the newly elected president, who had an approval rating in the high 60s, during a historic financial crisis?

Nope.

Mitch McConnell, the then-Senate Minority Leader, declared in an interview: 

The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.

Without adopting McConnell’s nihilism, we do need a similar approach. McConnell understood that his party’s success was inversely correlated with Obama’s. Unfortunately, politics is zero-sum. Mutually shared political victory between Republicans and Democrats does not exist.

Therefore, Democrats need to adopt a “no layups” rule. This is a concept borrowed from basketball. There are no easy shots. If the other team tries to make a layup, you foul them before they can. This is the mentality Democrats need. We must complicate everything for Trump and the Republicans and use every lever of power to slow things down and gum up the works. Time is the only non-renewable resource in politics. Every day that Trump doesn’t move his agenda is a day he won’t get back. This is what McConnell did to Obama and it’s what Democrats need to do to Trump.

The real test will come when government funding runs out and the debt limit expires. The Democratic approach must be in total opposition to any Republican proposal. We have all the leverage. If Republicans want Democratic votes, they must pay in concessions. This doesn’t mean we demand Medicare For All or an expansion of Social Security, but we can insist on concessions to protect many of the priorities being slashed by Musk and his minions.

To be clear, Democrats are not forcing a shutdown. Republicans have the votes to keep the government up and running. I am simply saying that Democrats shouldn’t bail out the Republicans due to some sense of civic duty.

A messy congressional process undermines the image of strength that has fueled Trump’s recent rise in popularity. A win for Trump is a loss for Democrats. So let’s not give Trump any wins.

I am also not arguing that Democrats walk away from our priorities or ideals. Trump has never tried in good faith to work with Democrats in the past and will certainly not do so in the future. These are dangerous times. Trump is a real threat. There are very few guardrails. Democrats need to be willing to fight harder than ever before. It will be uncomfortable at times. The editorial boards and centrist columnists will attack, but Democrats must play the long game. Take heat now for victory further down the line.

There is no other option.

The Senate Democrats who have most consistently voted for Trumpism are:

• John Fetterman (PA), basically an honorary Republican

• Jeanne Shaheen (NH), Kyrsten Sinema (2025)

• Mark Kelly (AZ)

• Elissa Slotkin (MI)

• Catherine Cortez Masto (NV)

• Maggie Hassan (NH)

• Peter Welch (VT)

• Michael Bennet (CO)

• Angus King (I-ME)

• Ruben Gallego (AZ)

• Gary Peters (MI)

• Tom Kaine (VA)

• Jackie Rosen (NV)

• John Hickenlooper (CO)

• Kirsten Gillibrand (NY)

• Jon Ossoff (GA)

• Adam Schiff (CA)

  
  
  
  
  
  

  Note: If you would like to support members of Congress actively resisting Trumpism on the floor and beyond, here are an even dozen who continue to earn our gratitude and admiration. There are others, but if you can, please consider giving $5 to each of these... or even $10 if you can.