Did Musk Buy A Stake In The Presidency? Or Did Trump Bring Him— And Vought— In To Do The Dirty Work?

Trump Is Getting Closer To Death... What Does He Care About?

Trump’s deep-seated desire for public adoration is a paradox wrapped in the persona of a Roy Cohn-created bully. Throughout his career, Trump has consistently demonstrated an insatiable appetite for positive approval, whether it was through the glowing headlines of his real estate empire or the applause of his audience on reality TV. Yet, this craving for good ratings and public affection contrasts starkly with his confrontational and aggressive demeanor, the ugly traits ofwhich he learned from his father and Cohn, each known for their ruthless, take-no-prisoners approach. Trump's public persona oscillates between seeking validation— through manipulated ratings, stolen elections, gaslit audience sizes— and employing intimidation, creating a complex character who, despite his tough exterior, fundamentally yearns for the love and respect of the masses. I think this duality has shaped his approach to politics and public life, where every move is calculated to either win over the crowd or to dominate through fear, highlighting an intricate dance between vulnerability and power. That, in short, is the Señor Trumpanzee low-info America— no reading comprehension skills— has burdened our nation with.

Yesterday, Ed Kilgore marveled at how someone as unpopular as Trump— as measured by the polls— has been able to win the presidency, albeit narrowly, twice and nearly 3 times. “The day he was elected in 2016, his personal net favorability ratio… was minus 24%, lower than any major-party presidential nominee dating back at least to the 1970s. For a moment during his first term as president, he had a positive job-approval ratio, but it went south by February 3, 2017, and never recovered. On Election Day 2020, his job-approval numbers were 44.6 percent positive, 52.6 percent negative. And he left office after the January 6 Capitol Riot with a 38.6 percent/57.9 percent ratio. During his comeback effort, Trump’s favorability ratio was never positive. His favorability number peaked at 44 percent on February 28, 2024, and luckily for him, it was still at 43.6 percent— not good, but not disastrous— on Election Day.”

Kilgore noted that “All this is relevant background for what we might expect now that Trump 2.0 is entering its first serious rough patch, with a significant public backlash against a poorly executed and almost immediately suspended federal funding freeze. Upcoming fights over congressional budget decisions (which could make the funding-freeze furor seem like a low-pressure dress rehearsal), the messy details of mass deportation, and Trump’s own tendency to overreach could all drive his popularity down to where it has been for most of his public career. The question then remains: In his last term in office, does he really care?” 

Two weeks ago, Kilgore had written that Trump has “some control over how much popularity he is willing to lose. Like anyone who becomes president with some political capital and the ready means to use it (i.e., controlling Congress as well as the White House, and having a lot of friends on the U.S. Supreme Court too), the 47th president will have to decide whether to take some risks on policies that are very likely to reduce his popularity or, instead, play to the galleries. To put it even more simply, he can cash in some chips on stuff he wants to do that could offend or even shock some of the people who voted for him or keep building his stash for the future.

There are a lot of reasons Trump may not care if he remains popular while fulfilling his presidential goals. This is the final presidential term of a 78-year-old man; for him, the future really is right now. Yes, forcing unpopular measures through Congress might endanger the fragile Republican control of the House in the 2026 midterms. But history indicates it’s very likely Democrats will flip the House no matter what Republicans do, and let’s face it: The long-range future of the Republican Party may not be of great interest to the president-elect. Even after being nominated as its presidential candidate three straight times while gradually grinding down intraparty opposition to a fine dust, Trump still acts suspiciously toward his party’s Establishment and clearly views it as a vehicle rather than a cause. This is more speculative, but given his personality profile the 47th president may even prefer, or at least not mind, a falloff in the GOP’s electoral performance once he’s gone.

Add in Trump’s impulsiveness, which doesn’t suggest someone for whom delay of gratification comes naturally, and it seems a “go big, then be gone” attitude is likely. Beyond that, it’s unclear how sensitive this man is to changes in popularity: He’s never been in an election he didn’t think he’d won, and he has a tendency to ignore the polls that give him news he doesn’t want in favor of the one or two that show support for his agenda and message always remain sky-high. If he did something that made his popularity crash, would he even notice it, and if not, would any of the sycophants around him break the bad— and possibly fake— news?

All in all, the best bet is that Donald Trump will pursue his maximum agenda with little regard to how anyone feels about it so long as he’s getting it done. Perhaps Republican officeholders (e.g., his vice-president) who have plans beyond 2028 can talk him into more prudent conduct; but in case you haven’t noticed, he’s stubborn, and it will probably take a lot of blatant, in-your-face adversity to change his course. So don’t expect it to happen just because it should.

You may have noticed that, at least so far, history has judged him as the worst president ever— and by far. This actually seems to gnaw at his ego and irk him, evident in his public denials, counter-narratives and persistent claims of being misunderstood and unfairly targeted. His reaction to this historical judgment suggests a man who may be not just politically but personally invested in redefining his legacy,  striving to shift the narrative from one of failure to one of misunderstood leadership. No doubt characters like Vought, Musk and Don Jr have worked him in favor of digging deeper to finally hit pay dirt. I don’t don’t though, that something inside him wonders if that’s the right path. Rachel Bade explored that possibility yesterday, noting that for all his bluster about “government efficiency” these days, he’s “never been comfortable as a scissor-happy, cost-cutting deficit warrior.”

She wrote that Trump “barreled into a Republican Party a decade ago that was dominated at the time by the debt-minded politics of Paul Ryan and the tea party movement and single-handedly shut down talk of slashing Social Security and Medicare. This week, his aversion to austerity showed its face again— and it portends strife ahead for the GOP... [His] surrender came after an uproar not only from Democrats but some fellow Republicans, and it was a tacit admission that the negative coverage about potentially halting programs like Meals on Wheels was cutting through Trump’s flood-the-zone flurry of Washington chaos— and thus becoming a major political headache. ‘He does not like taking benefits away— that is not his platform,’ said one senior GOP lawmaker who is close with the president. While many conservatives cheered the spending freeze, the reality is that it was not a fight Trump intended to pick— at least not at that moment. As the New York Times and other outlets reported, the White House didn’t vet the Office of Management and Budget memo first. And the Trump insiders I spoke to were peeved that the document gave the impression that far more was on the chopping block than was actually the case.”

Did he install Vought and partner with Musk— two Austerity fanatics— so that they will be blamed for the cuts he may have already decided are inevitable, regardless of his campaign promises and disposition to not take benefits away from his low-info supporters? Are they going to be the scapegoats on a stage set to deflect blame? Is it a move that he thinks will allow him to maintain his image among his base, who might be averse to reductions in benefits, while simultaneously fulfilling the ugly “fiscal discipline” that his big donors and right-wing economic “realities” demand? Is he really thinking that  any backlash from these austerity measures could be directed towards Vought and Musk, preserving his own political capital (and credibility) and fulfilling his campaign narrative of not directly attacking the social safety net his MAGAty supporters rely on?

Bade wrote that “the White House doesn’t give a fig about the argument that they’re running roughshod over Congress’ power of the purse. Far from it: They are intent on using executive power to undertake key policy goals, like rooting out diversity, equity and inclusion programs and reversing predecessor Joe Biden’s climate policies. Billionaire ally Elon Musk is deadly serious about using his ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ to bring ruthless Silicon Valley business practices to Washington… But the president and his inner circle know better now than ever that there’s a fine line between going after the ‘deep state’ and ‘woke’ politics and crossing into areas that may affect a larger group of Americans, their own voters included... To pay for what could be $10 trillion in Trump policy demands, lawmakers are looking at major cuts to mandatory spending programs— and they’re frankly skeptical Trump is interested in going there.”

[M]any conservatives argue that the House is basically gone in 2026 given their tiny majority. That means now is the time, these types argue, to blow through their political capital and attack the federal deficit, political blowback be damned.

However, other Republicans— not just front-liners who want to keep their seats, but more populist types, too— push back on that assumption: They argue that Trump expanded the map for the GOP in 2024, making big gains in places like New York, New Jersey and California. They believe Republicans could actually grow their majority next year if they tread carefully.

It’s unclear to me that Trump’s inner circle was thinking in raw electoral terms when they walked back the budget freeze— though one senior Republican aide speculated to me that very well might have been the case.

“It’s not so much preservation of Republicans, it’s preservation of Donald Trump,” the person said. “He doesn’t want a Democratic House because he saw what happened to him for two years— investigations … impeachments.”

The problem for Trump is that for all of his talk of prioritizing loyalty in his second term, he has staffed his administration with a number of conservative ideologues who could have very different ideas about what the government should be doing— none more influential than his likely soon-to-be budget director, Russ Vought.

Vought is a well-known quantity on Capitol Hill from his time as a staffer there, to say nothing of his work as a Project 2025 author and all-around warrior for small government. Republicans there saw his fingerprints on the spending freeze— or the “Vought memo,” as some are calling it.

“This has Russ’s name written all fucking over it,” said one GOP aide who works in appropriations, adding, ”I see a disparity between what Trump wants to do and what Russ wants to do.”

In other words, the battle between fiscal hawks and populists is set to rage not only on Capitol Hill and elsewhere in the coming months, but inside the White House itself.

“There’s an undercurrent of the old Republican Party at play where they’re like, ‘We’re going to cut benefits’ and all this,” the lawmaker said. “And like the new Republican Party is like, ‘Yeah, we don’t care about that.’”

This week showed us we already have a good idea which side Trump is on.

That's debatable. And not just in the U.S.