Is There Any Part Of The MAGA Agenda Trump Wouldn’t Sell Out? Does The Drooling MAGA Base Care?

Pay Trump Enough And He'll Flip Flop On Anything

In 2015, one of the absurd Trump talking points was that as a billionaire he was above the grubby and corrupt DC dance that involves politicians selling out to the very wealthy. Being very wealthy himself, Trump would have no reason to sell out. Hicks in backward rural precincts unaware of Trump’s long history and unaware that greed is defined by the very rich, believed that Trump could be unbought. Nearly a decade has passed since then and even some of the hicks realize they were sold a bill of goods. Under Trump, corruption in DC has reached heights unseen since Warren G. Harding’s Teapot Dome scandal, when the Republican Party was selling petroleum leases for campaign contributions. Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall took the fall for Harding and the rest of the GOP and wound up in prison for a year.

The DC sewer has succeeded in covering up the $100 million crypto current bribe scandal that sent Sam Bankman Fried to prison for bribing… apparently no one. And bribery in the Trump era has become to commonplace and normalized that no one batted an eyelash when Trump told a group of oil billionaires at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser that he would allow them to write environmental and Climate policy in return for a billion dollar campaign contribution. The crcyptocriminals are back in business paying off politicians from both sides of tree aisle, including, of course, Trump himself.

And then there’s Philly robber baron Jeffrey Yass, who paid the Republican Party with a steady stream of cash in return for Trump doing a 180 on TikTok. Trump has even been willing to sell out on his signature xenophobia in return for cash, announcing— after a meeting with Business Roundtable billionaires— that foreign nationals who graduate from U.S. colleges and universities should “automatically” be given a green card upon graduation.

Trump has been notorious for selling his endorsements for cash, JD Vance being just the most notorious example, first when crackpot gay Republican billionaire Peter Thiel got a Senate twofer from Trump, Vance for Ohio and Blake Masters for Arizona. Now Vance, the least popular VP selection in decades, has a coterie of billionaires around him besides just Thiel, all of whom promised Trump big bucks to put Vance on the ticket, which he did. Vance may prove to be the first VP nominee to bring down a presidential ticket since Sarah Palin’s selection crashed and burned John McCain’s campaign.

Although Elon Musk now says he’s not giving Trump $45 million/month, he already gave at least $45 million and seems to have gotten a little somethin’ somethin’ in return: a Trump flip flop on electric vehicles. 

Yesterday, Lisa Friedman reminded her readers that Señor T spent years ridiculing electric vehicles, “saying they don’t go far, are too expensive and are made in China. He has promised to end federal support for electric vehicles, a central feature of President Biden’s strategy to cut the carbon dioxide that is heating the planet. But in recent months, Trump has been saying some nice things about E.V.s. While he still throws some shade on electric vehicles, in the same breath he also tells crowds that he likes them. On Saturday, he went further, telling a rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., ‘I’m constantly talking about electric vehicles but I don’t mean I’m against them. I’m totally for them.’ Moments later he said, ‘I’ve driven them and they are incredible, but they’re not for everybody.’ This subtle softening began after Trump met in March with Elon Musk, the billionaire chief executive of Tesla, in Palm Beach, Fla. 

Trump shifted his attacks from the reliability and value of electric vehicles to the federal incentives for consumers to buy E.V.s, and to environmental regulations designed to prod automakers to step up production. He’s said that anyone who wants to buy an electric vehicle should be able to but the government should not shape the car market.

Asked at the Tesla shareholders meeting in June about Trump’s apparent turn, Musk replied, “I can be persuasive,” according to an audio recording.

…Both men stand to benefit from their new alliance.

For Trump, the enthusiastic backing of Musk, one of the world’s wealthiest men and a near mythical figure among Republicans, would be helpful. “The one thing connected to E.V.s that Republicans like, is they like Elon,” said Mike Murphy, a veteran Republican consultant who promotes electric vehicles.

“Elon Musk, I love Elon Musk,” Trump told the crowd on Saturday. “Do we love him? I love him.”

For Musk, the elimination of the $7,500 federal tax credit for buyers of electric vehicles could hurt GM, Ford and other Tesla competitors. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act provides tax credits of up to $7,500 for buyers of electric vehicles, but some Tesla models do not qualify because of several requirements, including that the vehicles be free of Chinese-made components.

“Take away the subsidies,” Musk wrote on X this month. “It will only help Tesla.”

Tesla, which has had an enormous head start in production and already has a network of charging stations, may be more likely to remain profitable without subsidies than legacy automakers like GM or Ford, analysts have said.

Musk was once a sharp critic of Trump, resigning from two advisory councils during Trump’s presidency over his decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement. But within a half-hour of the July 13 assassination attempt against Trump, Musk endorsed his campaign to return to the White House.

“Elon endorsed me the other day,” Trump said at the Saturday rally, adding that Musk has pledged to donate $45 million a month to his campaign. “Not $45 million— $45 million a month!”

…The future of electric vehicles and the course of the clean energy transition in America could be altered by the 2024 election. Trump, who has dismissed climate change as a hoax, wants to expand oil and gas drilling. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris consider climate change an urgent threat and want to move the country away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy.

In response to the Biden administration’s policies, American automakers have invested billions to create the capacity to produce electric vehicles, which made up 6.8 percent of new vehicle sales in the United States in May, according to Edmunds, a company that reviews cars and tracks the auto market. In the global market, American automakers are facing stiff competition from BYD, China’s leading auto company, which has been heavily subsidized by the Chinese government and churns out inexpensive cars that have flooded China and are beginning to sell in Europe.

“Any auto C.E.O. will tell you electric vehicles are going to save the automobile industry so the Chinese don’t dominate it,” Murphy said. “But in Trump’s mind, he identifies investments in electric vehicles with Biden policy, so it’s wrong and has to be attacked.”

There is a clear partisan split in public opinion when it comes to electric vehicles. In a Pew Research Center survey in June, 77 percent of Republicans said they would not consider purchasing an electric vehicle for their next car and only 13 percent reported being “very interested” in an E.V. That’s compared with 45 percent of Democrats who said they would be “very interested” in making their next car an electric one.

“Trump is tapping into something Republicans really believe,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican political consultant. “They’re far less likely to consider buying an electric vehicle and they really resent the idea that the government is going to come along and subsidize these Democrats who want to buy an electric vehicle.”

Trump insists that the American car market will never be completely electric. “You can’t have 100 percent of your cars electric,” he told the crowd in Michigan on Saturday. “We can’t electrify our cities.”

He repeated a familiar promise to end the “electric vehicle mandate on Day 1,” a phrase he uses to refer to Biden administration limits on automobile tailpipe emissions. It is designed to ensure that the majority, not 100 percent, of new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the U.S. are all-electric or hybrids by 2032. It does not ban the sales of gasoline-powered cars and trucks.

As the Inflation Reduction Act was making its way through Congress in 2021, Musk argued that it should be abandoned. He said government spending levels were “insane.”

“We don’t need the $7,500 tax credit,” Musk said at a Wall Street Journal conference. “I would say, honestly, I would say I would just can this whole bill. Don’t pass it.” He also dismissed federal money to build electric vehicle charging stations, saying “Do we need to support the gas stations? We don’t.”

Tesla has benefited greatly from government money in the past. The company received a $465 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy that allowed it to produce specially designed, all-electric plug-in vehicles and build a facility in California to make battery packs, electric motors and other components. It repaid the loan in 2013.

Musk seems unbothered by Trump’s declaration that he would end policies designed to get more people to buy electric vehicles. “It’ll be fine,” Musk wrote on Twitter.

But Trump and his allies have promoted other policies that could hurt Tesla.

For example, Project 2025, a blueprint for a next Republican administration written by more than 100 of Trump’s former aides, calls for revoking California’s ability to set its own emissions standards. That ability, under a waiver of the Clean Air Act, has underpinned California’s goal of selling only zero-emissions vehicles by 2035, making Tesla a major player in that market.

Conservatives said they believed that Musk had little to worry about from a second Trump administration.

“I just don’t see the downside risk from a business perspective for Musk,” said James Pethokoukis, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning research organization in Washington.

“Does it seem likely that actions by the Trump administration will undercut the only American company that’s successful at manufacturing these cars, employs about 150,00 people and is based in Texas, and, oh yeah, whose owner is now a massive donor to the Republican Party and supports President Trump?” Pethokoukis asked.

Another of the most glaring examples of Trump's willingness to sell out his proclaimed principles/agenda can be seen in his handling of healthcare and his relationship with Big Pharma. On the campaign trail in 2016, he repeatedly promised to tackle the high cost of prescription drugs, asserting that he would bring down prices and take on the powerful pharmaceutical industry. However, once in office, Trump's rhetoric softened considerably. Despite initial moves to promote drug price transparency, substantial price reductions never materialized. Instead, pharmaceutical companies continued to raise prices, and the Trump administration's policies frequently aligned with the interests of Big Pharma. Notably, Trump's 2020 campaign received over $2.5 million from pharmaceutical and health product companies, which coincided with his administration's reluctance to implement more aggressive price controls, such as allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices— a policy he had championed during his campaign but later abandoned.

Similarly, Trump's tax policy highlights another stark contradiction between his campaign promises and his actions in office. He loudly and repeatedly pledged to deliver a tax plan that would primarily benefit the middle class, claiming that he would not favor the wealthy. However, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the hallmark of his economic agenda, disproportionately benefited corporations and the wealthiest Americans, including himself. The act slashed the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, leading to record stock buybacks and big-time windfalls for the top 1%, while the promised middle-class tax relief was modest and temporary. This legislation starkly contrasts with Trump's populist campaign rhetoric and underscores his character and his propensity to prioritize the interests of his wealthy donors over those of ordinary Americans, including the MAGA base.