MSNBC’s Ari Melber didn’t downplay the situation facing, uh, the country during his show on Wednesday, but he did have some advice for people looking ahead to pushing back against Donald Trump and Elon Musk: “Maintaining your ability to be outraged about lies and the misuse of tax dollars” is crucial.
That point came after a lengthy look into Donald Trump’s relationship with Musk, as typified by Tuesday’s Tesla promotion at the White House.
“The headline you’ve probably heard, markets are slumping, and it’s hitting Elon Musk’s Tesla extremely hard, a crash there, the steepest drop in five years, landed for that company this week, as Musk has been doing just about everything, but spending full time running Tesla, working with the government, working with political speeches and appearances, instead of focused on his companies, where so many people expect him to keep track of the stock,” Melber said.
“Meanwhile, Trump and Musk’s alliance is now using your taxpayer resources and the White House itself for the extremely odd, controversial and allegedly possibly corrupt presentation that you see here,” he continued, referring to said White House Tesla promosion.
“The pair spent 30 minutes at the White House on what many called an obvious ad and conflict of interest, where the President United States hawked Tesla at the White House to an invited group of reporters,” Melber continued. “Trump also basically suggesting he was shopping for a new car, and hawked the products an intrepid photographer showing that Trump’s notes revealed a price list of Tesla cars, meaning this was quite specifically a sales job for one company owned or tied to his own political ally.”
Melber made the point that this “obviously” involves a big , a big part of Musk’s wealth,” and added that the notes “read like a Tesla sales pitch.” Soon after, he noted how in addition to the brazen corruption of this, it also breaks a specific promise both Trump and Musk made recently, that Musk would “recuse” himself if ever U.S. policy and Musk’s business interests became connected by policy.
Melber then contrasted the current situation to that of the failed solar power company Solyndra, which received a $539 million loan cosigned by the Obama administration in 2009 but declared bankruptcy in 2011. An investigation ultimately determined there was no evidence of wrongdoing or illegal or unethical political influence. Nevertheless it was a big issue in the 2012 election, with Republicans accusing Obama of using his office to promote the company illegally.
:The federal government picked a winner, and it turned out to be a loser,” Melber said about that situation. “Now Republicans defend, some even cheering, Trump hand picking his view of a winner on the White House lawn for a political ally, while Musk uses X, the platform he bought to stream, to broadcast the appearance of what some see as a political favor.”
“It’s not what a free market looks like. We are witnessing, in a very blatant way, the fusion of selected businesses that are on the winners list and the government, which is using your taxpayer dollars at the very time that this administration’s policies are crashing the markets, including Tesla, and all of this done by these people who very publicly and falsely claim they would recuse over any conflicts, the first step catching them, maintaining your ability to be outraged about lies and the misuse of tax dollars and fact checking,” Melber concluded.
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