Today in Politics, Bulletin 145. 6/5/25 Ron Filipkowski Jun 5 ∙ … Musk today after Trump posted on Truth Social that he fired Elon: “Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House, and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate. Such ingratitude.” … Trump responded: “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!” … Musk: “In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.” (Dragon is used to bring supplies to the International Space Station) … Musk also came back with this: “Time to drop the really big bomb: Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT! Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out.”’ … Steve Bannon then spoke to the NYT about Musk, who he has hated for years: “They should initiate a formal investigation of his immigration status because I am of the strong belief that he is an illegal alien, and he should be deported from the country immediately.” … Musk and Trump took turns taking shots at each most of the day today, as Trump turned his Oval Office meeting with the German Chancellor into a Bash Elon session after Musk spent the last three days calling his budget an “abomination.” … Musk: “This spending bill contains the largest increase in the debt ceiling in US history! It is the Debt Slavery Bill. Call your Senator, Call your Congressman, Bankrupting America is NOT ok! KILL the BILL.” … Trump: “Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anyone sitting here. And then all of a sudden he had a problem, and he only developed the problem when he found out we're gonna have to cut the EV mandate; I'm very disappointed in Elon. I’ve helped him a lot.” … Musk: “False, this bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!” … Trump: “Elon's upset because we took out the EV mandate. He recommended somebody to run NASA and I didn't think it was appropriate. And he happened to be a Democrat, like, totally Democrat. We won, we get privileges, and one of the privileges is we don’t have to appoint a Democrat.” … Musk: “Whatever. Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil and gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), but ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill. In the entire history of civilization, there has never been legislation that both big and beautiful. Everyone knows this! Either you get a big and ugly bill or a slim and beautiful bill.” … Trump: “I think he misses the place. He's not the first. People leave my administration, and then at some point, they miss it so badly. And some of them embrace it. And some of them actually become hostile. It's sort of Trump derangement syndrome.” … Musk: “Is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle?” SOURCE: REUTERS/Nathan Howard/File Photo … Trump then jumped onto Truth Social and said he fired Musk: “Elon was ‘wearing thin,’ I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!” … Musk responded to that: “Such an obvious lie. So sad.” … Can we circle back and get more details on exactly what Musk did to win the election for Trump? … Musk then posted that Trump should be impeached and replaced with JD Vance. … Musk’s most recent baby mama Ashley St. Claire, who is currently suing Musk, chimed in with this post tagging Trump: “Hey Trump, let me know if you need any breakup advice.” … Laura Loomer: “It’s heating up. Will be interesting to see what Republican lawmakers do now. I know law makers who are asking if they should side with President Trump or Elon. I’ve been on the Hill all day and it’s all anyone is talking about. The most powerful man in the world vs the richest man in the world.” … Musk responded to Loomer’s post: “Oh and some food for thought as they ponder that question: Trump has 3.5 years left as President, but I will be around for 40+ years.” … That might be a bit optimistic given his drug use, diet, sleep habits, and physical conditioning. … Then Musk posted this: “The Trump tariffs will cause a recession in the second half of this year.” … Dinesh D’Souza: “The Trump-Musk feud is a gift to the Left. The Democrats can hardly believe their good luck.” … Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) to Elon: “I've had a lot of love and respect for you for what you've done for this country over the last several months, but you've lost your damn mind. You've lost your mind.” …… Tesla stock took a nosedive when the feud started at noon and just kept going down as it kept getting worse. CNBC: “Tesla loses $152 billion in market cap after Musk-Trump spat. Biggest hit ever.” That’s about $9 billion per tweet. … Ranking Dem on House Oversight Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) is calling for the committee to subpoena Elon Musk for an inquiry on whether he was using drugs while working inside the Trump admin. … Trump post on Truth Social this morning: “I just finished speaking with President Vladimir Putin. We discussed the attack on Russia’s docked airplanes, by Ukraine, and also various other attacks that have been taking place by both sides. It was a good conversation, but not a conversation that will lead to immediate Peace. Putin did say, and very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields. We also discussed Iran, and the fact that time is running out on Iran’s decision pertaining to nuclear weapons, which must be made quickly! I stated to Putin that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and, on this, I believe that we were in agreement. Putin suggested that he will participate in the discussions with Iran and that he could, perhaps, be helpful in getting this brought to a rapid conclusion.” … Trump was asked in the Oval Office why he has repeatedly threatened additional sanctions on Russia but has done nothing: “When I see the moment where it’s not going to stop, we’re going to be very tough. And it could be on both countries.” … On both countries. So we are going to sanction Ukraine too. Makes sense. We need to punish them for defending themselves. … AP: “Filings for US unemployment benefits rose to their highest level in 8 months last week. New applications for jobless benefits rose by 8,000 to 247,000 for the week ending May 31. That’s the most since early October. Analysts had forecast 237,000 new applications. In reporting their latest earnings, many companies have either lowered their sales and profit expectations for 2025 or not issued guidance at all, often citing President Trump’s dizzying rollout of tariff announcements.” … WSJ reported on something I worried about in this column a couple months ago - that when the economic numbers started to get really bad, the Trump admin was going to cook the books: “Some economists are beginning to question the accuracy of recent US inflation data after the fed govt said staffing shortages hampered its ability to conduct a massive monthly survey. The Bureau of Labor Statistics told outside economists this week that a hiring freeze at the agency was forcing the survey to cut back on the number of businesses where it checks prices. In last month’s inflation report, govt statisticians had to use a less precise method for guessing price changes more extensively than they did in the past.” … “To calculate the inflation rate, hundreds of govt workers called enumerators fan out across cities each month to check how much businesses are charging for products such as blue jeans and services such as accounting, often by visiting bricks-and-mortar stores. Statisticians roll those figures together into the consumer-price index, a data stream that shows how the cost of living is changing for typical Americans. A handful of economists noticed quirks in the April data.” … “Economist Alan Detmeister was among those who noticed that in the April inflation data, 29% of price guesses were made using different-cell imputation, almost twice as high as any month in the past 5 years. The report showed that the rate of inflation cooled to 2.3% over the 12 months through April, the lowest rate since 2021. Detmeister said it is impossible to tell whether the reliance on different-cell estimates skewed the data in one direction or the other: “When you take a sample and reduce the numbers, it’s going to increase the sampling error. We don’t know if this is a big issue or a small issue, but we just know that directionally, it’s making things worse.” I did my very best to keep up with everything today. When the Trump-Elon feud broke out at noon (which we prepared for and were expecting today after Elon’s posts last night about the budget), I pretty much had to drop everything and stay on social media for about 5 hours straight to keep up with the twists and turns. I didn’t want to neglect other important news though - so good thing I got more done than usual in the morning anticipating that something crazy could go down today. But even I didn’t think it was going to be that crazy! If you missed the last Bulletin, you can find it here. Meidas+ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. … ProPublica reported that Trump has just appointed a 22-year old to run a counter-terrorism unit for DHS: “When Thomas Fugate graduated from college last year with a degree in politics, he celebrated in a social media post about the exciting opportunities that lay beyond campus life in Texas. A year after graduation, the 22-year-old with no apparent national security expertise is now a DHS official overseeing the govt’s main hub for terrorism prevention, including an $18 million grant program intended to help communities combat violent extremism.” … “The WH appointed Fugate, a former Trump campaign worker who interned at the hard-right Heritage Foundation, to a DHS role that was expanded to include the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships. Known as CP3, the office has led nationwide efforts to prevent hate-fueled attacks, school shootings and other forms of targeted violence.” … The Telegraph: “Elon Musk’s Doge team reportedly left a govt-funded institution littered with beer bottles, drugs and cockroaches. Musk attempted to dismantle the US Institute of Peace and lay off most of its workers earlier this year, but was blocked by a court order. When employees returned last month, they reportedly found the office full of cockroaches and rodents, with leftover marijuana and empty beer bottles strewn about.” … Trump issued an executive order directing the State Dept and DOJ to prevent any new foreign students from enrolling at Harvard: "Harvard University is no longer a trustworthy steward of international student and exchange visitor programs.” … AG Pam Bondi: “Admission to the US to study at an ‘elite’ American university is a privilege, not a right. This DOJ will vigorously defend the President’s proclamation suspending the entry of new foreign students at Harvard University based on national security concerns.” … Harvard responded in a statement that it intends to take this latest action to court: "This is yet another illegal retaliatory step taken by the Administration in violation of Harvard's First Amendment rights. Harvard will continue to protect its international students." … AP: “President Trump directed his admin to investigate Joe Biden’s actions as president, alleging aides masked his predecessor’s ‘cognitive decline’ and casting doubts on the legitimacy of his use of the autopen to sign pardons and other documents. The order marked a significant escalation in Trump’s targeting of political adversaries and could lay the groundwork for arguments by the Republican that a range of Biden’s actions as president were invalid.” … Trump memo: “This conspiracy marks one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history. The American public was purposefully shielded from discovering who wielded the executive power, all while Biden’s signature was deployed across thousands of documents to effect radical policy shifts.” … Biden responded: “Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.” … House Oversight Chair James Comer then announced on Newsmax that he has subpoenaed Biden’s doctor to testify before Congress. … Steve Bannon says he wants Elise Stefanik to replace feckless Mike Johnson as Speaker, but he wants her to run against Gov. Kathy Hochul instead, which is what she is about to do: “I want Stefanik to be Speaker of the House. I don’t want her to leave the House, but Mike Johnson ain’t hacking it. But she’s got a shot to be Governor of NY and that is a game changer because of the power of that office.” … Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) on CNN: "The idea of focusing on President Biden is a way of distracting from Donald Trump's efforts to completely undermine our democracy, to grift and engage in corruption, and to help out his billionaire buddies by cutting their taxes while taking Medicaid away from the American people." … Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) on Trump and Johnson claiming the CBO numbers on their budget are wrong: “Speaker Johnson complains CBO is scoring the deficit impact of the Big Beautiful Bill wrong. Folks, CBO stands for Congressional Budget Office! I reminded the Speaker yesterday that CBO works for Congress and we could fire the director right now if he is serious.” … CNBC: “A few months of market swings have taken a toll on retirement savers. The average 401(k) balance fell 3% in the first quarter of 2025 to $127,100, according to a new report by Fidelity Investments, the nation’s largest provider of 401(k) plans. The average individual retirement account balance also sank 4% from the previous quarter to $121,983.” … Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) on Commerce Sec Howard Lutnick telling him the goal of tariffs isn’t to get other countries to reduce theirs: "It's clear that President Trump listens to Secretary Lutnick, so I spent time trying to figure out where he's coming from. And I don't understand. My idea of reciprocity is to lower tariffs to get both sides to zero. And I thought that’s where Lutnick was going. Why are we having these trade talks? Where are we going here? I’m just going to assume he was being purposely evasive.” … NBC: “President Trump and Chinese President Xi Xinping held a phone call Thursday amid ongoing tensions between the two superpowers. Chinese state media and the Chinese foreign ministry said that the call happened at the White House's request. No other information was immediately made public.” … Dep. FBI Director Dan Bongino told Fox he is laser focused on his mission: “I don’t have any friends, I don’t want any friends. I didn’t come here to make friends. I don’t care about friends. I don’t need any friends. So if you’re a corrupt politician screwing around, we are going to find you and we are coming for you.” … Pillow Man Mike Lindell was hit with a gag order for his constant press conferences, interviews and social media posts during his defamation trial in the lawsuit brought by Dominion. He promptly violated it, a hearing was held, the judge found he violated the order and warned him that the next time he will be held in contempt. … Vets activist and Democrat Fred Wellman: “The stage is getting set up for tomorrow’s ‘Unite for Veterans. Unite for America.’ rally on the National Mall. Join us at 2:00 pm live for incredible speakers, the Dropkick Murphys, and thousands of Americans letting their voices be heard. Protect our veterans and protect our Constitution. Join us online or at one of hundreds of sister rallies around the nation.” … NY Daily News: “President Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, NJ was hit with a remarkable 18 health code violations, 9 of them considered ‘critical,’ according to a recent report by the Somerset County Department of Health. The health dept’s grade of 32 out of 100 points made Trump National Golf Course the most poorly rated establishment in Somerset County last month. Out of the roughly 115 retail food establishments inspected, all but two scored 60 or higher, with most in the 80s and 90s.” … “Inspectors said Trump’s club was out of compliance with many rules regarding food be protected from contamination. Expired milk was found in refrigerators and raw meat wasn’t properly stored. Handwashing facilities were also not up to par when health officials made their visit, and dishwashers weren’t reaching the required temperature for proper sanitation. Half of the violations represented critical conditions that can pose a serious health risk.”