'This Is Just A Clown Car And An Absolute Circus': GOP Strategist Decries Public Trump-Musk Battle

Forbes Breaking News

On "Forbes Newsroom," GOP strategist Brittany Martinez decried the social media fireworks between President Trump and Elon Musk.

Transcript

00:00He was finding from the archives old comments from President Trump about the deficit,

00:05old comments from Speaker Johnson, and he was just resurfacing them. I mean, he was on fire

00:11yesterday on social media, but he mused this in a poll on X. He said, is it time to create a new

00:17political party in America that actually represents the 80 percent in the middle? What do you make of

00:22that? And I mean, he is the richest man in the world. If anyone could create, money-wise, a new

00:29political party, I mean, it could be him. What do you make of him raising that question?

00:34I agree with you. I think if someone could actually make a movement in that way with money,

00:39it would be Elon Musk. Whether he wants to stay out of it now because he tried it and he got a

00:44little burned or not, I guess we'll see over the next few months and years. But he's not wrong in

00:51that the majority of Americans really do live somewhere towards the middle when it comes to

00:55these policies. They're not incredibly conservative or incredibly liberal. And it's those voices in

01:01the party on the extreme right and left that frustrate Americans. And, you know, wokeness,

01:07go woke, go broke, right? And we see that within the MAGA faction of the Republican Party. And then

01:12we see that in the very liberal socialist angle of the Democrat Party. And so he's right. I think it's

01:20that middle ground is where bipartisanship happens, where bills get passed into law and where we're

01:25able to actually make progress. Is he going to do something about it? I don't know. But if there

01:32was someone positioned financially to do so, I do think Elon Musk could make a difference in this

01:37area. And I want to get your opinion on something President Trump posted in the riffraff yesterday.

01:43He said this, quote,

01:44The easiest way to save money in our budget, billions and billions of dollars,

01:48is to terminate Elon's governmental subsidies and contracts. I was always surprised that Biden

01:53didn't do it. That sounds like a threat to me, because there was Elon Musk going after this bill,

02:01going at a stuggler. President Trump talks about that. I mean, Republicans have long accused Democrats

02:07of weaponizing the government. Is this President Trump so publicly weaponizing the government? I mean,

02:13what's your take? Yeah. And then Elon Musk responded, well, then I'll get rid of my dragon

02:18program. I mean, I couldn't be clear to me that both of these men are essentially admitting to pay

02:25for play. That's what it is. It's that you do good work for me. You support me. You fund me. I'll

02:31continue to give you these government contracts worth billions of dollars. And like, oh, now you're

02:35against me and you're going to come out and not support me. Great. I'm going to pull that funding.

02:38And I do think that it was it's not unethical, at least towing the line, that this special

02:46whatever special position to the president that Elon was, was also getting all of these billions of

02:52dollars for other work that he does separately, apart from the advising that he was doing during

02:57the administration. And the fact that this is happening right now, I think that should be

03:03very concerning to the to the American people, because we should have legislators and politicians

03:09in office who are doing good and aren't being unethical. But this I do think this is a weaponization

03:15of government. And I'm glad that they just outed themselves because that's what we've been saying.

03:20And they said, no, it's all been done by the book. And so professional, clearly not. And I'm glad that

03:25they said this, because now we can always point back to it that they admitted that themselves on social

03:30media of all places. I mean, to that point, it all unfurled on social media of all places.

03:38And if you're someone who's chronically online, if you live on X or Twitter, and you're just going on

03:43it, I mean, everyone was having a field day yesterday. But if you zoom out, I mean, what

03:47really are the optics here that the world's richest man, the most influential leader in the world

03:53are having a social media fight? What does that say to Americans? And then what does that say to

03:59our friends and enemies around the world? I think to Americans, it really signals that this is

04:06just a clown car and an absolute circus and that it has been. And all of the people who have been

04:11saying as much have been right. And, you know, you know, I've made this argument before. And last year

04:17during the election, I think Democrats did a good job in saying Trump is weird. These golden,

04:23the golden toilet and the diapers at events and like saying this stuff like this is weird. And I think

04:28that was able to sort of kind of break through some of the public discourse, because it's a lot

04:32easier to go with this is weird, as opposed to he's a threat to democracy. If that's where you

04:36eventually want people to end up, there's like 20 steps to get there. But this is weird to then,

04:42oh, this didn't seem right. It was unprofessional. Like, that's how you get there. So when this is

04:48all happening, and you see Elon and the president going after each other, I think it's an embarrassment,

04:54an absolute embarrassment. And I think that our allies are probably like, oh, kind of rolling

04:59their eyes and wishing that hadn't happened. And then our adversaries, they're thrilled. They're

05:04absolutely thrilled. Putin, China, do you think that they're like, oh, poor Americans? No, they know

05:10that that's an opportunity to maybe one, potentially do work with Elon Musk, if him and Trump are on the

05:16outs now. But also that we are being very unprofessional in the way that we're handling things

05:22right now. And they're just paying attention. And that should also be a concern to the Americans.

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