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Angsty Trump Promises Musk Won't Be President - The Monday AM Quickie 12/23/24

By Jacob Silverman —

I thought we resolved the whole Panama Canal issue last century. -Jacob

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THE BIG NEWS

Angsty Donald Trump Promises Musk Won't Be President

At an appearance at the Turning Point USA conference over the weekend, President-elect Donald Trump praised his buddy/political backer/co-president Elon Musk for bringing Starlink terminals into disaster areas to provide emergency internet access. As his audience began to cheer, Trump issued a warning: "But no, he's not going to be president. That I can tell you." The crowd fell silent as Trump continued: "And I'm safe: you know why? He can't be. He wasn't born in this country. Hahaha."

The Trump/Musk alliance has always been an uneasy one: two insecure, tempestuous billionaires – one far richer than the other – trying to share the seat of power. In the last week, there's been more media talk – and among politicians – of Musk as a co-president or the actual president (about 5 weeks ago, writing in Zeteo, I called Musk the "shadow president"). A crackup seems inevitable, though the when and how remain up in the air.

As it is, many Republicans seem to like the idea of Musk as the leader of the United States or at least as a pivotal political figure. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Sen. Rand Paul both said that they would like Musk to be Speaker of the House, who has always been a sitting member of Congress but could, by law, be pretty much anyone chosen by Congress. Even the current speaker of the house, Rep. Mike Johnson, recounted a conversation with Musk in which he joked about handing over the speakership to the tech billionaire.

Not that we're on the national road to progress at the moment, but a Musk speakership would be a disastrous gift to this nation's oligarchs, which means it could very well happen!

Terrorist Attack By Right-Wing Saudi Atheist Confuses Right Wingers

Over the weekend, a Saudi refugee living in Germany named Taleb Abdulmohsen drove a car into a crowd of people at a Christmas market in the town of Magdeburg. Five people were killed. Abdulmohsen, a 50-year-old psychologist, had reportedly been living in Germany since 2006. According to social media postings and comments from people who knew him, Abdulmohsen was viciously anti-Islam, against the Saudi monarchy (he called himself part of the "military opposition"), and a supporter of Israel. He accused German politicians of trying to Islamicize Germany. He was also notorious in the Saudi exile community for mistreating Saudi asylum seekers and pressuring them to convert to atheism. In short, despite (or because of) his background, he was an Islamophobic right winger.

That assessment hasn't sat well with Elon Musk and other right-wing propagandists, who have tried to cast Abdulmohsen as an Islamist terrorist. That may be why Abdulmohsen's X account isn't searchable right now. If we were allowed to easily search through his past posts, we would see someone who resembles Elon Musk a lot more than he does a jihadist.

MIA For Months, An Elderly Texas Congresswoman Was Found In An Assisted Living Facility

Rep. Kay Granger, an 81-year-old Republican member of Congress from Texas, hasn't been seen in public in months, nor has she cast a Congressional vote since July. That spurred a reporter from the Dallas Express, a local right-wing newspaper whose owner is a political rival of Granger, to go looking for the Congresswoman. It turns out that Granger, who is suffering from memory loss, is now in an assisted living facility. She is still a sitting member of Congress, at least until next month. (She also sold her house to a retired general who participated in the notorious Phoenix Program in Vietnam, which just means that America continues to be a weird place.)

Some details of the story – e.g. the extent of her dementia, whether she was found wandering around town, whether it's a full-care facility or more of an "independent living" facility. But the basics have been confirmed, and the takeaway is clear: America's gerontocracy problem is very real when its elected representatives can't even take care of themselves.

QUICKEST QUICKIES

  • Right-Wing Tech Companies Band Together for Defense Contracts Palantir and Anduril – tech-industry national security contractors with deep connections to Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and other PayPal mafia ghouls – are forming a consortium to bid for military contracts. Other members of the group will reportedly include OpenAI, SpaceX, and other tech startups connected to MAGA-aligned venture capitalists and tech executives. via Reuters.
  • Team Trump Wants To Leave WHO Trump's transition team has reportedly been making plans to leave the World Health Organization soon after President Trump re-enters the White House. Such a move could cripple the WHO's funding and ability to act as a global partner in fighting pandemics and infectious disease. via FT.
  • Libyan Government Unhappy With Russia Military Buildup Abdul Hamid Dabaiba, the Prime Minister of the internationally recognized Libyan government based in Tripoli, expressed concerns that his country may become a proxy conflict for outside countries (more than it already has). His comments came in response to news that, following the fall of Bashar al-Assad, Russia moved military assets from Syria to Libya, where Russia supports Khalifa Haftar, the warlord who rules eastern Libya. via The Guardian.
  • Israel Is Running a Torture Camp in the West Bank Israeli forces have been disappearing, holding without charge, torturing, raping, and killing Palestinian detainees at prisons and camps across the country, including the notorious Sde Teiman detention camp. That network of brutality now includes Ofer Camp, recently established in the occupied West Bank, where torture, abuse, and murder are routine. via +972 Magazine.

SOME NUMBER

3,100

That's about how many Native American children died at US government "boarding schools" over a period of about 150 years – more than three times the number that the Department of the Interior reported earlier this year. For generations, Native American children were taken from their families and forced to attend brutal, prison-like schools. Some never returned home.

ON THE SHOW TODAY

12/23: It is Day 1 of the Majority Report's Best Of 2024! Here Sam and Emma speak with Naomi Klein, professor of Climate Justice at the University of British Columbia, to discuss her recent book Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World.

DON'T MISS MR CLIPS‌

Mark Robinson HILARIOUSLY Exposes Himself

The porn enthusiast and self-proclaimed "black Nazi" will be able to spend more time on his favorite online forums after he returns to private life in eight days.

Jimmy Dore Gives New Definition To "Paralysis Demon"

I think the polio vaccine is good and we should keep it.

PARTING WORDS

"My hands are paralyzed because of the torture, and I am taking heavy psychiatric medications. I walk dozens of kilometers every day to exhaust myself so I can sleep. I lost my life because of that detention."

-- A 59-year-old Palestinian man identified as Rafiq speaking to +972 Magazine about the torture and horrific conditions he experienced at Ofer Camp, part of Israel's archipelago of deadly prisons where innocent Gazans are held without charge.

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