The place where Trump can do the most permanent damage
Rob Schofield – January 3, 2025
Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump, speaks to attendees during a Sept. 25, 2024, campaign rally in Mint Hill, North Carolina. Trump’s victory in Tuesday’s election could set the stage for wide-ranging changes to policy. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Donald Trump’s second administration is poised to soon do a great deal of damage in several important areas. Whether it’s health care, education, the federal courts, reproductive freedom, immigration, foreign policy or the economy, millions of people will suffer needlessly if Trump follows through on all of his campaign promises.
That said, when it comes to the damage that will be truly irreparable, no pledge looms darker or more ominous than Trump’s plan to scuttle efforts to combat climate change.
As Katharine Hayhoe – a scientist and lead author of the National Climate Assessment under the last Trump administration – put it in a recent interview, quote “the situation is dire… on many fronts [and… it’s] already getting worse.”
In other words, there’s absolutely no time to waste. Even a mere four years of backtracking will greatly worsen results for our children and grandchildren.
The bottom line: No problem poses a greater threat to the near and long-term wellbeing of Americans than climate change. And no matter what he’s said previously, Trump simply must listen to the experts and act.
Tesla’s Deadly Trump Tower Cybertruck Explosion in Vegas Mocked as ‘Perfect Metaphor’ for 2025
Benjamin Lindsay – January 1, 2025
Chaos erupted outside Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on Wednesday after a Cybertruck, Tesla’s popular-but-maligned electric pickup truck model, exploded into flames. The New Year’s Day event killed one and injured an additional seven, according to authorities.
CEO Elon Musk responded Wednesday on X, writing that after the “whole Tesla senior team” investigated the matter, they’d “confirmed that the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented Cybertruck and is unrelated to the vehicle itself.”
“All vehicle telemetry was positive at the time of the explosion,” he said.
And while there’s apparent reason for concern over the event, the tragedy also garnered a fair amount of ridicule and mockery on X, the social media platform Musk owns.
Many users expressed that it’s a “perfect metaphor” for what’s in store for 2025 under President-elect Donald Trump and Musk leading his DOGE advisory board.
“A real photo and perfect metaphor heading into 2025,” MeidasTouch News editor-in-chief Ron Filipkowski wrote.
“Have you seen the footage? Looks like it deliberately blown up,” responded another. “If it was, you’re probably spot on, just not in the way you thought.”
In a Wednesday morning press conference, Sheriff Kevin McMahill of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department shared that the police were informed of an apparent explosion at 8:40 a.m. local time, detailing that at the time of the event, a 2024 Tesla Cybertruck “pulled up to the last entrance doors of the hotel” before exploding, killing one person inside.
“We saw that smoke started showing from the vehicle, and then a large explosion from the truck occurs,” McMahill said.
McMahill additionally drew comparison’s to Wednesday morning’s vehicular terrorist attack in New Orleans, saying that investigators are “very well aware of what has happened” there.
“As you can imagine, with an explosion here on an iconic Las Vegas Boulevard, we are taking all of the precautions that we need to take to keep our community safe,” he said. Police had also determined at that time that there did not appear to be any additional public safety threats.
“Earlier today, a reported electric vehicle fire occurred in the porte cochère of Trump Las Vegas,” Eric Trump, a Trump Organization leader and the President-elect’s son, wrote on X, a message later echoed by the hotel’s official account. “The safety and well-being of our guests and staff remain our top priority.”
And while the news circulated into Wednesday afternoon as more detail emerged of the cause and nature of the explosion — along with surveillance video that appears to the vehicle exploding (watch that below) — many took to social media to confess that no matter the cause, the optics of Trump- and Musk-world literally burning didn’t bode well for the upcoming presidency.
A Tesla Cybertruck in flames in front of Trump Tower Vegas?
Melanie D’Arrigo: If you were going to choose a metaphor for our current state of politics, a Tesla Cybertruck exploding and burning in front of a Trump Tower in a city where millions of Americans go each year to lose their money, is pretty spot on.
You couldn’t script a better metaphor.
A fire-prone status symbol of excess parked outside the shrine to grift and failed promises—it’s almost poetic.
In a statement released on Thursday, the Vermont independent and two-time Democratic presidential candidate said Musk is wrong about the H-1B visa, which is designed to bring high-skilled workers from abroad to work in the United States.
Musk, Ramaswamy, and others on the “tech right” have argued that the system is necessary to compensate for a shortage of high-skilled workers in America, pitting them against more nationalist Republican voices who see the system as bringing unfair competition upon American workers.
Sanders argued on Thursday that the system is used to exploit foreign workers while enriching corporations.
“The main function of the H-1B visa program and other guest worker initiatives is not to hire ‘the best and the brightest,’ but rather to replace good-paying American jobs with low-wage indentured servants from abroad,” Sanders said, pointing to the fact that corporations have laid off American workers even as they’ve hired foreign workers through the H-1B system. “The cheaper the labor they hire, the more money the billionaires make.”
The Vermont senator called for a series of reforms to the system, including increasing guest worker fees for large corporations, raising the minimum wage for guest workers, and allowing them to easily switch jobs.
“The widespread corporate abuse of the H-1B program must be ended,” Sanders said. “It should never be cheaper for a corporation to hire a guest worker from overseas than an American worker.”
Trump has sided with Musk, saying that he supports the H-1B visa system. That’s despite him signing an executive order halting the program in 2020.
Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Sanders has previously signaled a willingness to work with the billionaire businessman on cutting defense spending via the “Department of Government Efficiency” initiative, though he told BI that it remains to be seen how serious Musk is about the issue.
FBI finds 150 homemade bombs at Virginia home in one of the largest such seizures, prosecutors say
Sean C. Davis – January 1, 2025
FBI finds 150 homemade bombs at Virginia home in one of the largest such seizures, prosecutors say
SMITHFIELD, Virginia (WAVY) — Residents worried about the large FBI presence and numerous explosions heard in Virginia’s Isle of Wight County in mid-December finally have answers.
According to federal court documents, agents had just uncovered a massive trove of pipe bombs, and deemed them too unstable to transport — so they blew them up. The FBI said it believes it’s the largest amount of homemade explosives it has encountered in its history.
“FBI bomb technicians, who X-rayed the devices on scene, assessed them as pipe bombs,” the newly-filed document reads. “The majority were found in a detached garage, organized by color. … Some were hand-labeled “lethal.”
“Some were preloaded into an apparent wearable vest,” it continued. “In the garage were also found numerous tools and materials for manufacturing explosives, a home-made mortar, and riot gear.”
The filing also describes how the the pipe bombs were made — with two layers of plastic tubes.
“[I]n between the tubes were metal spheres which ‘would enhance the fragmentation effect of the device upon its explosion.’ it quotes an FBI analysis of one bomb. “The lab concluded that the device was ‘capable of causing property damage, personal injury and/or death.’”
Spafford was released on $25,000 bond earlier this week. The new details in this case come from new filings from the defense, arguing to block his release.
Defense attorneys argued in a motion Tuesday that authorities haven’t produced evidence that he was planning violence, also noting that he has no criminal record. Further, they question whether the explosive devices were usable because “professionally trained explosive technicians had to rig the devices to explode them.”
“There is not a shred of evidence in the record that Mr. Spafford ever threatened anyone and the contention that someone might be in danger because of their political views and comments is nonsensical,” the defense lawyers wrote.
Spafford’s original, and so far only charge, is for violating the National Firearms Act — for possessing a rifle with a barrel shorter than 16 inches. His Dec. 30 preliminary hearing found enough evidence to allow the case to move forward.
Most of the evidence prosecutors relied on for the firearms charge came from a person Spafford apparently believed he was friends with. Spafford showed the man his illegal rifle and the two went shooting together.
“[The source] also noted that the defendant was using pictures of the president for target practice at shooting at a local range, stated that he believed political assassinations should be brought back, and that missing children in the news had been taken by the federal government to be trained as school shooter,” the prosecution’s filing reads.
Prosecutors reiterated why they believe Spafford is dangerous, writing that “while he is not known to have engaged in any apparent violence, he has certainly expressed interest in the same, through his manufacture of pope bombs marked ‘lethal,’ his possession of riot gear and a vest loaded with pipe bombs, his support for political assassinations and use of the pictures of the President for target practice.”
Spafford also allegedly joked about someone assassinating then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris. The document describes a casual meeting at his newly-purchased farm.
“He also discussed fortifying the property with a 360-degree turret for a 50-caliber firearm on the roof, and noted how he could block the driveway with a vehicle so no other vehicles could access,” the filing reads.
My Mom’s Support For Trump Divided Our Family. Then I Found The Crack In Her MAGA Armor.
Tim Durnin – December 30, 2024
Busà Photography via Getty Images
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key Takeaways
The Trump presidency divided my family. The “Trump Effect,” as I called it, infected us shortly after he descended into the lobby of Trump Tower to announce his presidential candidacy. It ended seven years later, around my kitchen table, with three generations of my mother’s progeny mowing their way through Italian takeout. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
My mother was a Reagan Republican and had voted along party lines since 1980. While none of her four children were fully aligned with her politically, the Trump Effect created the greatest distance between my mother and me.
We fought every time we talked. Before Trump secured the nomination, I argued that his morals were in direct conflict with those she and my father had been driving into my head for decades. Furthermore, I argued, he did not even embody conservative values. He twisted them into grotesque manipulations of what had been reasonably sound policy.
I pleaded with her not to vote for him. She wouldn’t budge. In the wake of his election, her choice took on the weight of a betrayal. Her blindness to Trump’s white nationalist tendencies was an affront to my wife, who is a proud Latina, and angered my biracial, high-school-aged children.
Spencer Platt / Getty Images
The more egregious Trump’s violation of social norms, the harder she dug her heels in. In Northern Idaho, her political views went largely unchallenged. It was her excursions into Eastern Washington that afforded her the opportunity to proselytize and be heard. Any poker table became her pulpit as she would expound on the virtues of the new savior of the GOP. Having earned respect with her poker skills, she changed peoples’ minds.
At some point, after the Mueller investigation, she was so self-assured that she stopped fielding challenges or questions from folks on the left. We stopped talking about everything except cursory questions about my life and detailed reports about her current ailments. I longed for a return to our political discourse. It never came.
She voted for Trump again in 2020 but did not embrace the “big lie” that he’d won the election with anything close to enthusiasm. She did defend the honor of her chosen candidate afterward, but her Ultra MAGA armor started to crack when Trump’s attacks were directed at Republican icons like Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney and the Bush dynasty. Then Jan. 6, 2021, shook the foundation of her political fortress. The damage was considerable and lasting.
I wasn’t with my mother for the insurrection’s explosive violence that day. But our family has always been patriotic. My father served in Gen. MacArthur’s honor guard during the Korean War. We flew the flag, sang the anthem and respected servicemen and women. My mother and I shed patriotic tears on Jan. 6, 2021, and while admittedly from very different places, the tears ran into the same river. We both knew the America we loved was significantly diminished by the relentless attacks of a small percentage of Americans hell-bent on defining the world by their petty grievances and perceived injustices.
I didn’t reengage in political discourse with my mother, in spite of an obvious opening for a kill shot. The sadness that surrounded her settled in like a dense fog. Surprisingly, her depressed mood was less about Trump’s defeat and more about her own foolishness in the certainty that Trump was a hero and savior. As for me, I couldn’t even muster an “I told you so.”
Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images
Sixteen months later, I was having dinner with my mother and some Trump news flashed on the screen. She shook her head in mild disgust. I hadn’t planned what happened next, although I had fantasized about this “intervention” countless times.
Taking a deep breath, I gathered my courage and started talking. “Mom, I am going to ask you a huge favor, something that may be jolting at first, but please, sit with it.” She started to speak, but I raised a finger, pleading with her to hear me out.
My voice was shaky and weak as I began, but grew confident as the memory of each Trump atrocity was replayed in my mind ― his near-constant appeal to our worst instincts, his undisguised racism and Islamophobia, and his blaming of anyone and anything besides himself. I was hot when I reached the point of my diatribe, asking what I believe to be the single most important question I will ever ask my mom: “Will you please apologize to my children for voting for Trump?”
I continued: “My fear is that, when Trump is seen through a clear and objective lens, the support you gave him will define you.”
A few days later, my mother, aka G-Ma and Grams, sat at the head of a round table. At 92, she was still larger than life and a commanding presence. She did not need to call for the attention of those gathered. At her first syllable, heads turned and phones were silenced. She would hold the room until she decided not to.
Before saying our traditional grace, she stood up, and the room came to attention. She took a moment to compose herself, and with her signature confidence, said, “I want to apologize.” Looking around the table, she did not falter. “I made a horrible mistake voting for Trump. Had I known then what I know now, I never would have voted for him. I hope you will forgive me.” And it was done.
There was a collective sigh of relief as she released our attention and laughed as she said, “That wasn’t so hard.” We hugged and I whispered my thank you as we embraced. “Let’s eat,” she said. And we began, “Bless us our Lord and these Thy gifts …
In the months that have followed, I have elected to continue the moratorium on political discourse and opted instead to explore our common ground — which, I have discovered, is fertile and vast and refreshingly friendly. Trump’s recent conviction on 34 felony counts affirmed that her divorce from MAGA and Trump was the right choice.
My children’s wounds have started to heal. They have forgiven her, and through them, my grandchildren will as well. In the end, the “intervention” we staged was a gift, a blueprint of sorts for a divided time. She showed us how to admit you were wrong in a world where it seems everyone has to be right. That’s the real takeaway, the kernel of truth I hope will grow and thrive.
CORRECTION: A prior version of this article incorrectly stated that the author’s father served in Gen. Patton’s honor guard.
Musk has been staying at $2,000-a-night Mar-a-Lago cottage – just hundreds of feet from Trump’s main house
Mike Bedigan – December 31, 2024
Elon Musk is getting closer and closer to Donald Trump, quite literally, with a new report that the tech billionire is currently renting a cottage on the grounds of the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida.
According to The New York Times, Musk is staying at Banyan – a cottage located just several hundred feet from the main house of the estate– which costs at least $2,000 to stay in per night, per sources with knowledge of the costs.
The news comes as concerns continue to grow in Washington about the extent of the SpaceX boss’s influence over Trump, having sat in on personnel meetings, conducted talks with foreign leaders and helped to tank a bipartisan spending bill in congress.
Musk is reportedly staying at Banyan – a cottage located just several hundred feet from Trump’s main house – which costs at least $2,000 to stay in per night (AFP/Getty)
The property contains multiple cottages that have reportedly been used by others in Trump’s inner circle, including Vice President-elect JD Vance, during the transition period.
The Times reports that Musk moved into the cottage around Election Day and watched the results at Mar-a-Lago with Trump and other MAGA cheerleaders including Marjorie Taylor Greene.
He left the property around Christmas and has been expected to return some time in the New Year.
It is unclear how much the tech boss is paying for the cottage, though guests at the Mar-a-Lago club are typically not billed until the end of the stay.
A US Coast Guard boat manned by armed officers patrols the Lake Worth Lagoon off Mar-a-Lago (AFP/Getty)
The ultimate cost of Musk’s stay may come down to the president-elect.
The “best buddy” relationship between the pair appears to be going strong.
Last week Trump posted what appeared to be a personal message to Musk on Truth Social, claiming that fellow billionaire Bill Gates asked to come to Mar-a-Lago.
“Where are you? When are you coming to the ‘Center of the Universe,’ Mar-a-Lago. Bill Gates asked to come, tonight. We miss you and x! New Year’s Eve is going to be AMAZING!!!” Trump wrote.
He signed it “DJT.”
The story comes as concerns continue to grow in Washington about the extent of the SpaceX boss’s influence over Trump (AFP/Getty)
“X” appears to have been a reference to Musk’s son, X Æ A-Xii, who he calls X for short,
While staying at Mar-a-Lago, Musk has been accompanied by at least two of his children — though he is reported to have at least 11 — and their nannies.
The Times also reported that the Tesla boss is known to make inconvenient requests like meals outside the normal kitchen hours.
Germany calls for new sanctions on Russia’s dark fleet that is ‘damaging major undersea cables’ nearly every month
Huileng Tan – December 30, 2024
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said ships are damaging undersea cables in the Baltic Sea nearly every month.Florian Gaertner/Photothek/Getty Images
Germany’s foreign minister urged new European Union sanctions on Russia’s dark fleet.
As part of a probe into a cut cable, Finland said last week it detained a ship that may be from the dark fleet.
The case is being investigated as “aggravated criminal mischief,” Finnish police said.
Germany’s foreign minister has called for further sanctions against Russia’s dark fleet of oil tankers following damage to an underwater cable linking Finland and Estonia last week.
“Ships are damaging major undersea cables in the Baltic Sea almost every month,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told the Funke media group.
“Crews are leaving anchors in the water, dragging them for kilometers along the seafloor for no apparent reason, and then losing them when pulling them up,” Baerbock said, per an AFP translation.
“It’s more than difficult to still believe in coincidences. This is an urgent wake-up call for all of us,” she added.
Baerbock urged new European Union sanctions against Russia’s dark — or shadow — fleet of oil tankers that transport sanctioned Russian oil and energy products.
The EU has also sanctioned 79 vessels from Russia’s shadow fleet. These ships are banned from accessing EU ports and services.
Many of these vessels are aging, operating under opaque ownership, and sailing without adequate insurance coverage. They pose environmental and financial risks to coastal countries. A heavy storm earlier this month caused two tankers to spill thousands of tons of low-grade fuel oil into the Kerch Strait, between the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula and Russia.
Baerbock’s comments came after Finnish authorities detained the Eagle S oil tanker on Thursday as part of an investigation into the cutting of an undersea cable in the Baltic Sea. The cable transmits electricity from Finland to Estonia.
The case is being investigated as “aggravated criminal mischief,” Finnish police said in a press release.
Finnish customs authorities and the European Union’s executive commission said the tanker might be part of Russia’s dark fleet of tankers.
The Kremlin declined to comment on Finland’s seizure of the oil tanker on Friday.
“I cannot say anything for sure, for this is a highly specialized issue that the presidential administration is hardly in a position to comment on,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in response to a question on the Finnish move.
Big Tech companies rely on those visas, while Big Racism people on the internet claim the visas are another example of foreign workers taking jobs from the “forgotten” men and women of America who Trump promised to protect.
(Spoiler alert: Trump sided with Musk and the tech bros this weekend because they gave him lots of money and money is all he actually cares about. Sorry, xenophobes!)
Trump sells out supporters to back Elon Musk on H-1B visas
Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy face MAGA backlash over possible visa program expansion
Here’s how the whole unbelievably stupid thing unfolded.
About a week ago, Trump named venture capitalist Sriram Krishnan as an advisor on artificial intelligence. Because Krishnan had previously voiced support for expanding the H-1B visa program, hardcore anti-immigration loudmouths like Laura Loomer – one of the most loyal Trump loyalists – and Steve Bannon got mad and outraged. That’s kind of their thing.
Bannon said the H-1B program is a threat to Western civilization, which makes sense if your soul is so filled with hate it has choked off oxygen to your brain.
Vivek Ramaswamy tells MAGA that Americans are kinda dumb and lazy
Ramaswamy posted on social media: “Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer)…Trump’s election hopefully marks the beginning of a new golden era in America, but only if our culture fully wakes up. A culture that once again prioritizes achievement over normalcy; excellence over mediocrity; nerdiness over conformity; hard work over laziness.”
Vivek Ramaswamy, the co-lead with Elon Musk of the newly established Department of Government Efficiency, arriving for meetings at the US Capitol on Dec. 5, 2024 in Washington.
Many MAGA folks read that as Ramaswamy calling them dumb and lazy, probably because that was Ramaswamy calling them dumb and lazy. The MAGA base swiftly turned its ire on Ramaswamy, prompting Musk to call them “contemptible fools.” He later clarified that “contemptible fools” was only referring to “those in the Republican Party who are hateful, unrepentant racists” and will “absolutely be the downfall of the Republican Party if they are not removed.”
I’m not quite sure how that narrows things down, but whatever.
MAGA fans find themselves discovering where they stand in Trump’s world
The bottom line is this: Members of a political movement fueled almost entirely by a hatred of immigrants were getting told by Musk, an immigrant, and Ramaswamy, an American via birthright citizenship, that they are racist and dumb and lazy and should support a program that allows foreign workers to get U.S. jobs.
It prompted prominent MAGA figures like former Rep. Matt Gaetz, who like all these other people is a disreputable dipstick, to post this about Musk and Co.: “We welcomed the tech bros when they came running our way to avoid the 3rd-grade teacher picking their kid’s gender – and the obvious Biden/Harris economic decline. We did not ask them to engineer an immigration policy.”
Somebody pass me the popcorn – this is getting GREAT!
Musk tells MAGA to … well, it’s profane and not too nice
On Friday, Musk took to the social media platform he has ruined and wrote of the anti-worker-visa crowd: “Take a big step back and F–K YOURSELF in the face. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.” (I’m not sure how one of the most influential people in president-elect Trump’s orbit saying “F—K YOURSELF in the face” squares with the evangelical part of the MAGA base, but I can only deal with one group of suckers getting burned at a time.)
President-elect Donald Trump attends Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S., on Dec. 22, 2024
Second, Trump constantly peddles xenophobic nonsense about how he’s fighting for the little guy, how he loves his “real American” supporters and how he alone can save them from the scourge of scary immigrants and elitists.
But when a couple of elite billionaires go off on his base and effectively call them a bunch of non-skilled, racist dopes while rallying around a specific immigration program they like because it helps them … well, guess whose side Trump is on?
And the Laura Loomers and Steve Bannons and the MAGA loudmouths online and the voters who let themselves get conned into believing Trump was in it for them? Well, I hope they enjoy looking at the underbelly of the bus. That’s going to be their primary view from now on.
“Just the beginning of my worries”: Retired general warns Elon Musk is a national security threat
Marin Scotten – December 30, 2024
Elon Musk Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
A retired army general argued that billionaire Elon Musk poses a threat to national security due to his ties to China in a blistering op-ed published in The New York Times on Sunday.
“Mr. Musk and his rocket company, SpaceX, face federal reviews from the Air Force, the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General and the under secretary of defense for intelligence and security for failing to provide details of Mr. Musk’s meetings with foreign leaders and other potential violations of national-security rules,” wrote former Lt. General Russel Honoré.
“These alleged infractions are just the beginning of my worries,” he added.
Honoré pointed to the $1.4 billion Tesla borrowed from the Chinese government to build a factory in Shanghai, which was responsible for more than half of Tesla’s 2024 deliveries. He added that financial lending is rare for the communist government that can legally “demand intelligence” from any company doing business in the country.
“This means Mr. Musk’s business dealings in China could require him to hand over sensitive classified information, learned either through his business interests or his proximity to President-elect Donald Trump,” Honoré wrote.
In the last year, Musk’s influence over the federal government has expanded past business endeavors. He’s become one of the president-elect’s closest allies and last month was tapped to co-chair Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with Vivek Ramaswamy. Despite now being colleagues, Ramaswamy once thought Musk was in “China’s pocket,” Honoré points out.
“I have no reason to think Elon won’t jump like a circus monkey when Xi Jinping calls in the hour of need,” Ramaswamy said in 2023.
Though Ramaswamy has since taken back this statement, Honoré writes that this fear isn’t far-fetched. He points to numerous instances where Musk praised or defended the Chinese government, including his argument that Taiwan should be a “special administrative region.” Musk was also the first foreigner to write for the magazine China Cyberspace, which is run by the state’s internet censorship agency.
“The last thing the United States needs is for China to potentially have an easier way of obtaining classified intelligence and national security information,” Honoré writes.
But with Musk’s proximity to the White House only growing closer in the coming months, Honoré questioned whether Trump will even consider Musk’s threat.
“The question now is whether the incoming Trump administration will take this risk seriously,” he wrote.
Ex-GOP Lawmaker Predicts What Trump’s Going To Start Doing On Day 1
Former Rep. David Jolly said it may start happening as early on as during the president-elect’s inauguration speech.
By Josephine Harvey – Dec 30, 2024
Donald Trump is going to start revising history to suit himself as soon as he takes office, former Rep. David Jolly (Fla.) predicted over the weekend.
“I think one of the things Donald Trump wants to do this term, starting on day one, is rewrite history,” Jolly, who served as a Republican in Congress but later renounced his affiliation with the GOP, told MSNBC’s Alex Witt. “We’re going to see it on COVID, having RFK Jr. there. We’re going to see it on Russia, having Tulsi Gabbard there. We’re going to see it with a lot of the prosecutions by having Kash Patel there, should these people get confirmed.”
Jolly was referring to Trump’s picks for health secretary, national intelligence director and FBI director respectively. Critics have sounded the alarm over Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vaccine skepticism, Gabbard’s sympathetic views toward Russia, and Patel’s fondness for dangerous conspiracy theories and his fixation on Trump’s supposed enemies.
“I think we’re also going to see a retelling of January 6,” Jolly went on. “And the question is, does that start with his inauguration speech? Or is it something that happens by way of pardons? Or is it a prosecution — an attempted prosecution — of Liz Cheney?”
“I do think Donald Trump wants to rewrite history,” he concluded. “And to do that, he’s going to force upon the American people a narrative that largely is untrue, but that he hopes, with conservative media’s influence, he can win out with.”
Trump has vowed to pardon people convicted for participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Trump’s favor.
Even though the majority of those serving substantial prison time committed violent crimes, including assaulting law enforcement officers, the president-elect has referred to them as “peaceful January 6 protesters” and “hostages” who were unfairly prosecuted.
He’s also made threatening comments about former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), warning that she “could be in a lot of trouble” for serving on the House panel that investigated the attack. He’s said that he believes members of the panel “should go to jail.”
Trump has a penchant for revisionist history, with a pattern of walking back promises, deflecting blame for his failures and dubiously taking credit for successes. He pledged during his 2024 campaign to reduce the prices of “everything,” but has already admitted since his victory that it’s “hard to bring things down once they’re up.”
