Bulwark Takes - Musk vs. Navarro: Dumb and Dumber Go to War

Episode Date: April 6, 2025

Tim Miller takes on the hilarious public feud between two members of Trump's inner circle: Elon Musk and Peter Navarro.

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friends come on subscribe to the feed we appreciate everybody uh for watching uh so here's how it all started elon was on like some zoom from space situation talking about our relationship with Europe. His message is a little dissonant from what we saw maybe in the Signal text chain where the Vice President and the Secretary of Defense were talking about how they loathe Europe, our European allies, and how they're pathetic, how they want to punish them. Elon has a different view. I hate to be on the side of elon and these sorts of things but you know somebody's got to be right when there's a disagreement within the white house uh and in this case it seems like it's elon but um here he is in this kind of weird zoom situation um discussing what he wants to see

uh with the u.s.-European economic partnership, particularly with regards to tariffs. I hope that the United States and Europe can establish a very close partnership. We obviously are, there's an alliance already, but I'm hopeful that there can be a very close relationship with America and Europe. And I'm hopeful, for example, with the tariffs that at the end of the day, I hope it is agreed that both Europe and the United States should move ideally, in my view, to a zero tariff situation, effectively creating a free trade zone between Europe and North America. Okay, so Elon wants free trade. Elon wants to see a zero barrier trade between the US and Europe, and that's where he wants to get. Maybe he's deluded himself into thinking that Donald Trump

could possibly go there if, you know, the Europeans say thank you enough. You know, maybe Donald Trump will back down. I don't know. Or maybe he's just popping off, saying his own things. He doesn't care. Hard to get inside his head, you know. Also, maybe he's not fully, you know, maybe the brain isn't fully where it needs to be in a given moment. Yeah, you know, a lot of possibilities there but uh pretty interesting

that he's giving you know sort of a extremist free market view there which is the direct opposite of what's happening from the administration um and uh and so you know there are a couple ways to deal with that everybody can just ignore elon and say you play over in your sandbox or you know it could bubble up into public well um elon seemed to be kicking the hornet's nest enough to that uh he wanted to make it come out in public because the next thing that happened was after this there's some obviously there's some chat on x about this and um elon ends up making fun of peter navro. Let me pull this up. Elon is replying to a real kind of high intellect, high IQ person named Insurrection Barbie at Defiantly Free on X. Is this a real person? Who knows? I mean, you almost hope this is a Russian bot, honestly.

But anyway, Insurrection is uh tweeting about how smart uh peter navarro is and how he's got a phd in economics but he's the one who really understands the tariff situation not these old fear-free micro neocon guys and elon replies to insurrectionist barbie a phd in econ from harvard is a bad thing not a good thing it results in ego brains being greater than ability to solve problems. Takes one to know one, I guess, on ego being too big than the problem. Ego being too big to be able to accurately assess problems. I mean, that might be, boy, could you describe Doge in a better way than that? Somebody who thinks he knows everything, you know, running roughshod over a situation

where he's actually not that informed and not really that well situated to solve the problem. Anyway, that is Elon projectingon projecting uh and attacking peter navarro uh so of course this eventually comes back to peter navarro he is asked about this over on fox let's watch go back to elon musk for a second because i'm glad that you brought that up he also took a shot at you personally on x um and he's going against the administration with respect to the tariff policy. The president has said in the coming months he may leave the administration. Peter, is there a rift internally? No, I mean, look, Elon, look, Elon, when he's in his doge lane is great. But we understand what's going on here. We just have to understand. Elon sells cars, and he's in Texas

assembling cars that have big parts of that car from Mexico, China. The batteries come from Japan or China. The electronics come from Taiwan. And he's simply protecting his own interests, as any business person would do. We're more concerned about Detroit building Cadillacs with American engines. So there he is, Navarro, going at it. Right, Adam's saying Elon sells cars that have big parts from Mexico, China, Japan, and Taiwan. He's protecting his own interests. And Navarro, and it's just kind of funny, this is a pro-tariff spin. Navarroro's like the only thing we care about are cadillacs made uh with engines built in america it's like that's we're the

we're representing the forgotten man here we really care about the american consumer and the american people that the only thing this administration is worried about is creating the best environment for cattle caddies for cadillacs with engines built in america so great news if you are one of the people that work on cadillac engines i guess um pretty okay news if you are a cadillac purchaser because maybe your escalade uh will you know the cost of your escalade won't go up quite as much as the cost of other cars. Probably go up a little bit. But pretty terrible news. If you're, you know, a consumer in this country that buys cars that have parts made in Mexico, China, Japan, Taiwan, pretty terrible news.

If you, he even mentions in this clip that elon has a plant in texas so like if you are one of the american workers that works at a plant that makes cars or makes car parts that go into a car that also has other parts made from other parts of the world i like peter navarro is like a sub 50 level level IQ when he's talking about all this. So this person knows nothing. And his idiocy might end up wrecking the entire global economy. But anyway, it's a pretty direct shot at Elon. And here's the thing.eter navarro might know nothing

his arguments might be just utterly idiotic in the extreme but trump's on his side of the argument and so he's out on fox shitting on elon saying elon is caring about his own business more than he cares about this great country, Mr. President. Well, that's a riff that will have to be resolved at some point. And you can't just go around working in the White House if big factions in the White House think that you care more about your business than the country. I guess you you could but that really cuts against the core obviously propaganda message the core farce of what this white house is pushing that they're america first they care about america peter navarro hitting elon right where it hurts on that and sending the message on fox where donald trump might see it it's probably on at the golf club he's been golfing with the

saudis this weekend so um we will see how all that shakes out but um this is the first real and there's been all this scuttlebutt about elon might go or else some people might be annoyed by him or bristling but this is the first like core ideological fight since the bannon one which which elon won um or at least in the short term, which, you know, Bannon did not successfully diminish Elon's influence as he had wished during the transition between the election and the White House. This is the first time that now we're getting to like a real disagreement that hits at the core of Trump and MAGA. And so that's what I like to focus on. And sometimes some of this stuff is just like gossip rag stuff where it's like, so-and-so's mad at so-and-so in the white house like who cares like

office gossip this is deeper than that like this is a fundamental fissure and it's about what policies this administration puts forth what the future of maga is um you know who are going to be the power centers inside the white house for the next i don't even want to say how many months 45 months um so very serious stuff there a lot to chew over we'll keep monitoring it um and everybody else hope you enjoy the final four this weekend the women's championship game today subscribe to the feed and we'll be seeing you back here soon peace