Dazed, Confused, and Deeply Tariffed

Elon blames his shiner on a five-year-old, Trump doubles down on delusion, and America wonders if reality still comes with a warranty.

Good morning! After taking a bit of personal time yesterday, I returned to discover the internet ablaze with a question of national importance: Who really gave Elon Musk a black eye? It’s a strange moment in America when the two most talked-about shiners in the country belong to Musk and the Statue of Liberty. Musk’s is literal, allegedly the work of his five-year-old son, “Lil X,” whom he claims he invited to punch him in the face. Because naturally, what tech messiah doesn’t turn casual child-on-parent violence into a bizarre PR flex? Whether the child is left- or right-handed has become a point of forensic inquiry, though theories involving ketamine, rogue furniture, or a brutal Tesla Discord meltdown seem a touch more convincing. Either way, we are definitely through the looking glass when a grown man blames his facial injuries on a kindergartner.

Adding an extra dollop of absurdity to this already scrambled breakfast is the now-viral TACO meme, which features Trump gazing vacantly at a sign reading: “TACO = Trump Always Chickens Out.” It’s not just a zinger, it’s a pattern. From draft dodging to debate dodging to ducking economic accountability, the acronym fits snugly. Case in point: this week Trump announced he’s doubling steel tariffs to 50% to "protect" the Nippon Steel, US Steel merger, a move that supposedly keeps the company American but mostly just invites global retaliation. “Nobody’s going to get over the fence now,” Trump boasted at a rustbelt rally, as if world trade were a backyard obstacle course. Wall Street groaned, the markets sagged, and somewhere in Tokyo, a finance minister probably choked on his sushi.

But while the memes write themselves, the policy implications do not. Trump’s newly passed House budget bill is a seismic redirection of U.S. food and agriculture policy, away from poor people and toward rich industrial farms. The legislation proposes nearly $300 billion in SNAP cuts, imposes new work requirements on struggling families, and even tries to shift federal nutrition costs onto the states. If it passes the Senate intact, it could eliminate food assistance for over a million people per month. Meanwhile, it showers an additional $50 billion in subsidies on large commodity farms, primarily those already profiting from Trump’s tariff bailouts. As one agriculture advocate put it, the bill “cannibalizes” food policy by gutting nutrition and conservation programs to fatten corporate agribusiness.

Sweden, at least, is taking sanity pills. The country just announced it will begin inspecting foreign tankers operating in the Baltic starting July 1, specifically targeting Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet”, a murky parade of barely insured ships that Western officials blame for undersea cable damage and oil spill threats. The new rules require all ships in Swedish waters to present legitimate insurance details and could help NATO partners coordinate sanctions enforcement against Moscow’s maritime mischief.

The geopolitical stormclouds continue to darken over Ukraine. With 50,000 Russian troops now positioned near Sumy Oblast, and several Ukrainian villages already lost, Kyiv is bracing for a potential summer offensive. Ukrainian soldiers remain defiant, if exhausted. Some sources believe the Sumy build-up is designed to stretch Ukrainian defenses thin and prevent another counteroffensive like last year’s. Whether a full invasion comes or not, Putin’s objective hasn’t changed, he wants it all.

India, too, is experiencing the familiar disorientation of being Trumped. After falsely claiming he brokered the recent India-Pakistan ceasefire, Trump now cites the fabricated achievement in court filings as justification for tariffs. Indian officials are furious, not only over the lie, but also Trump’s threats to tax remittances, deport students, and decimate Indian manufacturing. The diplomatic relationship, once touted as “critical,” is now on life support, and Modi’s government is reportedly preparing a formal rebuke.

Donald Trump’s brain appears to be melting in real time, leaking out in bizarre policy filings, meandering speeches, and public tantrums about sharks and soup cans. Elon Musk may have finally reached that inevitable point in his supervillain origin story where even other billionaires quietly inch away, pretending not to notice the black eye, the lawsuits, or the methane-belching AI shrine in Memphis. And somewhere between the meme taco and the bruised mogul, Americans are forging a strange new morning ritual: staring into the abyss, peering through the haze of climate change induced wildfires and wondering how much weirder the news can get before gravity itself decides it's had enough and simply opts out.